Election Day: A Vote for Irrationality

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Later today — in fact, perhaps right after this very post — I’m going to go do something intensely irrational: I’m going to vote.

Economists don’t much like voting, because it goes against everything that ought to be true about human behavior. Voting has a cost (time and inconvenience) and no benefit (the chance of one’s individual vote mattering is vanishingly small). What’s more, voting gets more inconvenient and less beneficial the bigger and more important the election — you’ll face longer lines in a presidential election, and your vote will be even less likely to matter. (Yes, insert Bush-Gore comment here. Even in that election, no individual made the difference.)

So, why do we vote?

Well, one theory, tested by Quattrone and Tversky, is that people vote — at least partly — based on an inability to differentiate between diagnosis and causation. What the hell does that mean? Basically, it means that people vote because they see their own behavior as diagnostic of what people like them will do.

Take how I’m going to vote today. I’m in New York City, and Mayor Bloomberg is on the ballot for a third term. Polls predict a 10+ point blowout over Comptroller Bill Thompson, the Democrat. I’m voting for Bloomberg. So, why bother? Well, I “reason,” if everyone like me just assumes the election is in the bag, then no one will come out for Bloomberg. And if no one comes out for Bloomberg, then Bill Thompson will win.

It’s stupid, I even recognize it’s irrational — I’m writing this blog post! — but I’m still going to drag myself to the polls and vote.

So, how did Quattrone and Tversky test this in the lab? Well, in one experiment (described here), they had people stick their arms in a vat of ice water and told them that how long they could tolerate keeping it in there was predictive of how long they would live (it would tell them which of two “heart types” they had, they were told). The idea, ostensibly, was that this was a diagnostic test. But when told that a longer time keeping their arm in the tank meant a longer life, participants kept their arms in longer. By influencing the diagnosis, they apparently thought they could influence the underlying coronary health they thought was being measured.

Something very similar appears to happen with voting. In another experiment, participants were given two theories of voting — one in which their decision to vote influenced others to vote and one in which it did not. As you might guess, people told their vote could influence others to vote were more likely to indicate they would vote.

There are certainly other things that influence whether we vote or not. Participation in a common social ritual. A feeling of civic duty, instilled by parents or teachers or friends. Passionate motivation on a single issue.

But you may be going to the polls today on a bogus theory of causation. I know I will be.