How Voter Shortsightedness Skews Elections

sciencehabit writes "'Are you better off than you were 4 years ago?' Ronald Reagan's famous question in the U.S. presidential election of 1980 is generally a good yardstick for picking a candidate, or at least for judging a leader's economic policies. But few voters follow it. Instead, they are swayed by economic swings in the months leading up to the election, often ignoring the larger trends. Why are we so shortsighted? A psychological study of voting behavior suggests an answer and points to a simple fix. ... Healy and Lenz challenged their subjects to evaluate hypothetical governments based on slightly varying information. For example, some received information expressed as yearly income while others received the same information expressed as a yearly growth rate. The same information in a plot of steadily increasing average personal income over 3 years—$32,400, $33,100, $33,800—can also be expressed as a steadily decreasing rate of growth—3%, 2.3%, 2.1%. That did the trick. Just changing the units of the data was enough to cure voter fickleness. When economic trends were expressed as yearly income rather than rates of change, the subjects made accurate judgments. But if the same information was expressed as a change over time—the bias reappeared."

Comments

Not quite that

[damn_registrars]

It's not

are you better off now than you were 4 years ago

that drives my selection. The matter for me is closer to

• which candidate on the ballot will harm you the least

dont blame the voters

[globaljustin]

the researchers themselves dont...from the abstract:

Voters, we find, actually intend to judge presidents on cumulative growth. However, since that characteristic is not readily available to them, voters inadvertently substitute election-year performance

blame the candidates and the news media...both are obviously not doing their jobs.

candidates, because...holy crap they're supposed to be *running* for office. they can't blame others for everything...they are responsible for how they present their case.

news media...obviously idiots. If you want to call people stupid, call ***NEWS PRODUCERS*** stupid fucking idiots. You can thrown in the TV company executives in there too. They have *no idea* what they are doing in regards to the 4th Estate & informing the populace.

I have to fault SoulSkill & all nerds here as well. Its a cop out to say "all people are idiots" as a solution or explanation to every problem. It's reductive and unworthy of our industry. Blaming the user by default *hurts our industry* because it alienates us from the users, and from our own work.

Systems need correction. Blaming the people the system is designed to serve when a feedback loop occurs is illogical!

Re:Are you earning more since Reagan was elected?

[crunchygranola]

Informative? Seriously?

LynnwoodRooster seems to have been betting that by stating a lie while providing a couple of links (that refute the lie) most people will assume that that the links actually support it.

If you follow the GINI link you will find that the both the pre-tax and after-tax GINI DID NOT INCREASE AT ALL during the Clinton years! The rise under Reagan went flat, then resumed its rise again under Bush.

Also actually look at that median HOUSEHOLD (not individual) curve LR links to. By the end of the Reagan-Bush era it was down to $48K (from 45.5K at the start), a far less impressive 5.5% over 12 years, and the whole reason for the rise was due to the second adult in the household going to work - since actual wages were flat.

Re:Most voters are stupid

[Mr. Slippery]

The American population is essentially either taking welfare or working for the Gubment.

That's the Fox News view of the world, sure. In actual reality, American workers are more productive, yet thanks to conservative economic policies have been losing income (measured in constant dollars) since the Reagan era. The number of people employed by the federal government is lower than it was in the 60s, 70s, or 80s. The number state or local government employees per capita grew a little from 1980 to 2008, almost entirely because of more teachers being hired, but declined from 2008 to 2011.

So, in reality, Americans are working more productively, getting paid less, and fewer of them are working for the government.

But keep the American voter ignorant and angry, and they'll re-elect you, even as you fsck them over.