Work

Cognitive dissonance, political participation, and changes in policy preferences

Year: 2024

Type: article

Abstract: We investigate how participation in the electoral process can causally change policy preferences drawing on the framework of cognitive dissonance theory. We present an innovative experimental design, which allows us to isolate the net effect of cognitive dissonance on preference changes. Our results suggest that cognitive dissonance created by expressing support for a losing candidate causally led participants to align their policy preferences with that of the supported candidate more closely. Our results, however, also uncovered a strong dependency of such preference changes on the outcome of the election. When supported candidates won the election, no preference change was observed. Our results may be an indication that previous studies overestimated the cognitive dissonance effect on preference changes.

Source: Journal of Economic Psychology

DOI: 10.1016/j.joep.2024.102774

Authors: Tanja Artiga González, Francesco Capozza, Georg D. Granic

Institutions: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, WZB Berlin Social Science Center, Erasmus University Rotterdam

Language: English

Topic: Electoral Systems and Political Participation

Subfield: Political Science and International Relations

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Peace, justice, and strong institutions

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,540