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

TLDR

Many citizens fail to vote, and psychological research indicates that highlighting high turnout rather than low turnout is a more effective message. Field experiments show that emphasizing high expected turnout is more effective than low turnout, especially for infrequent voters, and that media lamentation of low participation may undermine turnout.

Abstract

The fact that many citizens fail to vote is often cited to motivate others to vote. Psychological research on descriptive social norms suggests that emphasizing the opposite—that many do vote—would be a more effective message. In two get-out-the-vote field experiments, we find that messages emphasizing low expected turnout are less effective at motivating voters than messages emphasizing high expected turnout. The findings suggest that descriptive social norms affect vote intention only among citizens who vote infrequently or occasionally. Practically, the results suggest that voter mobilization efforts should emphasize high turnout, especially when targeting occasional and low rate of participation voters. More generally, our findings suggest that the common lamentation by the media and politicians regarding low participation may undermine turnout.