Voting psychology: people or issues?

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.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/wellbeing/mood-and-mind/the-psychology-of-voting-whats-really-driving-your-decision-on-b/

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).