Motivating voter turnout by invoking the self
- 18 July 2011
- journal article
- Published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
- Vol. 108 (31), 12653-12656
- https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1103343108
Abstract
Three randomized experiments found that subtle linguistic cues have the power to increase voting and related behavior. The phrasing of survey items was varied to frame voting either as the enactment of a personal identity (e.g., "being a voter") or as simply a behavior (e.g., "voting"). As predicted, the personal-identity phrasing significantly increased interest in registering to vote (experiment 1) and, in two statewide elections in the United States, voter turnout as assessed by official state records (experiments 2 and 3). These results provide evidence that people are continually managing their self-concepts, seeking to assume or affirm valued personal identities. The results further demonstrate how this process can be channeled to motivate important socially relevant behavior.This publication has 17 references indexed in Scilit:
- Do You Have a Voting Plan?Psychological Science, 2010
- Identity-based motivation: Implications for action-readiness, procedural-readiness, and consumer behaviorJournal of Consumer Psychology, 2009
- Being What You Say: The Effect of Essentialist Linguistic Labels on PreferencesSocial Cognition, 2004
- Self‐Prophecy Effects and Voter Turnout: An Experimental ReplicationPolitical Psychology, 2003
- Moral credentials and the expression of prejudice.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2001
- Moral credentials and the expression of prejudice.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2001
- The Hawthorne Effect in Election Studies: The Impact of Survey Participation on VotingBritish Journal of Political Science, 1992
- Increasing voting behavior by asking people if they expect to vote.Journal of Applied Psychology, 1987
- Self-discrepancy: A theory relating self and affect.Psychological Review, 1987
- Pre-Election Interview Effects on Voter TurnoutPublic Opinion Quarterly, 1976