Australian Politics and Policy - Senior, 2019a

Voter behaviour
How citizens learn
Political and social psychology provide substantial critiques on citizens’ capacities
to perform their democratic duties, helping us reconcile voters’ limitations with the
idea that democracies work reasonably well.
Voters do not necessarily need detailed knowledge about politics and policy
to fulfil their democratic duty. They can be thought of as ‘cognitive misers’, who
minimise the effort involved in making potentially complex or difficult decisions
using shortcuts, learning only as much as they need to and receiving and
interpreting signals from elected officials, opinion leaders and other sources.
One way voters make political choices (such as choosing who to vote for) without
a substantial investment in information gathering is through the use of heuristics,
or cognitive shortcuts. 26 These are also used when making non-political decisions.
Individuals are using a heuristic, for instance, when they fix their beliefs more
heavily on the first piece of information they receive (the ‘anchor’) when making
a decision. This is known as the anchoring heuristic. An example is the first price
mentioned during a negotiation. If a salesperson offers a very high price to start
negotiations, this becomes a psychological anchor for the buyer, meaning the
counter-offerandfinalpricearemorelikelytobehigherthanotherwise.
The representativeness heuristic is another cognitive shortcut. This involves
comparing a problem or decision to the most representative mental prototype.
When a voter is trying to decide if a politician is trustworthy, they might compare
that politician’s characteristics to other people they have known in the past. If
the politician shares traits with a kind grandfather or harsh teacher, they might
beassumedtobegentleandtrustworthyorcriticalandmean.Thisresultsin
classifications that may or may not be correct, but saves on the effort of seeking
additional information for critical analysis.
Party identification can also be thought of as a form of heuristic that guides
voter behaviour. 27 This helps to make politics less cognitively demanding for voters.
Once citizens decide which party generally represents them, this single piece of
information can act as a shortcut guiding how they view issues and events. A policy
championed by the party this voter identifies with is more likely to meet with favour
than the same policy advocated by a different party. For instance, if the Liberal
Party promotes a new policy, voters who identify as Liberal supporters may be more
inclined to believe this is a good idea than if the Labor Party had proposed the same
policy.
Party identification can also guide how we view events. Bartels showed that
voters’ statements about objective facts, such as whether unemployment increased
or decreased, were heavily influenced by party identification. 28 Under Republican
26 Kahneman, Slovic and Tversky 1982.
27 Campbell et al. 1960.
28 Bartels 2002.
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