TY - JOUR
T1 - What motivates bandwagon voting behavior
T2 - Altruism or a desire to win?
AU - Morton, Rebecca B.
AU - Ou, Kai
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Elsevier B.V.
Copyright:
Copyright 2016 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2015/12/1
Y1 - 2015/12/1
N2 - This paper surveys the literature on psychological and strategic mental processes of bandwagon behavior, discusses the literature of bandwagon behavior in the context of the two different types, bandwagon vote choices and bandwagon abstention effects, and examines the rationality of other-regarding bandwagon vote choices. Key experimental results are reported to investigate the extent that bandwagon behavior can be explained by other-regarding preferences in contrast to a psychological desire to simply support a winner. We find support for purely psychological non-other-regarding bandwagon behavior but primarily when subjects have information about the distribution of voter choices in previous elections but individual choices are private. Interestingly, when voting is public this type of bandwagon behavior disappears and bandwagon behavior that could be other-regrading is much higher. Given that observability increases other-regarding behavior in other contexts, our results suggest that some of the observed bandwagon behavior may be explained by other-regarding preferences as well.
AB - This paper surveys the literature on psychological and strategic mental processes of bandwagon behavior, discusses the literature of bandwagon behavior in the context of the two different types, bandwagon vote choices and bandwagon abstention effects, and examines the rationality of other-regarding bandwagon vote choices. Key experimental results are reported to investigate the extent that bandwagon behavior can be explained by other-regarding preferences in contrast to a psychological desire to simply support a winner. We find support for purely psychological non-other-regarding bandwagon behavior but primarily when subjects have information about the distribution of voter choices in previous elections but individual choices are private. Interestingly, when voting is public this type of bandwagon behavior disappears and bandwagon behavior that could be other-regrading is much higher. Given that observability increases other-regarding behavior in other contexts, our results suggest that some of the observed bandwagon behavior may be explained by other-regarding preferences as well.
KW - Bandwagon behavior
KW - Majority voting
KW - Other-regarding voting
KW - Secret ballots
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U2 - 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2015.04.009
DO - 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2015.04.009
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84929648811
VL - 40
SP - 224
EP - 241
JO - European Journal of Political Economy
JF - European Journal of Political Economy
SN - 0176-2680
ER -