Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T02:27:38.690Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Public Voting and Prosocial Behavior

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 March 2019

Rebecca B. Morton  and
Kai Ou
Rebecca B. Morton*
Affiliation:
Department of Politics, NYU NYC and NYU Abu Dhabi, New York, NY 10012, USA
Kai Ou
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA, e-mail: [email protected]
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

One argument against secret ballots is that such procedures lead to more selfish voting behavior and that public voting can increase prosocial voting and the likelihood of prosocial outcomes when voters are not subject to intimidation and coercion from outside interests. We investigate this supposition as well as voter preferences over observability in voting in this context. We find that voters are significantly more likely to choose unselfishly when voting is public. These differences in behavior advantage prosocial choices in elections (by 27%) when voting is public. Moreover, voters appear to recognize these differences and a substantial minority of voters whose selfish preference is not the prosocial choice willingly choose public voting even though the likely outcome will be costly to themselves.

Keywords

Laboratory experimentprosocial votingobservability
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Experimental Political Science , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , Winter 2019 , pp. 141 - 158
Copyright
© The Experimental Research Section of the American Political Science Association 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Support for this research from New York University is gratefully acknowledged. We appreciate the comments of Bernd Beber, Eric Dickson, Jon Eguia, Ignacio Esponda, Timothy Feddersen, Guillaume Fréchette, Jens Großer, Sera Linardi, Reuben Kline, Dorothea Kübler, Salvatore Nunnari, and especially Ernesto Reuben whose suggestions greatly improved the paper. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the WZB Berlin Social Sciences Center, the Center for Experimental Social Sciences, Columbia University, New York University, University of Rochester, University of Warwick, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and the University of Pittsburgh Behavioral Models Conference. We thank the participants for their comments and suggestions. We also thank Han Il Chang, Dominik Duell, Jorge Gallego, Tianyang Xi, and Biling Zhang for their assistance in conducting the experiments. All errors remain the responsibility of the authors. The data, code, and any additional materials required to replicate all analyses in this article are available at the Journal of Experimental Political Science Dataverse within the Harvard Dataverse Network, at: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/NCH88M (Morton and Ou 2018). The experiment was approved by the New York University Institutional Review Board. There are no conflicts of interest.

References

Batson, C. Daniel and Powell, Adam A.. 2003. Altruism and Prosocial Behavior. Handbook of Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology, (5): 463–84.Google Scholar
Battaglini, Marco, Morton, Rebecca, and Palfrey, Thomas. 2007. Efficiency, Equity, and Timing of Voting Mechanisms. American Political Science Review 101(3): 409–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bénabou, Roland and Tirole, Jean. 2006. Incentives and Prosocial Behavior. American Economic Review 96(5): 1652–678.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Camerer, Colin F. 2011. Behavioral Game Theory: Experiments in Strategic Interaction. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cappelen, Alexander W., Hole, Astri Drange, Sørensen, Erik Ø., and Tungodden, Bertil. 2007. The Pluralism of Fairness Ideals: An Experimental Approach. American Economic Review 97(3): 818–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DellaVigna, Stefano, List, John A., Malmendier, Ulrike, and Rao, Gautam. 2016. Voting to Tell Others. American Economic Review 84(1): 143–81.Google Scholar
Feddersen, Timothy, Gailmard, Sean, and Sandroni, Alvaro. 2009. Moral Bias in Large Elections: Theory and Experimental Evidence. American Political Science Review 103(2): 175–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fischbacher, Urs and Schudy, Simeon. 2013. Agenda Setting and Reciprocal Vote Trading. TWI Research Paper Series, No. 58.Google Scholar
Forsythe, Robert, Horowitz, Joel L., Savin, Nathan E., and Sefton, Martin. 1994. Fairness in Simple Bargaining Experiments. Games and Economic Behavior 6(3): 347–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedrichsen, Jana and Engelmann, Dirk. 2017. Who Cares about Social Image? DIW Berlin Discussion Paper No. 1634. Retrieved from SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2906264CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frisch, Scott A. and Kelly, Sean Q.. 2006. Committee Assignment Politics in the US House of Representatives. Vol. 5. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar
Funk, Patricia. 2010. Social Incentives and Voter Turnout: Evidence from the Swiss Mail Ballot System. Journal of the European Economic Association 8(5): 1077–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Funk, Patricia. 2016. How Accurate are Surveyed Preferences for Public Policies? Evidence from a Unique Institutional Setup. Review of Economics and Statistics 98(3): 442–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerber, Alan S., Huber, Gregory A., Doherty, David, Dowling, Conor M., and Hill, Seth J.. 2013. Do Perceptions of Ballot Secrecy Influence Turnout? Results from a Field Experiment. American Journal of Political Science 57(3): 537–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grönlund, Kimmo, Setälä, Maija, and Herne, Kaisa. 2010. Deliberation and Civic Virtue: Lessons from a Citizen Deliberation Experiment. European Political Science Review 2(1): 95–117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heckelman, Jac C. 1995. The Effect of the Secret Ballot on Voter Turnout Rates. Public Choice 82(1–2): 107–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jefferson, David, Rubin, Aviel D., Simons, Barbara, and Wagner, David. 2004. Analyzing Internet Voting Security. Communications of the ACM 47(10): 59–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahneman, Daniel, Knetsch, Jack L., and Thaler, Richard H.. 1986. Fairness and the Assumptions of Economics. Journal of Business 59(4): S285–S300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Karpowitz, Christopher F., Monson, J. Quin, Nielson, Lindsay, Patterson, Kelly D., and Snell, Steven A.. 2011. Political Norms and the Private Act of Voting. Public Opinion Quarterly 75(4): 659–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koch, Alexander K. and Normann, Hans-Theo. 2008. Giving in Dictator Games: Regard for Others or Regard by Others? Southern Economic Journal 75(1): 223–31.Google Scholar
Kousser, J. Morgan. 1974. The Shaping of Southern Politics: Suffrage Restriction and the Establishment of the One-Party South, 1880–1910. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Levine, David K. and Palfrey, Thomas R.. 2007. The Paradox of Voter Participation? A Laboratory Study. American Political Science Review 101(1): 143–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loeber, Leontine and Dutch Electoral Council. 2008. E-Voting in the Netherlands; from General Acceptance to General Doubt in Two Years. Electronic Voting 131: 21–30.Google Scholar
Mill, John Stuart. 1862. Consideration of Representative Government. Chicago, IL: Henry Regnery Company.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morton, Rebecca B. and Ou, Kai. 2018. Replication Data for Public Voting and Prosocial Behavior. Harvard Dataverse. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/NCH88MCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morton, Rebecca B. and Williams, Kenneth C.. 1999. Information Asymmetries and Simultaneous versus Sequential Voting. American Political Science Review 93(1): 51–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morton, Rebecca B. and Williams, Kenneth C.. 2000. Learning by Voting: Sequential Choices in Presidential Primaries and Other Elections. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Robbins, Ira P. 2007. The Importance of the Secret Ballot in Law Faculty Personnel Decisions: Promoting Candor and Collegiality in the Academy. Journal of Legal Education 57(2): 266–92.Google Scholar
Rogers, Todd, Ternovski, John, and Yoeli, Erez. 2016. Potential Follow-Up Increases Private Contributions to Public Goods. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113(19): 5218–20.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rusk, Jerrold G. 1970. The Effect of the Australian Ballot Reform on Split Ticket Voting: 1876–1908. American Political Science Review 64(4): 1220–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shayo, Moses and Harel, Alon. 2012. Non-Consequentialist Voting. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 81(1): 299–313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vicente, Pedro C. 2014. Is Vote Buying Effective? Evidence from a Field Experiment in West Africa. The Economic Journal 124(574): F356–F387.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Morton and Ou supplementary material

Online Appendix

Download Morton and Ou supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 308.7 KB