Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089.
Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, PA 19104.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2022 Aug 23;119(34):e2206072119. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2206072119. Epub 2022 Aug 15.
Whether or not someone turns out to vote depends on their beliefs (such as partisanship or sense of civic duty) and on -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 ( = 1,280). Participants' perceptions consistently underemphasized friction and overemphasized beliefs (mean = 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.
一个人是否会投票取决于他们的信仰（如党派关系或公民责任感）和外部障碍，例如前往投票站的路程较长。在这项探索性研究中，我们测试了人们是否低估了摩擦对投票率的影响，以及高估了信仰的影响。我们在 2020 年选举前后对有资格的美国选民进行了代表性抽样调查（n = 1280）。参与者的看法一直低估了摩擦，高估了信仰（平均值 = 0.94）。在参与者的开放式文本解释中，91%的参与者列出了信仰，而只有 12%的参与者列出了摩擦。相比之下，投票率受信仰的影响略高于受摩擦的影响。实际的信仰-摩擦差异大约是参与者看法的四分之一（d = 0.24）。这种偏差出现在一系列调查测量中（开放式和封闭式；他人和自我判断），并对下游结果产生影响，例如对施加摩擦政策的支持以及未能计划投票。
