The Federal Face of Voting: Are Elected Officials Held Accountable for the Functions Relevant to Their Office?

Federalism is designed to enhance democratic representation because it gives citizens the opportunity to shape policymaking at multiple levels of government. This design feature is premised on the assumption that individuals make distinctions in the responsibilities that pertain to different levels of government and link these distinctions to their voting decisions. Citizens are expected to sanction politicians for those policy decisions over which their level of government has responsibility. This paper draws on work in both political and social psychology to develop a theoretical framework consistent with the federalist view of democratic representation to explain how people make voting decisions. Individuals who were able to vote in elections at all three levels of government (national, state, and local) in 2002 were surveyed, allowing a full test of the federalist voting model. Findings show that while citizens do make distinctions among levels of government when evaluating issues, they only link these distinctions to their voting decisions if those issue attitudes are highly accessible. Implications for democratic representation and future research are discussed.     

The Electoral Impact of Public Opinion on Religious Establishment

While previous work has examined the structure of public opinion on church and state, to date there has been little effort to connect public opinion on this group of issues to vote choice. I begin by hypothesizing that attitudes on religious establishment are distinct from attitudes on more often studied issues like abortion and gay marriage. Second, I argue that religious establishment meets the conditions for partisan voting: the parties and candidates have taken distinct, highly public stands on religious establishment, and the issue is highly salient among a certain segment of voters. Finally, I develop a theory that establishment attitudes should exert a greater impact among those individuals who feel that their values are threatened in contemporary society because such individuals may see religious accommodation as a means of returning to their understanding of traditional values. I test these hypotheses using data from the 2008 Cooperative Campaign Analysis Project, and I find considerable support for my argument.     

Exploring the Attitudinal Structure of Partisanship

This study examined the structure of attitudes toward the political party an individual primarily identifies with and attitudes toward the other party with an emphasis on differentiating between the cognitive and affective components. Participants responded to a telephone survey that included measures of party identification, partisan attitudes, political information involvement activities, and voting behavior. Results indicated attitudes toward the parties were a function of both cognitive and affective components, although strong partisans had an attitudinal structure characterized as having a stronger cognitive component. Strong partisans were more polarized in their attitudes across parties. In addition, individuals with more cognitive‐affective ambivalence toward their own parties were less likely to vote, and their votes were less likely to be along party lines.     

Procedural Fairness,the Economy,and Support for Political Authorities

A vast literature in social and organizational psychology suggests that support for authorities is driven both by the outcomes they deliver to people and by the extent to which they employ fair decision making processes. Furthermore, some of that literature describes a process‐outcome interaction, through which the effect of outcome favorability is reduced as process fairness increases. However, very few studies have been conducted to determine whether such interaction is also present in the explanation of support for political authorities. Here, we start by analyzing whether individual perceptions of the political system’s procedural fairness moderate the well‐known individual‐level relationship between perceived economic performance and government approval. Then, we explore the implications of such process‐outcome interaction to the phenomenon of “economic voting,” testing whether impartiality in governance moderates the effect of objective economic performance on aggregate incumbent parties’ support. In both cases, we show that the interaction between processes and outcomes seems to extend beyond the organizational contexts where it has been previously observed, with important implications for the study of political support.     

Personality Traits, Partisan Attitudes, and Voting Behavior. Evidence from Germany

Political psychology has paid rather little attention to personality traits when explaining political attitudes and political behavior in mass publics. The present paper argues that personality traits contribute to our understanding of political attitude formation and decision making of ordinary citizens. Based on the Five Factor Model of Personality, we state hypotheses regarding the effects of personality traits on partisan attitudes and vote choice in Germany. We test the hypotheses using survey data obtained from a random sample of the Germans eligible to vote. The evidence confirms that personality traits indirectly affect partisan attitudes and voting behavior in Germany in predictable ways even after controlling for sociodemographic characteristics. More specifically, Openness makes citizens more inclined to support parties endorsing social liberalism whereas low scores on Conscientiousness increase the likelihood of liking and voting for parties subscribing to economic or social liberalism as do high levels on Agreeableness . High levels of Neuroticism appear to promote support for parties that offer shelter against material or cultural challenges.     

Resentment of Paternalism as System Change Sentiment: Hostile Sexism Toward Men and Actual Behavior in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election

Taking inspiration from Glick and colleagues (2004), this study tested the idea that resentment of paternalism (which is part of the hostile sexism toward men construct) might approximate desire for system change by correlating this variable with actual behavior associated with system change in a single culture. Specifically, voting behavior in the 2008 U.S. presidential election was predicted from political party affiliation, measures of hostile and benevolent sexism toward both women and men, and egalitarian racial attitudes using a U.S. college student sample. Results indicated that the only significant predictors of voting behavior were political party affiliation, resentment of paternalism, and egalitarian racial attitudes. Higher levels of resentment of paternalism were in fact associated with voting for the ticket that represented system change—holding the other predictors constant.     

An Experimental Investigation of Election Promises

We analyze the effect of election promises on electoral behavior in a laboratory experiment. In the experiment, politicians can make nonbinding election promises about how to split an endowment between themselves and the group. We find that promises affect both voting and voter beliefs about how much the politician will contribute to the public fund. The relationship is inverted U‐shaped with decreasing credibility of higher promises. Contributions of politicians are correlated with their promises in a similar pattern. The election promises are generally credible unless particularly high. Politicians keep promises more often if a reelection is possible and if the politician came into power by vote rather than by random draw. Voters reward high contributions in the previous period and punish promise breaking even after controlling for the contribution in the previous period or voters' beliefs about future contributions. By controlling for voters' beliefs, we distinguish retrospective from prospective voting. Our results suggest that voters both use promises for prospective voting and retrospectively punish broken promises.     

The Structure of Partisan Attitudes: Reexamining Partisan Dimensionality and Ambivalence

The true nature of Americans' party attachments remains an area of enduring controversy. Due to inadequate measures, scholars have argued without resolution as to whether partisanship is unidimensional and bipolar, or rather attitudes towards each party are on separate dimensions. Using more appropriate, psychologically specific, multi-item measures of positive and negative partisan evaluations, however, (1) goes a long way towards settling this problematic debate; and (2) allows for explorations of the heretofore unexamined role of ambivalence in partisanship. I find that partisan attitudes are unidimensional and strongly bipolar and that ambivalence weakens the impact of partisan attitudes in both attitudes and behaviors in predictable ways.     

Fear,Anger, and Voting for the Far Right: Evidence From the November 13, 2015 Paris Terror Attacks

The conjecture that negative emotions underpin support for far‐right politics is common among pundits and scholars. The conventional account holds that authoritarian populists catalyze public anxiety about the changing social order and/or deteriorating national economic conditions, and this anxiety subsequently drives up support for the far right. We propose that while emotions do indeed play an independent causal role in support for far‐right parties and policies, that support is more likely built upon the public’s anger rather than fear. This article explores the relative impact of fear and anger in reaction to the 2015 Paris terror attacks on the propensity to vote for the French far‐right party, the Front National, in the 2015 regional elections. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we find that anger is associated with voting for the Front National, while fear is associated with voting against the Front National. Moreover, anger boosts the Front National vote most powerfully among far‐right and authoritarian voters. On the other hand, fear reduces support for the far right among those same groups.     

Partisanship,Political Knowledge,and the Dunning‐Kruger Effect

A widely cited finding in social psychology holds that individuals with low levels of competence will judge themselves to be higher achieving than they really are. In the present study, I examine how the so‐called “Dunning‐Kruger effect” conditions citizens' perceptions of political knowledgeability. While low performers on a political knowledge task are expected to engage in overconfident self‐placement and self‐assessment when reflecting on their performance, I also expect the increased salience of partisan identities to exacerbate this phenomenon due to the effects of directional motivated reasoning. Survey experimental results confirm the Dunning‐Kruger effect in the realm of political knowledge. They also show that individuals with moderately low political expertise rate themselves as increasingly politically knowledgeable when partisan identities are made salient. This below‐average group is also likely to rely on partisan source cues to evaluate the political knowledge of peers. In a concluding section, I comment on the meaning of these findings for contemporary debates about rational ignorance, motivated reasoning, and political polarization.     

What's the Value of Partisan Loyalty? Partisan Ambivalence,Motivated Reasoning,and Correct Voting in U.S. Presidential Elections

Partisans vary in the extent to which they rely on their partisan identities when voting. Are partisans who rely less on their partisan loyalties more likely to vote correctly than those who stick with their partisan intuitions? Research on motivated reasoning suggests so, but research focused on the heuristic value of partisanship implies otherwise. We examine this question using evidence from the ANES Time Series (1972–2004) and 2008 ANES Panel Survey. We find that ambivalent partisans, that is, those less reliant on partisanship when deciding, are generally less likely to vote correctly than univalent partisans, that is, those more reliant on partisanship. These results challenge some of the pessimism concerning the democratic competence of partisans as they imply that partisans engaging in directional reasoning can nevertheless perform their duties at the ballot box at least as well, if not better, than those engaged in more systematic and “rational” modes of decision-making.     

Experimenting With the Balancing Hypothesis

The reasons why divided government is on the rise in the United States remain unclear. Of the explanations offered, Fiorina's (1992 ) balancing hypothesis—the idea that voters intentionally cast their ballots in a way that would increase the prospects of split party control—has drawn the most attention. This study gathered empirical evidence to test the hypothesis; its focus was not on whether citizens want divided government, but rather on whether they collectively act in a way consistent with balancing. In September 1900, during the national election campaign, a sample of undergraduates responded to one of five versions of a newspaper article (similar to actual articles about the campaign) that varied with respect to reported polling data on the competitiveness of the congressional and presidential races. The results cast doubt on the merits of the balancing hypothesis.     

“Unpacking” the Identity‐to‐Politics Link: The Effects of Social Identification on Voting Among Muslim Immigrants in Western Europe

The identity‐to‐politics link assumes that individuals who share a certain demographic feature also share common political pursuits. This article critically examines that presumed relationship by analyzing how voting probability is affected by social identification in combination with other elements—namely, perception of shared grievances and group resources. Tallying responses from Muslim immigrants in Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom via surveys conducted for the European research project EURISLAM, this study supports the assumption that social identification affects voting in specific circumstances. The results show that identifying with the origin country decreases voting probability among Muslim immigrants in Europe. Another finding was the context‐specific effect of social identification. That is, origin‐country identification's effect is contingent on an individual's perception of shared grievances and national identification; and origin country and religious identifications' effects are contingent on an individual's perception of shared grievances, national identification, and group differences.     

Voting and Values: Reciprocal Effects over Time

Two studies investigated reciprocal effects of values and voting. Study 1 measured adults' basic values and core political values both before (n = 1379) and following (n = 1030) the 2006 Italian national election. Both types of values predicted voting. Voting choice influenced subsequent core political values but not basic values. The political values of free enterprise, civil liberties, equality, law and order, military intervention, and accepting immigrants changed to become more compatible with the ideology of the chosen coalition. Study 2 measured core political values before (n = 697) and following (n = 506) the 2008 Italian national election. It largely replicated the reciprocal effects of voting and political values of Study 1. In addition, it demonstrated that left‐right ideology mediated the reciprocal effects of voting and political values. Moreover, voter certainty moderated these effects. Political values predicted vote choice more weakly among undecided than decided voters, but voting choice led to more value change among undecided voters.     

The curious,context‐dependent case of anger: Explaining voting intentions in three different national elections

Collective action is typically studied in social protest contexts and predicted by different motivations (i.e., ingroup identification and efficacy beliefs, and outgroup‐directed anger). Assuming that voting to some extent reflects a form of collective action, we tested whether these three different motivations predicted voting in Dutch, Israeli, and Italian national election contexts. Based on previous meta‐analyses on voting and collective action, we hypothesized that identification with and efficacy beliefs regarding this party would motivate voting across the different elections (i.e., context‐independent effects). As for anger, we predicted more context‐dependent effects, depending on whether the anger is targeting the previous government or at the political system at large. Results were largely in line with predictions, showing the relatively context‐independent motivational power of party identification and efficacy beliefs, and clearly context‐dependent effects for anger. Specifically, we found little support for a similar motivational power of anger targeting previous government policies, but anger targeting politics in general demotivated Dutch and Israeli participants to vote (interpreted as an expression of political cynicism), while curiously motivating Italian participants to vote (interpreted as a desire for system change from “old” to “new” politics). We discuss these findings in the context of voting in national elections, and recommend further integration of the voting and social protest literatures.     

The Consequences of Collective Discontent: A New Measure of Zeitgeist Predicts Voting for Extreme Parties

In recent years, extreme right‐wing and left‐wing political parties and actors have gained popularity in many Western countries. What motivates people to vote for extreme right‐ or left‐wing parties? In previous research, we showed that a collectively shared sense of doom and gloom about society can exist among citizens who, individually, experience high well‐being. Previous research developed an operationalization of this collective societal discontent as an aspect of Zeitgeist, which can be compared to personal experiences (van der Bles, Postmes, & Meijer, 2015 ). In the present research, we investigated whether this Zeitgeist of societal discontent predicts voting for extreme parties. We conducted a field study during the 2015 Dutch provincial elections (N = 407). Results showed that collective societal discontent (Zeitgeist) predicted voting for extreme parties but that personal discontent did not. Results also showed that pessimistic Zeitgeist was associated with lower education levels and tabloid‐style media consumption. These findings advance our understanding of the discontents that fuel extreme voting outcomes: Global and abstract (negative) beliefs about society are more consequential than concrete personal experiences.     

Republican Voters Prefer Candidates Who Have Conservative‐Looking Faces: New Evidence From Exit Polls

Research shows people share common political facial stereotypes: They associate faces with political ideologies. Moreover, given that many voters rely on party affiliation, political ideology, and appearances to select political candidates, we might expect that political facial stereotypes would sway voting preferences and, by extension, the share of votes going to each candidate in an election. And yet few studies have examined whether having a stereotypically conservative‐looking (or liberal‐looking) face predicts a candidate's vote shares. Using data from U.S. election exit polls, we show that the Republican voters within each state are more likely to vote for a candidate (even a Democrat) the more that person has a stereotypically Republican‐looking face. By contrast, the voting choices of the Democratic voters within each state are unrelated to political facial stereotypes. Moreover, we show that the relationship between political facial stereotypes and voting does not depend on state‐level ideology: Republican voters in both right‐leaning (“red”) and left‐leaning (“blue”) states are more likely to vote for candidates with conservative‐looking faces. These results have several important practical and theoretical implications concerning the nature and impact of political facial stereotypes, which we discuss.     

Negative Intergroup Contact and Radical Right‐Wing Voting: The Moderating Roles of Personal and Collective Self‐Efficacy

This study examines whether negative contact with immigrants promotes voting for radical right‐wing parties, to what extent this relationship can be explained by feelings of outgroup threat, and whether this relationship depends on perceived personal and collective self‐efficacy. Hypotheses were tested among 630 native Dutch respondents, mainly living in multicultural neighborhoods. The results show that negative contact with immigrants is associated with feelings of personal (egocentric) and group (sociotropic) threat, and both these feelings, in turn, are associated with radical right‐wing voting. However, negative intergroup contact is less strongly related to egocentric threat when individuals feel able to personally address negative situations with other people (personal self‐efficacy). Furthermore, the findings suggest that negative intergroup contact is less strongly related to sociotropic threat when individuals believe that people in their neighborhood are able to collectively address some negative situations (collective self‐efficacy).     

Does the Candidate Matter? Comparing the Voting Choice of Early and Late Deciders

Candidate personality traits have long been recognized as influential in the determination of voting choice. However, little is understood of how the perception of candidates' traits influences different categories of voters. Based on a large‐scale electoral‐panel survey (ITANES, ITAlian National Election Studies), the present study investigated whether the voting choice of early and late deciders differentially relied on candidate traits. Results showed that after considering the influence of ideology and economy assessment, candidate traits still influenced the voting choice of early deciders and, even more, of late deciders. However, while early deciders took into account both incumbent and challenger traits, late deciders mainly relied on incumbent traits. Political sophistication moderated this effect, with high‐sophisticated early deciders relying even more on the challenger, and low‐sophisticated late deciders relying even more on the incumbent. The distinction between incumbent and challenger is discussed as a key variable in explaining the role of candidate traits in the choice of voters differing as to voting decision time and political sophistication.     

A Closer Look at Eyespot Effects on Voter Turnout: Reply to Matland and Murray

Implicit social pressure, applied via exposure to eyespots in nonpartisan, direct‐mail blandishments to vote, has been shown using randomized field experiments to raise turnout in elections. Similar eyespot effects have been observed across a wide range of prosocial behaviors. A series of recent replications conducted by Matland and Murray (2015) have failed to consistently produce statistically significant eyespot effects on voter turnout, however, leading the authors to conclude the effects observed in previous research were likely illusory. In this article, I rebut this claim, arguing that an alternative, more circumspect interpretation of the authors’ key results points to a different conclusion that supports the notion that eyespots likely stimulate voting, especially when taken together with previous findings.