Abstract
Using social pressure to mobilize voters has generated impressive increases in turnout (Gerber et al. Am Polit Sci Rev 102:33–48, 2008). However, voters may have negative reactions to social pressure treatments that reduce their effectiveness. Social psychologists have observed this ‘reactance’ to persuasive pressure about other behavior, but it has been overlooked in voter mobilization. Using a large-scale field experiment, we find treatments designed to reduce reactance are just as effective as heavy-handed social pressure treatments in mobilizing voters. The success of gentler social pressure treatments should make the use of social pressure more palatable to voter mobilization organizations.
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Notes
Since our experiment includes only female voters, we use the female pronoun throughout this essay for clarity and to acknowledge this limitation of the external validity of our findings.
The name of our partner organization has been withheld in accordance with our arrangement for their cooperation in conducting and publishing this field experiment. The name of the organization has been disclosed to the journal editors.
The influence of social norms on voting behavior is moderated by an individual’s degree of engagement with a social network (Klofstad 2009).
One treatment, described below, included a mail survey for the voter to return to the sponsoring organization. This mailer was placed inside a standard envelope along with a pre-addressed return envelope.
Gerber et al.’s (2008) strongest threat of enforcement of the norm of voting was applied by telling voters their ‘Neighbors’ would observe their voting. The surveillance was made credible by expanding the voting table to include the voting record of neighbors. This treatment increased turnout by 8.1 percentage points.
Our Self treatment and the Gerber et al. Self treatment differ only by minor changes in the text of the mailings.
Updated charts were not sent after the election due to our partner organization’s budget constraints.
Unfortunately, the returned surveys were not saved by the organization since they were intended only to disguise the social pressure intent of the treatment.
The major advantage of conducting field experiments in conjunction with organizations is the ability to do more and larger tests of interesting hypotheses about voting behavior than academic research funds allow. The downside is the need to accommodate decisions by partner organizations, even when they complicate the research design.
We report only an intent-to-treat effect. When contact rates can be gathered, e.g. for canvassing and phone calls, the field experiments literature on voter mobilization often reports the treatment-on-treated effect among voters successfully contacted (Green and Gerber 2008; Gerber and Green 2000). Field experiments using mail cannot calculate a treatment-on-treated effect because the contact rate is unknown.
The pair-wise comparison that most closely approaches statistical significance is Self versus Hawthorne-plus-Survey (p = 0.139) which respectively had the strongest and weakest perceptions of surveillance according to the manipulation check. The p-values for the remaining pair-wise comparisons are two to four times larger.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the anonymous organization that conducted this social pressure voter mobilization program for sharing these data. The assistance of Donald Green and Alan Gerber was invaluable at many steps in this project. I would also like to thank the editors, three anonymous reviewers, Paula Cooper, Avi Feller, Matthew Green, Casey Klofstad, Joanna Johnson, April Mann, Todd Rogers, and the participants in the Analyst Institute in Washington, DC for their feedback.
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Appendix
Appendix
Self Treatment
Self-plus-Help Treatment
Hawthorne Treatment
Hawthorne-plus-Survey Treatment
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Mann, C.B. Is There Backlash to Social Pressure? A Large-scale Field Experiment on Voter Mobilization. Polit Behav 32, 387–407 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-010-9124-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-010-9124-y