People are susceptible to many factors when deciding how to vote, say
psychology researchers. The views of politicians aren’t the only factor that
matters to voters (The Telegraph, 20 June 2016).
Gian Caprara and Chris Farley asked over 7,500 voters in Italy and America
to rate their own personality traits and to rate the personality traits of
political candidates that they believed had similar characteristics to
themselves. Researchers found that people vote for politicians with similar
character traits to their own.
Physical characteristics were also important to some voters. Niclas Berggren
and colleagues in Sweden and Finland showed photographs of political candidates
from the 1929 Finnish election to 10,011 adults. The researchers asked the
participants to rate each candidate for attractiveness, and afterwards the
participants were asked to cast a ‘vote’ for the candidate of their choice.
There was a significant positive association between ratings of attractiveness
and voting preference.
Researchers Beth Miller and Jennifer Lundgren at the University of Missouri
showed 120 participating adults photographs of male and female political
candidates. Each photograph was enhanced twice – once to make the candidate
appear obese, and once to make the candidate appear slim. Participants were
asked to rate candidates on a number of leadership qualities (such as honesty
and ability to inspire). The photographs of female candidates that were made to
look obese were evaluated more negatively than the slim-looking photographs of the females.
However, for males, the ‘obese’ photographs were evaluated more positively than
the ‘slimmer’ looking photographs of the same males.
Voice matters too. Casey Klofstad and colleagues at the University of Miami
recorded 27 male and female voices saying, ‘I urge you to vote for me this
November.’ The researchers manipulated the recordings so that the voices had
higher or lower pitches. They asked 240 adults to listen to pairs of candidate
voices of the same gender, one with a higher pitched voice and the other with a
lower pitched voice. Participants were asked to vote for one of the paired voices. The
results showed that participants clearly preferred the candidate with the lower
voice (for both male pairs and female pairs).
So far, these experiments have nothing to do with political issues – only
people and their characteristics.
Studies in America showed that if good events happen just before an election,
people are more likely to vote for the status quo (i.e. people will not vote
for change). If negative events occur just before an election, voters are more
likely to vote for the status quo too (i.e. not to change) – if people feel
personally threatened. If negative events occur and people do not feel
personally threatened, they are more likely to vote for change. This may
or may not be issue-based. For example, the event may be related to security,
or the economy, or a social event.
And even the weather plays a part in the way people vote. Anna Bassi at the
University of North Carolina found that adverse weather decreases voter
participation at elections – and bad weather also affects the way people vote
if they do go to the polls. Bad weather makes people less risky – they will
vote for the ‘safest’ option for them.
Therefore there is more to voting than the issues involved. People, events,
and weather are just some factors in play on voting day.
MARTINA NICOLLS is the author of:-
The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends
(2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan
Curse (2009).
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