The science of becoming President: Researchers reveal the psychological tricks candidates are using to boost turnouts

  • Voting turnout increases when campaign says will follow-up with voters
  • Nominees help voters make plans to go to polls by asking caucus details
  • Fliers highlighting voter's history and neighbor's increase voting rates

By STACY LIBERATORE FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

Published: | Updated:

With Election Day drawing near and just a few candidates still standing, nominees are using every trick in the book to gain votes.

But aside from the encouraging speeches and smiling faces pushing people to the polls, researchers say nominees have also adopted behavioral science to increase voting rates.

Experts say nominees use subtle phrases and science-based communication to impact turnout, and those who use these methods have a higher chance of moving into The White House.

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With Election Day drawing near and just three candidates still standing, nominees are using every strategy in the book to gain votes. But other than speeches of encouragement and smiling faces, experts say nominees also use subtle phrases and science-based communication to impact voter turnout

With Election Day drawing near and just three candidates still standing, nominees are using every strategy in the book to gain votes. But other than speeches of encouragement and smiling faces, experts say nominees also use subtle phrases and science-based communication to impact voter turnout

'If you dissect anyone's scripts to get out the vote, it's clear they are using our stuff,' Todd Rogers, a behavioral scientist and associate professor of public policy at Harvard Kennedy School, told CNN.

Researchers have been paying close attention to what motives the American public to exercise their right to vote and picked up on a few phrases in Get-Out-the-Vote (GOTV) campaign that are found to impact the polls.

They suggests voting rates increase when a campaign says they might follow-up after the polls close.

Rogers and his colleagues discovered this by conducting an experimented with more than 700,000 people who received GOTV letters before the 2010 election.

WHAT ARE EXAMPLES OF SCIENTIFIC METHODS USED IN CAMPAIGNS?  

During the 2008 election, Get-Out-the-Vote sent letters to voters about getting to the polls to vote. 

The group included the phrase, 'we may call you after the election to ask about your voting experience', which proved to be more than three times more effective than the average.

Prior to the Iowa caucus, Hillary Clinton used her speech to encourage voters to attend by asking details about their caucus site.

Most are sure that Clinton knew the details, but this move highlighted voter information about the caucus location and operation hours to the public -- which she won

The mailer tells the recipient it's been sent due to 'low expected voter turnout in your area' and then grades the recipient's voting history and that of several neighbors, citing public records

The mailer tells the recipient it's been sent due to 'low expected voter turnout in your area' and then grades the recipient's voting history and that of several neighbors, citing public records

Researchers found that letters highlighting a voter's history and their neighbors history is a way to increase voter turnout.

On the front of Cruz's flier, it listed 'ELECTION ALERT: VOTER VIOLATION.'

And the other side said 'your individual voting history as well as your neighbors' are public record' and the voter should caucus to 'IMPROVE YOUR SCORE' and warned of 'lower expected voter turnout,' in the area.

The end of the message included a passage that a follow-up is possible.

Although some called this move a 'false representation of an official act', Cruz took home the win in Iowa.

The team created three different groups: one received a letter with a phrase known to increase voter turnout, another highlighted reminders that a voter's election participation record was available and the last received nothing at all.

Letters containing the phrase, 'we may call you after the election to ask about your voting experience' were more than three times effective than the average GOTV letter and the second letter was found to be more than twice as powerful.

 Prior to the Iowa caucus, Hillary Clinton used her speech to encourage voters to attend by asking details about their caucus site. Most are sure that Clinton knew the details, but this move highlighted voter information about the caucus location and operation hours to the public -- which she won

 Prior to the Iowa caucus, Hillary Clinton used her speech to encourage voters to attend by asking details about their caucus site. Most are sure that Clinton knew the details, but this move highlighted voter information about the caucus location and operation hours to the public -- which she won

'For many practitioners, our results provide a practical, inexpensive, and effective strategy for increasing observability when soliciting public goods contributions via private communication,' the authors write in the study published in PNAS.

'Our results [also] add to the field evidence that public goods contributions can be increased by making contributions more observable – even by merely suggesting that there may be magnified observability.'

'Finally, our results provide additional evidence that voting can be increased by interventions which might affect reputations.'

Rogers has seen behavior science-based communications used successfully in earlier primaries.

The team created three different groups: one received a letter with a phrase known to increase voter turnout (left), another highlighted reminders that a voter's election participation record was available (right) and the last received nothing at all

Letters containing the phrase, 'we may call you after the election to ask about your voting experience' were more than three times effective than the average GOTV letter and the second letter was found to be more than twice as powerful

Letters containing the phrase, 'we may call you after the election to ask about your voting experience' were more than three times effective than the average GOTV letter and the second letter was found to be more than twice as powerful

Prior to the Iowa caucus, Hillary Clinton used her speech to encourage voters to attend by asking details about their caucus site.

Most are sure that Clinton knew the details, but this move highlighted voter information about the caucus location and operation hours to the public -- which she won.

This method is found in another study Rogers conducted in 2010 that demonstrated how nominees encourage voters to make a plan.

'Helping people to make plans increase their likelihood of following through on their intentions, reads the study published in the Association for Psychological Science.

On the front of Cruz's flier, it listed 'ELECTION ALERT: VOTER VIOLATION.' And the other side said 'your individual voting history as well as your neighbor's are public record' and the voter should caucus to 'IMPROVE YOUR SCORE' and warned of 'lower expected voter turnout,' in the area -- Cruz also won Iowa 

On the front of Cruz's flier, it listed 'ELECTION ALERT: VOTER VIOLATION.' And the other side said 'your individual voting history as well as your neighbor's are public record' and the voter should caucus to 'IMPROVE YOUR SCORE' and warned of 'lower expected voter turnout,' in the area -- Cruz also won Iowa 

Ted Cruz is another candidate who used scientific techniques in Iowa, which reflected a study in 2008 from Yale and the University of Northern Iowa.

Researchers found that letters highlighting a voter's history and their neighbors history is a way to increase voter turnout.

On the front of Cruz's flier, it listed 'ELECTION ALERT: VOTER VIOLATION.'

STUDY FINDS CLINTON’SS METHODS WON’T WIN BECAUSE VOTERS FEMALE CANDIDATES DON’T HAVE WHAT IT TAKES 

Researchers say that voters believe female candidates don't have what it takes to dominate the polls.

Cecilia Hyunjung Mo, assistant professor of political science at Vanderbilt University, surveyed 407 individuals in Florida to see if the subconscious holds biases towards female leaders.

Hillary's promises and dedication may not be enough to secure her spot in the White House, as Implicit Association Testing (IAT) shows.

'My study yielded an intriguing finding,' Mo said in a recent interview.

'In following instructions to sort images rapidly, the mind often balked at accepting a woman as a leader.'

Florida was chosen because, when this data was collected the state had about the same number of women in office (23 present) as the number of women who held office in the entire country (24 percent).

IAT is a method used to measure the strengths of associations linking social categories such as, black versus white or good versus bad.

Mo customized the test specifically to reveal if voters subconsciously possessed sexism towards political leaderships and if this would ultimately affect their choice on Election Day.

Participants were quick to associate female names with 'assistant' and 'aide', and male names with 'president' and 'executive'.

Following the survey, Mo asked participants how they would vote in two-person race in a number of different scenarios.

'The more difficulty a person had in classifying a woman as a leader, the less likely the person was to vote for a woman,' Mo said.

'Even when I consider only those who explicitly say that they would support a female candidate, I found that if they have difficulty associating women with leadership attributes, they are less likely to vote for a woman in a noticeable way.'

The study also showed that when participants were given more information about female candidates, many chose them.

This, Mo claimed, suggests people are able to overcome unconscious biases. 

And the other side said 'your individual voting history as well as your neighbor's are public record' and the voter should caucus to 'IMPROVE YOUR SCORE' and warned of 'lower expected voter turnout,' in the area.

The end of the message included a passage that a follow-up is possible.

Although some called this move a 'false representation of an official act', Cruz took home the win in Iowa.

'Subtle forms of social persuasion basically reminding people in subtle ways that others are doing their civic duty, combined with a discussion of some kind of monitoring or compliance, can be most effective,' said Donald Green, political scientist and quantitative methodologist at Columbia University who co-authored that 2008 study. 

 

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