Kahneman-Treisman Center for Behavioral Science and Public Policy, Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544.
Organization and Management Department, Goizueta Business School, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2024 May 28;121(22):e2215051121. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2215051121. Epub 2024 May 20.
A representative democracy requires citizens to be politically engaged; however, a substantial portion of eligible United States voters do not vote. While structural (e.g., ease or difficulty of voting) and individual (e.g., political efficacy, civic knowledge) factors contribute to (a lack of) turnout, the present work adopts a sociocultural perspective to investigate an additional contributor: how people construe-or make sense of-the duty to vote. We examine whether, and for whom, construing voting as interdependent (i.e., voting as a duty to others), compared to independent (i.e., voting as a duty to self), is associated with increased perceived duty and political engagement. Archival analysis ([Formula: see text] 10,185) documents how perceived duty to vote relates to voter turnout in a nationally representative sample of Americans (Study 1). Two preregistered studies (total [Formula: see text] 1,256) provide evidence that naturalistically construing one's duty to vote as interdependent (Study 2) and experimentally reflecting on interdependence (Study 3) both predict increases in perceived voting duty. Perceived duty to vote, in turn, is associated with heightened political engagement intentions. Taken together, the present work suggests that how voting is construed-as an independent duty to the self or an interdependent duty to others-may meaningfully influence political engagement, with implications for voter turnout interventions.
代议制民主要求公民积极参与政治；然而，相当一部分符合条件的美国选民没有投票。虽然结构性因素（例如投票的难易程度）和个人因素（例如政治效能感、公民知识）会影响投票率，但本研究从社会文化的角度探讨了一个额外的影响因素：人们如何理解（或理解）投票的义务。我们研究了将投票理解为相互依存（即投票是对他人的义务）与将投票理解为独立（即投票是对自己的义务）是否与增强的感知义务和政治参与有关，以及这种情况在哪些人身上更为明显。档案分析（[公式：见文本] 10185）记录了在具有全国代表性的美国样本中，感知投票义务与选民投票率之间的关系（研究 1）。两项预先注册的研究（共[公式：见文本] 1256）提供了证据，表明自然地将投票义务理解为相互依存（研究 2）和实验性地思考相互依存（研究 3）都可以预测感知投票义务的增加。投票的感知义务反过来又与增强的政治参与意图相关。综上所述，本研究表明，投票的理解方式——作为对自己的独立义务还是对他人的相互依存义务——可能会对政治参与产生有意义的影响，这对选民投票干预措施具有启示意义。
