Do as I Say or Do as I Do? How Social Relationships Shape the Impact of Descriptive and Injunctive Norms of Voting

Abstract

Social norms play an important role in our understanding of why people vote, yet very little is known about the relative importance of descriptive and injunctive norms for voter turnout or how normative influence is affected by the political and social relationship between citizens. Using political discussion network data from the British Election Study, this article examines the joint effect of descriptive and injunctive norms on turnout. It demonstrates that citizens follow the example of those closest to them (descriptive norms), especially their partner, but they also respond to social approval of voting from political discussants regardless of the nature of their relationship.

Who Cares If You Vote? Partisan Pressure and Social Norms of Voting

“…We control for the social class of the discussant, and the frequency of dyadic political discussion because we might expect that respondents would be more likely to pick up messages about approval and disapproval the more often they discuss politics together. We also include controls for dyadic social relationship as it has previously been shown that social pressures from close family members tend to be most influential (Blais et al 2019;Fieldhouse and Cutts 2020). This finding is repeated in our data as shown in Fig.…”

“…That is, the coefficients for both opposing and shared identification are different to the reference category, but comparing their respective effect sizes and credible intervals, the latter are more likely to be perceived to approve of the respondent voting than the former. The effects are as large, or larger than, the equivalent effects for social relationship, which appear to be a function of social distance (Blais et al 2019;Fieldhouse and Cutts 2020). Spouses and partners have a greater effect on respondents' perceptions of discussant approval of voting than other family members, which in turn matter more than friends do and so on.…”

“…As Knack (1992, p. 138) argues the effect of social sanctions are not reliant on duty: "someone with a low sense of civic obligation may nonetheless vote to avoid displeasing a friend or relative". In a survey context, Fieldhouse and Cutts (2020) show that the effect of injunctive norms persist even when allowing for personal civic duty. This suggests that the relationship between injunctive norms, duty and voter turnout may be only partially mediated by civic duty.…”

“…There is considerable evidence from field experiments of the importance of social pressure-or injunctive norms-in encouraging voter turnout (Gerber et al 2008;Panagopoulos et al 2014;Sinclair 2012). However, with a small number of exceptions (Blais et al 2019;Fieldhouse and Cutts 2020;Glynn et al 2009), survey research on voter turnout has tended to overlook injunctive norms. In particular, there is very little research on who applies normative pressures; whether this is conditional on shared political interests; and how social pressure affects civic duty and voter turnout.…”

Why do people give to their governments? Lab‐in‐the‐field evidence on the role of norms, social information, and political support

“…We first consider norms, defined here as “rules and standards that are understood by members of a group, and that guide and/or constrain social behavior without the force of law” (Cialdini & Trost, 1998, p. 152). The relevance of social interactions, normative standards, and trust in forming actions and behaviors has been stressed in the literature (Uslaner, 2000; Bicchieri, 2005; Rothstein & Uslaner, 2005; Hoffman, 2007; Fieldhouse & Cutts, 2021; Fieldhouse et al., 2022). In particular, giving is likely to be influenced by personal psychology but also by the behavior of the subject's reference group, a point related to the concept of descriptive norms, i.e., what is (perceived to be) “normal” or what most people do in a particular context (Cialdini et al., 1990).…”