The Effects of Identities, Incentives, and Information on Voting

Abstract

We report on majority voting experiments where subjects are randomly assigned identities in common with a candidate. However, subjects sometimes receive a financial incentive from voting contrary to their identity. We vary the size of the incentive as well as information voters have about the advantage of the incentive. We find that subjects are influenced by their assigned identities, and the effect is stronger when voters have less information. Nevertheless, financial incentives reduce this influence when voters have full information. Our results suggest that identity may have an important affect on voter choices in elections where incentives or information are low.