TY - JOUR
T1 - Cognitive dissonance, political participation, and changes in policy preferences
AU - Artiga Gonzalez, Tanja
AU - Capozza, Francesco
AU - Granic, Georg
N1 - JEL-classification: C93, D72, D91
PY - 2024/12
Y1 - 2024/12
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
U2 - 10.1016/j.joep.2024.102774
DO - 10.1016/j.joep.2024.102774
M3 - Article
SN - 0167-4870
VL - 105
JO - Journal of Economic Psychology
JF - Journal of Economic Psychology
M1 - 102774
ER -