Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-sxzjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T07:24:07.963Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Does Survey Participation Increase Voter Turnout? Re-examining the Hawthorne Effect in the Swedish National Election Studies*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 May 2014

Mikael Persson
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A Hawthorne effect found in election studies is that pre-election survey participation increases voter turnout. Using the Swedish National Election Studies, Granberg and Holmberg (1992) showed evidence in support of this effect. However, their findings have been criticized and more recent studies have failed to find any treatment effect of pre-election survey participation (cf. Mann 2005). This study re-examines an updated version of Granberg and Holmberg's time-series cumulative data file covering eight additional election studies (for a total of 14 election studies from 1960 to 2010). These studies have an experimental component, since half of the sample was randomly assigned to be interviewed before the election and the other half after the election. By comparing validated turnout in the pre-election sample with the post-election sample, it is possible to estimate the causal effect of survey participation on voter turnout. The results show that participating in the pre-election survey indeed has a significant and positive effect on voter turnout. Moreover, this article evaluates whether the treatment effect is unevenly distributed in the population. Results show that citizens with a low propensity to vote are more affected by taking part in election studies than citizens with a high propensity to vote. The study also estimates the long-term effects of survey participation. Results show that participating in an election survey can have significant effects on voter turnout several years later.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Political Science Research and Methods , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , October 2014 , pp. 297 - 307
Copyright
Copyright © The European Political Science Association 2014 

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

*Mikael Persson is Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Gothenburg, Box 711, 405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden (mikael.persson@pol.gu.se). I thank Kenneth Benoit, Ryan D. Enos, Peter Esaiasson, Anthony Fowler, Mikael Gilljam, Henrik Oscarsson, Jon Krosnick, Richard Öhrvall, Sören Holmberg and three anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article. I am grateful to Per Hedberg and Jacob Severin for research assistance and to the principal investigators for generously sharing the data.

References

Angrist, J. D., Imbens, G. W.Rubin, D. B.. 1996. ‘Identification of Casual Effects Using Instrumental Variables’. Journal of the American Statistical Association 91:444–455.Google Scholar
Ansolabehere, A.Hersh, E.. 2012. ‘Validation: What Big Data Reveal about Survey Misreporting and the Real Electorate’. Political Analysis 20:437–459.Google Scholar
Belli, R. F., Moore, S. E.VanHoewyk, J.. 2006. ‘An Experimental Comparison of Question Forms Used to Reduce Vote Overreporting’. Electoral Studies 25:751–759.Google Scholar
Clausen, A. R. 1968. ‘Response Validity: Vote Report’. Public Opinion Quarterly 32:588–606.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dahlberg, S.Persson, M.. 2014. ‘Different Surveys, Different Results? Comparison of Two Surveys on the 2009 European Parliamentary Election’. West European Politics 37(1):204–221.Google Scholar
Díaz de Rada, V. 2011. ‘Face-to-Face versus Telephone Surveys on Political Attitudes: A Comparative Analysis’. Quality and Quantity 45:817–827.Google Scholar
Enos, R. D., Fowler, A.Vavreck, L.. 2014. ‘Increasing Inequality: The Effect of GOTV Mobilization on the Composition of the Electorate’. Journal of Politics 76(1):273–288.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerber, A. S.Green, D. P.. 2000. ‘The Effects of Canvassing, Telephone Calls, and Direct Mail on Voter Turnout: A Field Experiment’. American Political Science Review 94:653–663.Google Scholar
Gerber, A. S.Green, D. P.. 2001. ‘Do Phone Calls Increase Voter Turnout? A Field Experiment’. Public Opinion Quarterly 65:75–85.Google Scholar
Gerber, A. S.Green, D. P.. 2012. Field Experiments: Design, Analysis, and Interpretation. New York: W.W. Norton.Google Scholar
Gerber, A. S., Green, D. P.Larimer, C.. 2008. ‘Social Pressure and Voter Turnout: Evidence from a Large-Scale Field Experiment’. American Political Science Review 102:33–48.Google Scholar
Gerber, A. S., Green, D. P.Larimer, C.. 2010. ‘An Experiment Testing the Relative Effectiveness of Encouraging Voter Participation by Inducing Feelings of Pride or Shame’. Political Behavior 32:409–422.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Granberg, D.Holmberg, S.. 1991. Self-reported turnout and voter validation. American Journal of Political Science 35:448–459.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Granberg, D.Holmberg, S.. 1992. The Hawthorne Effect in Election Studies: The Impact of Survey Participation on Voting. British Journal of Political Science 22:240–247.Google Scholar
Green, D. P.Gerber, A. S.. 2008. Get out the Vote: How to increase voter turnout. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Press.Google Scholar
Greenwald, A. G., Carnot, C. G., Beach, R.Young, B.. 1987. ‘Increasing Voting Behavior by Asking People if they Expect to Vote’. Journal of Applied Psychology 72:315–318.Google Scholar
Holbrook, A. L.Krosnick, J. A.. 2010. ‘Social Desirability Bias in Voter Turnout Reports: Tests using the Item Count Technique’. Public Opinion Quarterly 74:37–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kraut, R. E.McConahay, J. B.. 1973. ‘How Being Interviewed Affects Voting: An Experiment’. Public Opinion Quarterly 37:398–406.Google Scholar
Kreuter, F., Presser, S.Tourangeau, R.. 2008. ‘Social Desirability Bias in CATI, IVR, and Web Surveys’. Public Opinion Quarterly 72:847–865.Google Scholar
Mann, C. B. 2005. ‘Unintentional Voter Mobilization: Does Participation in Preelection Surveys Increase Voter Turnout?’ The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 601:155–168.Google Scholar
Panagopoulos, C. 2010. ‘Affect, Social Pressure and Prosocial Motivation: Field Experimental Evidence of the Mobilizing Effects of Pride, Shame and Publicizing Voting Behavior’. Political Behavior 32:369–386.Google Scholar
Parsons, H. M. 1974. ‘What Happened at Hawthorne?’ Science 183:922–932.Google Scholar
Persson, M.Solevid, M.. 2014. ‘Measuring Political Participation: Testing Social Desirability Bias in a Web-Survey Experiment’. International Journal of Public Opinion Research 26(1):98–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, J. K., Gerber, A. S.Orlich, A.. 2003. ‘Self-prophecy Effects and Voter Turnout: An Experimental Replication’. Political Psychology 24:593–604.Google Scholar
Spangenberg, E. R.Greenwald, A. G.. 1999. ‘Social Influence by Requesting Self-prophecy’. Journal of Consumer Psychology 8:61–89.Google Scholar
Sprott, D. E., Spangenberg, E. R., Block, L. G., Fitzsimons, G. J., Morwitz, V. G.Williams, P.. 2006. ‘The Question-behavior Effect: What we Know and Where We Go from Here’. Social Influence 1:128–137.Google Scholar
Yalch, R. F. 1976. ‘Pre-Election Interview Effects on Voter Turnout’. Public Opinion Quarterly 40:331–336.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Persson Datasets

Datasets

http://dx.doi.org/10.7910/DVN/25300
Link
Supplementary material: File

Persson Supplementary Material

Appendix

Download Persson Supplementary Material(File)
File 117.3 KB