When heuristics go bad: Voters’ perceptions of campaign pledge fulfillment François Pétry & Dominic Duval Laval University

2 Research questions Does political knowledge improve accuracy of evaluations of pledge fulfillment? How heavily do voters rely on heuristic shortcuts to compensate for their lack of political knowledge? Can heuristics go bad? Can incorrect heuristics mislead voters into making inaccurate evaluations? How general are our results?

3 Theory Attacks on voters political competence Walter Lippman’s view of public opinion as people’s “stereotypes” and “pictures in their heads.” Converse’s “non attitudes.” Political survey respondents answer at random by flipping a mental coin. Rehabilitation of voters political competence Page and Shapiro’s “rational public” revealed through the miracle of aggregation. Condorcet’s jury theorem. Popkin’s “low information rationality.” Voters use heuristics to acquire knowledge faster and more efficiently

4 Theory (cont.) Renewed skepticism about political competence Bartels’ and Gilens’ “unequal democracy” Althaus’ “information effect” Heuristics are not always good Tversky and Kahnemann’s “heuristics and biases” Heuristics often lead to misinformation. “Heuristics behaving badly”: Heuristics are most advantageous to the politically sophisticated when correct, but they are most disadvantageous to the sophisticated when incorrect (Duch, Palmer and Anderson; Lau and Redlawsk; Dancey and Sheagly).

5 Expectations about Trust Heurisitc Political trust: “voters’ perception that government is producing actions consistent with their expectations” (Hetherington) Classic expectation based on Trust as a retrospective “running tally” (Fiorina):Trust is associated with positive evaluations of fulfilled pledges; mistrust is associated with negative evaluations of unfulfilled pledges. Deviant expectation based on Trust as heuristic (Hetherington; Rosenvallon & Goldhammer):Trusting voters evaluate pledges as fulfilled, even when they are not fulfilled. Distrusting voters evaluate pledges as unfulfilled, even when they are fulfilled. Negativity bias (Soroka) amplifies the effect of political distrust on evaluation relative to the effect of political trust.

6 Expectations about Party ID Heuristic Classic expectation based on Party ID as a “running tally” (Fiorina):Government Party ID associated with positive evaluations of fulfilled pledges; opposition party ID associated with negative evaluations of unfulfilled pledges. Deviant expectation based on the Michigan model (Campbell, Bartels):Gov. Party identifiers positively evaluate pledge fulfillment, regardless of actual pledge fulfillment. Opposition Party identifiers negatively evaluate pledge fulfillment, regardless of actual pledge fulfillment.

7 Expectations about Personal Experience Heuristic Classic expectation: Voters’ with personal experience of specific pledges make better informed and more accurate evaluations of pledge fulfillment Deviant expectation: Personal experience amplifies one’s subjective bias about pledge and this increases the likelihood of inaccurate evaluations: Wishful thinking: positive evaluations irrespective of actual performance Fear and loathing: negative evaluations irrespective of actual performance

8 Expectations about political knowledge Classic expectation: The accuracy of evaluation of pledge fulfillment increases as one moves from low to high levels of political knowledge. Deviant expectation: The accuracy of evaluation of pledge fulfillment increases as one moves from low to high levels of political knowledge when the correct heuristic is used. When the incorrect heuristic is used, the accuracy of evaluation decreases as one moves from low to high levels of political knowledge.

9 Contextual Heuristics Hypotheses: Correct heurisitcs. Comprised of Govt party ID, high trust, a positive experience of the issue when a pledge is fulfilled or Opposition party ID, low trust, and a negative experience when a pledge is unfulfilled. Correct heuristics increase the likelihood of accurate evaluations relative to incorrect heuristics. Correct heuristics also increase the likelihood of accurate evaluations as one moves from low to high levels of political knowledge. Incorrect heuristics: Comprised of Govt party ID, high trust, a positive experience of the issue when a pledge is unfulfilled or Opposition party ID, low trust, and a negative experience when a pledge is fulfilled. Incorrect heuristic increase the likelihood of inaccurate evaluations. They also increases the likelihoof of inaccurate evaluations as one moves from low to high levels of political knowledge.

10 Dependent variable Quebec Vote Compass survey administered in the weeks following the 2012 Quebec election. N=11,647. Survey respondents are asked to evaluate pledges in the 2012 Party québécois manifesto as either « fulfilled », « partly fulfilled », « not fulfilled » or « don’t know ». Voters’ evaluations are then compared with the verdicts by experts from the Marois polimeter project.

Marois Polimeter 11

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Political trust Political trust is measured by asking respondents whether they believe elected politicians keep most of their promises on a scale from zero (no trust) to ten (high trust) 13

Party ID; Personal experience & Political knowledge Party ID is measured by asking respondents which party they identify most generally speaking Political knowledge is a scale combining measures of respondents’ political information and media exposure Personal experience is operationalized using survey questions that indicate whether respondents had a positive personal experience of the issue on which a pledge was made 14

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Trust 17

Party ID 18

Personal Experience 19

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26 Trust (Thomson 2011)

27 Party ID (Thomson 2011)

28 Personal Experience (Thomson 2011)

Conclusion Political knowledge does not always increase accuracy of evaluations. Sometimes it decreases accuracy, sometimes it has no statistical impact. Voters rely heavily on the party ID heuristic, but also on personal experience and political trust. Correct use of heuristics always improves political knowledge. Incorrect use of heuristics almost always leads to misinformation. Sometimes, misinformation is more severe among the well informed. Do citizens’ evaluations of pledge fulfillment influence the vote? Some lessons on how to respond to voters’ ignorance of pledge fulfillment? 29

30 Thank you for your attention. Any questions?