Get Out the Vote by Getting Into the Science of Persuasion
By Noah Goldstein, Ph.D.
As any politician will tell you, in election periods, there is enormous pressure for candidates to not only convince the electorate that they are the most qualified person to represent them in public office, but also to draw those supporters to the polls on Election Day to secure their vote. Although candidates are typically focused on spending their campaign war chests on television advertisements, mailings and media appearances, the truly astute candidate—and probably the winning candidate—will look to harness not just the art of persuasion, but the science as well. What are three simple strategies that campaigners can use to increase turnout?
1. Secure public commitments and plans from voters.
Social psychologist Anthony Greenwald and his colleagues asked half of the potential voters they encountered to predict whether they will vote on Election Day and to provide a reason for their prediction; the other half were not asked to make any predictions. The researchers found that those who were asked to make a prediction were significantly more likely vote than those who weren’t asked (86.7% turnout rate compared to 61.5%).
There are two important psychological steps involved in the success of this technique. First, people feel compelled to say yes because that’s the socially desirable thing to say. It’s no surprise, then, that in this study, 100% of all the survey respondents asked to make a prediction about their voting behavior claimed that they would indeed vote. Second, after most (if not all) of these people have publicly stated that they’ll perform the socially desirable behavior, they’ll be motivated to behave consistently with the commitment they just made.
Consequently, an easy method for candidates to get more of their supporters to the polls is to have volunteers call these self-proclaimed supporters, ask them if they’ll vote in the next election, and wait for the “yes.” If the caller then adds: “We’ll mark you down as a ‘yes’ and I’ll let the others know as well,” the commitment has three components that potentially cement that potential voter’s commitment: the commitment becomes voluntary, active, and publicly declared to others.
2. Marginalize rather than normalize non-voting behavior.
When people are uncertain of how to behave in a situation, they look at what others have done or are doing there. Therefore, in situations characterized by high levels of undesirable behavior, it is important that communicators avoid a common mistake under these circumstances. That is, there is an understandable—but misguided—tendency of public interest communicators to try to mobilize action against detrimental conduct by depicting it as regrettably frequent (“The large percentage of citizens who don’t vote in this country is shameful.”), thereby inadvertently legitimizing the conduct in the minds of their audiences by making it seem normal. For example, according to social scientists Alan Gerber and Todd Rogers, several weeks before the 2004 Presidential election, Women’s Voices Women Vote, a major political organization, sent out about 1 million mailings designed to increase participation in the political process by single women; their message was: “4 years ago, 22 million single women did not vote.” Research conducted by Robert Cialdini and colleagues demonstrates it would likely have been more effective to say, “It is shameful when even one citizen in this country fails to vote.” Here, the communicator marginalizes the undesirable conduct instead of normalizing it. Another possibility, as suggested by research conducted by Gerber and Rogers, would be to honestly reframe the statistics to focus on all of the people who did in fact vote in the past—and who are expected to vote in the upcoming election.
3. Frame reminders and offers of assistance as favors.
When potential voters are called or e-mailed, they should be asked if they would like a reminder to vote on election day (which they are less likely to perceive as annoying or manipulative, and react against if they requested it) and if they would like any assistance to get to the polls on election day (if resources are available to do so). These procedures (reminder; offer of assistance) are also likely to activate the norm of reciprocity—a felt obligation to respond favorably by voting in this case.
Source:
Cialdini, R. B. (2003). Crafting normative messages to protect the environment. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 12, 105-109.
Gerber, A.S. & Rogers, T. (in press). The effect of descriptive social norms on voter turnout: the importance of accentuating the positive. Manuscript submitted for publication.
Greenwald, A. G., Carnot, C. G., Beach, R., & Young, B. (1987). Increasing voting behavior by asking people if they expect to vote. Journal of Applied Psychology, 72, 315-318.
Results from last month
Last month we asked readers to rate the "Usefulness" of "When Asking A Favor, Specifics Do Count" Here are the results on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being the highest.
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