Moral Bias in Large Elections: Theory and Experimental Evidence

Abstract

W e argue that large elections may exhibit a moral bias (i.e., conditional on the distribution of preferences within the electorate, alternatives understood by voters to be morally superior are more likely to win in large elections than in small ones). This bias can result from ethical expressive preferences, which include a payoff voters obtain from taking an action they believe to be ethical. In large elections, pivot probability is small, so expressive preferences become more important relative to material self-interest. Ethical expressive preferences can have a disproportionate impact on results in large elections for two reasons. As pivot probability declines, ethical expressive motivations make agents more likely to vote on the basis of ethical considerations than on the basis of narrow self-interest, and the set of agents who choose to vote increasingly consist of agents with large ethical expressive payoffs. We provide experimental evidence that is consistent with the hypothesis of moral bias. I n this article, we provide evidence that voters in large elections tend to vote against their material self-interest and to vote for a morally or ethically appealing alternative. It may seem puzzling that voters might behave differently in small elections than they do in large ones. However, we show that such behavior is a logical consequence of voters having a conflict between obtaining a better material outcome and choosing a moral action. We develop a simple model of this conflict and show that decreasing the probability that a single vote is decisive (i.e., pivot probability) reduces the importance of outcomes relative to actions in voter decision making. Because pivot probability is generally small in large elections, alternatives that are understood by voters to be morally superior are more likely to win in large elections than in small ones. Thus, compared to the preferences of voters, election results will be biased in favor of moral alternatives. 1 The model produces a set of predictions that we test in a laboratory experiment.To clarify ideas, consider a situation in which two outcomes are possible: A and B. Assume that B gives

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“…10 The full instructions are available at http://people.hss.caltech.edu/˜lyariv/papers/OnlineAppendix.pdf 11 We kept subjects in the same group throughout each session in order to avoid potential 'contamination' across groups and since repeated game effects seemed particularly difficult in this setting. In fact, subjects did not seem to exhibit any group-dependent inter-temporal correlation in behavior (see Section 4.3).…”

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