Do Voters Live Vicariously Through Election Results?

Transcription

1 Do Voters Live Vicariously Through Election Results? Adam Sage RTI International Bonnie Shook-Sa RTI International 3040 Cornwallis Road P.O. Box Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA Phone: Fax: RTI International is a trade name of Research Triangle Institute

2 Overview What is our research question? The 2008 American National Election Study What is the 2008 ANES? How was it used? What are we trying to measure and how did we measure it? Quantifying events Affect Control Theory Political behaviors What do our results tell us? What can we conclude, if anything? 2

3 Do Voters Internalize Election Results? Do our perceptions about the election influence our behaviors? Extant research has yet to explain political behaviors using Affect Control Theory. Making this connection would help explain the emotions of social movements, or the macro-tomicro-to-macro link. 3

4 About the American National Election Study 4

5 ANES Process Respondents were unaware that they would be recontacted for the post-election survey. 5

6 Affect Control Theory (ACT) A social psychological theory developed out of the tradition of symbolic interactionism in sociology (Heise, 1987). People try to experience events which produce transient feelings confirming [fundamental] sentiments (Heise, 1987, p. 14). Key Words: Transient feelings are those that we actually experience how the world is. Fundamental sentiments are socially derived expectations how the world ought to be. Deflection is an emotional discrepancy the measured difference between our expectations and our experience. 6

7 How Are These Feelings Measured? Using Osgood s semantic differential scale, ACT provides a precise quantitative definition of meaning along three dimensions: Evaluation (good vs. bad) Potency (warm vs. cold) Activity (fast vs. slow) Deflection the sum of the squared differences between E, P, and A values. 7

8 Deflection When we experience deflection, we react in one of two ways: We react affectively: We reidentify aspects of the situation in highly deflective (unbelievable) situations: 8

9 Deflection as an Independent Variable We simulated events using two ANES variables and the election outcome: Pre-election: Who do you think will be elected President in November? Post-election: Who did you vote for? Election outcome: Obama victory. 9

10 Creating Deflection 10

11 Interact Computer program that analyzes events: 11

12 Dependent Measures Political Behaviors likelihood of joining in a protest march, rally, or demonstration likelihood of attending a meeting of a town or city government or school board likelihood of signing a petition on the Internet about a political or social issue likelihood of signing a petition on paper about a political or social issue likelihood of giving money to a religious organization 12

13 Dependent Measures (Continued ) likelihood of giving money to any other organization concerned with a political or social issue, not counting a religious organization likelihood of attending a meeting to talk about political or social concerns likelihood of inviting someone to attend a meeting about political or social concerns likelihood of distributing information or advertising supporting a political or social interest group 13

14 Hypotheses and Analyses Hypotheses Deflection will be significantly and positively related to the likelihood to engage in all behaviors. +/- 14

15 Analyses Analyses Cumulative Logit Models were used to determine whether deflection significantly predicts the likelihood voters will engage in specific political behaviors. Each regression model was fit using SUDAAN s PROC MULTILOG for ordinal dependent variables, taking into account the survey design weights. 15

16 Results Controls Gender Age Race Political party affiliation Education Census division Significant with positive relationship to intention to engage in behavior: Donate to religious organization (p<.05). Significant with negative relationship to intention to engage in behavior: Donate to other organization (p<.05). Inviting someone to attend a political/social meeting (p<.01). Distribute political/social advertising information (p<.01). 16

17 Possible Reidentification The lack of support for our hypotheses may be explained by a reidentification of some aspect of the situation for pessimistic Obama voters. When we experience something incredible or unbelievable, we have a tendency to reidentify aspects of the situation, including the identities of the actors or our understanding of the behavior itself (Smith-Lovin &Heise, 1988, pp ). Reidentification The mental revision of the definitions of aspects of the situation (i.e., actors, objects, or behaviors). 17

18 Determining Reidentification Examine the mean behaviors by deflection. Are the mean scores of the behaviors different among highly deflective situations? Answer: No. 18

19 Mean Response by Deflection Mean Response A B C D E F G H J Deflection 19

20 What Do Our Results Tell Us? Our results can be interpreted many ways: Voters do not internalize elections. Failed to capture the accurate perceptions: VS VS VS 20

21 Historical Events Historical events may also affect pessimism and optimism measures: NYSE reaction to Lehman Brothers: Debates: 21

22 Future Research Obtain actual interpretations from voters: What words most describe you and the winning politician? What word would you use to describe the event? Analyze multiple ANES Time Series data sets: This may control for historical events. 22

23 References Agresti, A. (2007). An introduction to categorical data analysis. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Heise, D. R. (1987). Affect Control Theory: Concepts and model. Journal of Mathematical Sociology, 13, Heise, D. R., & MacKinnon, N. J. (1987). Affective bases of likelihood judgments. Journal of Mathematical Sociology, 13, Osgood, C. H., May, W. H., & Miron, M. S. (1975). Cross-cultural universals of affective meaning. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Smith-Lovin, L., & Heise, D. R. (1988). Analyzing social interaction: Advances in Affect Control Theory. New York: Gordon and Breach. Stanton, S. J., Beehner, J. C., Saini, E. K., Kuhn, C. M., & LaBar, K. S. (2009). Dominance, politics, and physiology: Voters testosterone changes on the night of the 2008 United States Presidential election. Available at

24 Questions??? Questions, suggestions, comments??? Thanks! Adam Sage RTI International 24