Information and Behavior Based Decision Making in High School Elections
http://thehighlander.news/misc/are-student-government-elections-just-popularity-contests/
This article discusses high school elections and how students vote in them. Mainly, it addresses the issue of elections being essentially a popularity contest. It begins by getting a general consensus from students on the elections for student government. From this start it seems like students do not care about the elections and do not vote seriously. Then, the article proceeds to ask former candidates to answer a few questions about student government elections. It appears as if these students believe that while elections are not purely popularity contests, it does play a role.
In relation to this course, the article can help us understand information based and behavior based decision making. Both of them play roles in the actions of students during elections. We see students make information based decisions off of what other students are saying. The first section of the article which sets the general feeling amongst students in regards to elections plays a key role in this realization. Students are making information based decisions in the elections, as other students talking about elections not mattering can cause them to not take it seriously and vote differently. Behavior based decisions also play a role in the elections and this effect can be seen in the article. One of the questions for the former candidates was if they were recommended for student government, and the article conceded that the majority of people asked said they were given a suggestion by a peer to run. We are able to notice that behavior based decisions come into play due to the fact that if somebody’s friend is running for student government then they will vote for them regardless of who is the best candidate.
Interestingly enough, the article concludes with the conclusion that most students vote for a candidate in particular if they are attractive or funny contrary to the initially assumed hypothesis that students would vote for their friends. Using this new information, it appears that information based decisions play a bigger role than behavior based decisions in student government elections. More specifically, voters seem to use the information of appearances and comedy in order to make their decision, contrary to using the information of who would be the best in the role. It is also increasingly clear that these students all talk to each other during elections, and this can have an impact in behavior based decisions because if you know all of your friends are voting for one candidate you will be more likely to vote for them. In the end, it seems that almost everything but who would be best in the position drives students to make their choices in student government elections.