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Americans discount the effect of friction on voter turnout

Whether or not someone turns out to vote depends on their beliefs (such as partisanship or sense of civic duty) and on friction—external barriers such as long travel distance to the polls. In this exploratory study, we tested whether people underestimate the effect of friction on turnout and overest...

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Autores principales: Mazar, Asaf, Tomaino, Geoff, Carmon, Ziv, Wood, Wendy
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: National Academy of Sciences 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9407209/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35969772
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2206072119
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author Mazar, Asaf
Tomaino, Geoff
Carmon, Ziv
Wood, Wendy
author_facet Mazar, Asaf
Tomaino, Geoff
Carmon, Ziv
Wood, Wendy
author_sort Mazar, Asaf
collection PubMed
description Whether or not someone turns out to vote depends on their beliefs (such as partisanship or sense of civic duty) and on friction—external barriers such as long travel distance to the polls. In this exploratory study, we tested whether people underestimate the effect of friction on turnout and overestimate the effect of beliefs. We surveyed a representative sample of eligible US voters before and after the 2020 election (n = 1,280). Participants’ perceptions consistently underemphasized friction and overemphasized beliefs (mean d = 0.94). In participants’ open-text explanations, 91% of participants listed beliefs, compared with just 12% that listed friction. In contrast, turnout was shaped by beliefs only slightly more than friction. The actual belief-friction difference was about one-fourth the size of participants’ perceptions (d = 0.24). This bias emerged across a range of survey measures (open- and close-ended; other- and self-judgments) and was implicated in downstream consequences such as support for friction-imposing policies and failing to plan one’s vote.
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spelling pubmed-94072092023-02-15 Americans discount the effect of friction on voter turnout Mazar, Asaf Tomaino, Geoff Carmon, Ziv Wood, Wendy Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A Social Sciences Whether or not someone turns out to vote depends on their beliefs (such as partisanship or sense of civic duty) and on friction—external barriers such as long travel distance to the polls. In this exploratory study, we tested whether people underestimate the effect of friction on turnout and overestimate the effect of beliefs. We surveyed a representative sample of eligible US voters before and after the 2020 election (n = 1,280). Participants’ perceptions consistently underemphasized friction and overemphasized beliefs (mean d = 0.94). In participants’ open-text explanations, 91% of participants listed beliefs, compared with just 12% that listed friction. In contrast, turnout was shaped by beliefs only slightly more than friction. The actual belief-friction difference was about one-fourth the size of participants’ perceptions (d = 0.24). This bias emerged across a range of survey measures (open- and close-ended; other- and self-judgments) and was implicated in downstream consequences such as support for friction-imposing policies and failing to plan one’s vote. National Academy of Sciences 2022-08-15 2022-08-23 /pmc/articles/PMC9407209/ /pubmed/35969772 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2206072119 Text en Copyright © 2022 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Social Sciences
Mazar, Asaf
Tomaino, Geoff
Carmon, Ziv
Wood, Wendy
Americans discount the effect of friction on voter turnout
title Americans discount the effect of friction on voter turnout
title_full Americans discount the effect of friction on voter turnout
title_fullStr Americans discount the effect of friction on voter turnout
title_full_unstemmed Americans discount the effect of friction on voter turnout
title_short Americans discount the effect of friction on voter turnout
title_sort americans discount the effect of friction on voter turnout
topic Social Sciences
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9407209/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35969772
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2206072119
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