Promoting the Youth Vote: The Role of Informational Cues and Social Pressure

• In Event: Communication, Groups, and Elections

Abstract

Young voters, including college students, are known for low levels of voter turnout compared to older citizens — particularly in non-presidential elections. We examine two promising intervention strategies in the 2018 midterm elections: Information cues and social pressure. Additionally, we consider whether information or social pressure spread to others through social ties. Using a preregistered large-scale field experiment involving 146 sections of a university-wide first-year writing seminar, we examine whether informational and social pressure presentations are effective strategies for increasing student voter turnout. Furthermore, by linking each student in our study to their roommates, we assess whether there were spillover effects from the interventions.

Previous research has found that many get-out-the-vote (GOTV) interventions are ineffective among college students and young voters. For instance, interventions such as celebrity promotions, online videos, and door-to-door canvassing have had minimal to null effects at increasing student voter turnout in experimental studies (Bergan 2011; Usry & Cobb 2013; Hill & Lachelier 2014).

One of the more promising areas, however, is when a professor or student volunteer presents about the voting process in class (Bennion & Nickerson 2016). Prior studies have also shown that social pressure interventions can increase youth voter turnout, for example, by talking about politics in the classroom, encouraging subjects to make a pledge to vote, or making the intention to vote a social activity that is visible to other people (Costa, Schaffner & Prevost 2018, Aggeborn et al 2019).

Extending from this work, we randomly assigned sections of a first-year writing course at a large Midwestern university to one of three groups prior to the 2018 midterm election: a control group receiving no treatment, an informational treatment group where students heard a short presentation about the voting process and major statewide issues, or a social pressure treatment group with the informational treatment plus information about the positive benefits of committing publicly to voting and talking with peers about voting, along with a magnet on which they could commit to voting.

Working with Catalist - a national data services firm - to match students with their voter data, we will assess whether the the experimental treatments influenced turnout. Further, collection of roommate data allows for investigation into whether the interventions had spillover effects, i.e., whether roommates of students who received the treatments also turned out to vote at higher rates. The results of this study will yield both theoretical insights into the voting behavior of younger citizens as well as practical guidance for messengers aiming to stimulate voter turnout.

Authors

• Kjerstin Thorson, Michigan State University

• Daniel E. Bergan, Michigan State University

• Nazita Lajevardi, Michigan State University

• Dustin Carnahan, Michigan State University

• Sarah E. Reckhow, Michigan State University

• Mel Medeiros, Michigan State University