By the end of 2024, there will have been sixty-four national elections around the globe, including the UK and the US. With the results of the US presidential election recently finalised, it is interesting to look into the unconscious psychology behind how voters make their decisions when they go to the polls.
There are many factors that influence how people decide to vote on the day of an election, from upbringing, religious views, what the people around you are doing, and personal political views. Yoel Inbar, a psychologist who has spent his life studying the psychology behind decision-making in the political context, has determined several other important factors that influence voter behaviour, such as disgust, fear, and negative emotions. Many psychologists believe that all decisions that humans make are unconscious decisions. By placing participants on a disgust scale and asking them to rate how they felt towards stomachwrenching statements, before being asked about their political ideologies, Inbar found that the more easily that a person is disgusted, the more politically conservative they are. Disgust is the biological emotion that tells us to stay away from something, and it can be perceived through all senses. Many psychologists have advanced the idea that humans evolved a behavioural immune system back in the hunter-gatherer days. As large social groups formed, humans developed a set of behaviours that would minimise the risk of getting a disease. These sets of behaviours and the attitudes derived from them are all things that we tend to think of as socially conservative. It is about avoiding groups that we are not familiar with and adhering to what are classed as more traditional social practices.
In relation to political campaigns, if one party uses terms and words that trigger a disgust response from us, then it subconsciously influences the voters to not want to vote for them. It can even be said that if the candidate themselves, such as Donald Trump, triggers a disgust response, then it can alter your decision when casting your ballot.
A study was conducted into the impact of fear sensitivity on people’s political ideology, showing similar results. It suggested that strong and powerful rhetoric of fear—as seen on both sides of the election during the run-up to the 2024 presidential election—can have a significant effect on groups of people when it is used to sway voters one way or the other. In the 2024 election campaigns, both Donald Trump’s campaign and Kamala Harris’ campaign used rhetoric of war and nuclear weapons, which will have prompted a physical fear for some voters. However, there are also aspects of their campaigns which will have prompted more of a subtle fear response, such as talk of reproductive rights or immigration.
The negativity bias is well utilised by political parties during election campaigns. People have an unconscious tendency to remember negative information over positive information and they allow the negative emotions to dominate their decision-making. Research strongly shows that when politicians around the world emphasise negative qualities or aspects in the opposition’s policies, their view will negatively impact the electorate and increase voter turnout. If voters are undecided on whom to vote for, and like both candidates equally, they are proven to have very little motivation to go out and vote. The same result occurs if the voter dislikes both candidates equally. However, dislike of one candidate is a significantly more compelling motivator to cast a ballot, thanks again to the unconscious negativity bias. Both parties in the 2024 US election have utilised this negativity bias by pointing out flaws in each other’s policies or straight-up slandering the opposition candidate. In Trump’s election campaign, his primary tactic was to slander both Biden and Harris with flagrant lies. In fact, without any of us actually realising it, most political parties use such tactics to tap into these subconscious elements that influence voters in order to increase their chance of success on the day of the election.
While there are many things that will have determined how the people of the United States, as well as the millions of other voters around the whole world this year, made their decisions on election day, it remains interesting to look at the general psychological trends behind these decisions and how seemingly minor aspects in election campaigns and day-to-day life influence people’s decision-making.