Social Conformity and Voting Behavior
Link: The Effect of Social Conformity on Collective Voting Behavior on JSTOR
In The Effect of Social Conformity on Collective Voting Behavior, Stephen Coleman discusses how social conformity affects voter turnout and candidate selection. Coleman also discusses the effects of rational choice turnout and conformity driven turnout.
In his discussion of how social conformity affects voter turnout and candidate selection, Coleman states that around half of Americans believe that voter turnout is a civic duty and that many adults who are eligible to vote would feel guilty if they did not vote. People with stronger social networks tend to be more likely to vote while others with weaker social networks are significantly less likely to vote. This trend holds even when there is not much of a difference in the belief that voting is an essential civic duty across more and less socially connected groups. This suggests that the desire to fit in with family and peers may be a more powerful motivator to vote than fulfilling one’s moral obligations.
Coleman’s article clearly ties into our discussion of following the crowd which is discussed in chapter 16 of the textbook. People often pressure their friends or family to come to the polls with them to vote. Voters experience a lower cost of going to the polls with friends or family because they can talk to family and friends instead of standing in line by themselves. Additionally, people without access to reliable transportation are more able to go to the polls if their friends or family is going because there is a higher chance that they can get to the polls if they go with others. Because of these factors, people are more likely to follow the crowd to go vote because following the crowd to vote may require less personal sacrifice.
In his comparison of how rational choice versus conformity affects the decision to vote, Coleman discusses voter turnout in tight races versus landslide races. Coleman argues that in a rational choice model, voters should be more motivated to vote in elections where the race is tight because their votes matter more and have a higher chance of swaying the result. In practice Coleman argues that increased tightness of presidential races is not statistically correlated to higher voter turnout, and that conformity has a larger effect on voter turnout.
The bandwagon effect suggests that voters like to vote for the winning candidate. Coleman provides evidence that voters change who preferred candidate is, and may change their political alignment, based on who is more likely to win. Additionally, voters who support candidates that are projected to win by large margins are shown to flock to the polls because they want to have the satisfaction of voting for the winning candidate.
The bandwagon effect is ties into our discussion of cascades. In cascades, the decisions of a few individuals at the start leads to a propagation of others making the same decisions that continues unless interrupted. If several family members have decided on a strong viewpoint and choose to vote for a candidate based on those viewpoints, a person in the family with a conflicting viewpoint would be more likely to ignore their belief and vote for the candidate their family believes in because they trust their family’s judgement. If someone initially has a belief which contradicts the beliefs of enough of their family and friends, there is a chance that the person would be reasoned with and could be convinced to change their vote. Additionally, mainstream viewpoints are propagated more often in social situations, meaning that there is more of a chance that undecided voters accept these views.
Article from:
Political Analysis
Vol. 12, No. 1 (Winter 2004), pp. 76-96 (21 pages)
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Society for Political Methodology