Projection effects and specification bias in spatial models of European Parliament elections

Abstract

Substantial empirical evidence suggests that voters cast their ballot not only by considering the different policy positions of parties or candidates, but also appear to pull candidates/parties they prefer closer to their own ideal position ('assimilation') while pushing candidates/parties they dislike, farther away ('contrast'). These effects are called 'projection effects'. We illustrate that voters' perceptions of policy positions of candidates/parties are contaminated by non-spatial considerations. Building on data from the EES series, we empirically demonstrate that projection effects are substantively meaningful and statistically significant in elections to the European Parliament. We moreover distinguish between unsystematic projection bias that only depends on the closeness to a specific candidate or party and systematic projection bias that is also affected by party-, voter-, and context-specific determinants.

Does Economic Inequality Drive Voters' Disagreement about Party Placement?

“…As Evans and Tilley (2012) show, the maintenance of politically consequential class divisions is perfectly consistent with a pattern of declining class voting if political parties strategically tone down economic appeals (see also Evans 2000;Tavits and Potter 2015). Recent evidence further suggests that ample attitudinal differences exist possibly exaggerated (Grand and Tiemann 2013;Merrill, Grofman, and Adams 2001; but see Dinas, Hartman, and Van Spanje 2016). In our context, assimilation may mean that rich (poor) people perceive that right (left) parties are closer to their own positions.…”

Inferring party positions across issue dimensions

“…Numerous evidence shows the existence of the so-called projection bias, which can be split into two non-mutually exclusive conditions: assimilation and contrast (Sherif and Hovland, 1961). While voters may locate the parties they like closer to their personal ideal pointassimilation bias -, they can also push away from their personal position the parties they dislikecontrast bias (Granberg et al, 1988;Grand and Tiemann, 2013;Judd et al, 1983;Krosnick, 1990Krosnick, , 2002Miller et al, 1986;Rahn et al, 1994). 6 These biases are the result of individuals' repairing strategies to overcome the psychological discomfort that cognitive inconsistency produces: when two salient cognitions do not fit together people change one of them or engage in other repair strategies to maintain psychological consistency (Abelson and Rosenberg, 1958;Festinger, 1957;Heider, 1958;Osgood and Upshaw, 1955).…”

“…We argue that a position on one dimension may serve as a heuristic device for voters when they need to locate a party on some other dimension on which they have less, or no directly relevant, information. In this heuristic processing, moreover, we expect voters’ evaluations to be subject to projection biases (assimilation and contrast) that are well known to the spatial voting literature (Granberg et al, 1988; Grand and Tiemann, 2013; Judd et al, 1983; Krosnick, 1990).…”

Do Citizens use Sociodemographic Characteristics as Cues to Infer Candidate Issue Positions?

“…While a good deal is known about projection effects in placements of liked and disliked parties' (e.g. Grand and Tiemann 2013;Ward and Tavits 2019), there is little work on the perception of candidate positions in list PR systems. This gap should be addressed, also because it is linked to important questions regarding the relationship between descriptive and substantive representation (Arnesen, Duell and Johannesson 2019).…”