Descriptive Social Norms and Motivation to Vote: Everybody's Voting and so Should You

Gerber, Alan S.; Rogers, Todd

doi:10.1017/s0022381608090117

Cited by 458 publications

(319 citation statements)

References 28 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

299

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Her explanation is that although postal voting decreased the voting costs, it also removed signaling benefit of voting, which was substantial in small communities. Gerber and Rogers (2009) find that a message publicizing high expected turnout is more effective at motivating people to vote than a message publicizing low expected turnout. This result, which obtains in spite of lower pivotal probability with higher turnout, is consistent with the signaling benefit and the bandwagon effect of our model.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 73%

Voting as a signaling device

2013

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 73%

Voting as a signaling device

2013

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The GOTV letters emphasized the descriptive social norm that many others would vote (33). They also reinforced the civic identity by highlighting that "people like you" will vote (36).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Potential follow-up increases private contributions to public goods

Rogers

Ternovski

Yoeli

2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

People contribute more to public goods when their contributions are made more observable to others. We report an intervention that subtly increases the observability of public goods contributions when people are solicited privately and impersonally (e.g., mail, email, social media). This intervention is tested in a large-scale field experiment (n = 770,946) in which people are encouraged to vote through get-out-the-vote letters. We vary whether the letters include the message, "We may call you after the election to ask about your voting experience." Increasing the perceived observability of whether people vote by including that message increased the impact of the get-out-the-vote letters by more than the entire effect of a typical get-out-the-vote letter. This technique for increasing perceived observability can be replicated whenever public goods solicitations are made in private.H ow can we increase contributions to public goods-to get donors to give more to charity, citizens to vote, households to consume less energy, drivers to carpool, and patients to take all of their antibiotics? One of the best ways is to make contributions more observable (1, 2), as demonstrated by a large body of laboratory experiments (3-9) and a growing body of field experiments (for a review, see ref.2) in a variety of settings, including energy conservation (10), blood donations (11), national park contributions (12), and voting (13).Observability increases contributions to public goods such as voting or charitable giving because observability allows contributions to affect reputations. Individuals who are observed to have contributed can be held in good standing and rewarded in subsequent relationships, either when others are more likely to engage them in a relationship in the first place (this is called partner choice; e.g., refs. 14 and 15) or when others are more cooperative with them during an existing relationship (this is called indirect reciprocity; e.g., refs. 16-21). And, individuals who are observed to not contribute can be held in poor standing.Even subtle cues of observability can increase contributions. In fact, observability can affect contributions when the reputational consequences of one's choice have been entirely eliminated (22,23). An example is eyespots: simply displaying a picture of a face or an abstraction resembling a face increases contributions (24, 25). Such effects imply that the psychology governing our reputations operates at the intuitive level (24)-that is, people do not necessarily deliberate over the reputational gains of every cooperative action, and instead rely on heuristics. Such an intuitive psychology might develop if the heuristics usually work (26,27). For example, if seeing something that looks like a face is usually an accurate indication that someone is watching, then it may pay to give more whenever in the presence of something that looks like a face, even though a clever researcher may exploit this heuristic to induce people into giving a little more in an experiment. Moreover, there...

show abstract

“…Descriptive norms depict the perceived behavior of others (Brauer & Chaurand, 2010;Cialdini et al, 1990;FeldmanHall et al, 2012;Gerber & Rogers, 2009;Reno et al, 1993). By observing the behavior of others, i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This serves as a kind of heuristic to determine the most beneficial and adaptive behavior in a given situation (Cialdini et al, 1990). This may even lead to people behaving the way they perceive that others behave, even if this behavior seems to disagree with injunctive norms (Croson, Handy, & Shang, 2009;Gerber & Rogers, 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There is ample evidence suggesting that priming with certain social norms can elicit behavioral change (Carrico & Riemer, 2011;Ferguson, Branscombe, & Reynolds, 2011;Goldstein, Cialdini, & Griskevicius, 2008;Huffman, Van Der Werff, Henning, & Watrous-Rodriguez, 2014). Since filling in a questionnaire is a type of behavior, one is left with the question: what order effects can occur when one is primed with a certain type of social norm before answering questions directed at another type of social norm?…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation