In this series we publish blog posts written by our first year undergraduate students for the PB101 Foundations of Psychological Science course. In this post, Anya Sreenevasan considers the psychological influences that can impact who we choose to vote for. 

How much thought have you put into your vote? Not the one for class president, but the one that really counts – the vote that determines who leads your country. You might have spent hours tearing your hair out over it, but what if I told you that didn’t matter? That in the end, as much as you believe it was your own choice, a different game was being played – one of psychology. In reality, different psychological phenomena all contribute to how presidential candidates convince you to vote for them without you even noticing.

So, if you want to stay a step ahead, read on.

That’s What I Like (by psychology, not Bruno Mars)

First up, we have persuasion. You may be familiar with persuasion, like that time you convinced yourself those shoes were a good idea – but persuasion in psychology is broken down into principles (Cialdini, 2007). What we’re focusing on is the principle of liking. Liking, as Cialdini and Goldstein put it, is when people listen to and follow people who they like. But why? One answer to this is quite simple: we like people who are attractive, also known as the halo effect. Griffin & Langlois’ study proved that people tend to perceive more attractive individuals as more kind  sociable, and intelligent, which are all valuable characteristics for a politician.

So, a candidate doesn’t have to be a genius or philanthropist for people to vote for them – all they have to be is attractive. This is even more intriguing as Praino and colleagues‘ study concludes that voters are ‘easily influenced by good-looking candidates’ when judging a politician. If all you base your vote on is a picture with good lighting and a charismatic smile, your vote is in the bag. Don’t believe me? Look at your social media and you’ll find thousands admiring politicians, just like this TikTok video.

While this may seem funny, it’s also worrying. Everyone should be able to inform themselves without being influenced, especially when it comes to a vote as important as this. I’m here to remind you to keep your eyes on the road and maybe try listening to a speech instead – but that could be just as troublesome.

Shortcut? Yes, please!

Why the worry? Well, you and I both know if given the opportunity to take a shortcut, we’re going to take the shortcut. It’s human nature, literally. As Corcoran and Mussweiler say, humans are cognitive misers, which means that we don’t make the optimal decision and prefer to take the easier route that uses less mental energy. One way we can do this is through heuristics, which are mental shortcuts that make decision-making efficient. Politicians can get you to comply with their requests through heuristics like the foot-in the-door technique, so you can see why this might be concerning.

Take Trump, for example. Using the foot-in-the-door technique, he’d first ask if you want to make America great again – which you say yes to. Then he follows up with a second, larger request and asks you to vote for him. In your mind, you already trust him enough to agree once, so why should you spend more time and energy thinking about doing it again? Pascual and colleagues’ research suggests that the foot-in-the-door technique is heavily effective in getting people to respond to a request positively, which is incredibly useful when you want someone to vote for you, donate money, attend a rally, or spread the word about your campaign. It’s a downhill spiral to success for a politician.

Despite its benefits, you should be careful about what exactly you’re agreeing to with that heuristic, so stay alert, especially with influential politicians. Now, if you’re wondering how they’re so influential you’re in luck – I’m about to answer that.

Rise To Fame

We didn’t have elections thousands of years ago, did we? So, we shouldn’t be able to argue that politicians like Trump possess a phenomenon from the age of the apes that helps them win elections, but we can – thanks to the evolution of prestige. Prestige is acquired when someone shares valuable knowledge and as a result, gains respect (Henrich, 2016). The benefit of prestige to a candidate is that people are more likely to listen to what the prestigious have to say and copy what they do. For us commonfolk, we’re incentivised to follow highly prestigious individuals because their knowledge could help survive and evolve (Henrich, 2016). What’s fascinating is that according to Henrich & Gil-White, the status gained from social exchange can actually increase prestige.

Let’s bring Trump back into the equation. He started out as a businessman, so people knew him because of his successful business deals. These deals went on to elevate his prestige, which helped him transition into politics. Another example is Ukranian President and former actor Volodymyr Zelenskyy. His social status as an actor helped him win his presidency – after all, he hardly made any physical appearances during his virtual campaign. This means his acting elevated his prestige to the point where Ukrainians were confident enough to vote for him. Zelenskyy’s virtual platform is proof of a new era of politics that still relies on prestige and psychology, which is something aspiring politicians should take note of.

Photo of Volodymyr Zelenskyy from Flickr.

The Ethics Of It All

Knowing what you do now, ask yourself, have you voted for a politician because you believe in them, or because they used psychology to their advantage? More importantly, next time you vote, are you going to think about why you really like the candidate, how they asked you to vote for them, and how they’re so prestigious?

You should also consider that what you’ve learnt, if used wrongly, could be manipulative and have ethical consequences. We don’t know if every politician purposefully wields psychology as a weapon, especially when it comes to an evolutionary phenomenon like prestige. When a politician promises the world using psychology and fails, has the science been abused in the name of good?

• This post was originally written as part of PB101: Foundations of Psychological Science, which is a core course on the BSc Psychological and Behavioural Science. It has been published with the permission of the author.
• The opinions in this post are of the author, not of the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science or LSE.
• Cover image by Elena from Pexels.

References

• Cialdini, R. B. (2007). Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Rev. ed.; 1st Collins business essentials ed.). New York: Collins.
• Cialdini, R. B., & Goldstein, N. J. (2002). The Science and Practice of Persuasion. Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, 43(2), 40–50. https://doi.org/10.1177/001088040204300204
• Corcoran, K., & Mussweiler, T. (2010). The cognitive miser’s perspective: Social comparison as a heuristic in self-judgements. European Review of Social Psychology, 21(1), 78 113. https://doi.org/10.1080/10463283.2010.508674
• Donald Trump: Life before the presidency | Miller Center. (2017, April 11). https://millercenter.org/president/trump/life-presidency
• Gibson, T. [@trinitygibson]. (2022, March 11). i hate him, but he was HOT #canda #justintrudeau #primeminister #saskatchewan [Video]. TikTok. https://www.tiktok.com/@trinitygibson/video/7073974652770520326
• Gigerenzer, G., & Gaissmaier, W. (2011). Heuristic Decision Making. Annual Review of Psychology, 62(1), 451–482. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-120709-1453466
• Gray, P. O., & Bjorklund, D. F. (2018). Psychology (8th ed., pp. 493–535). New York, NY : Worth Publishers: Macmillan Education.
• Griffin, A. M., & Langlois, J. H. (2006). Stereotype Directionality and Attractiveness Stereotyping: Is Beauty Good or is Ugly Bad? Social Cognition, 24(2), 187–206. https://doi.org/10.1521/soco.2006.24.2.187
  Henrich, J. (2016). Prestige, Dominance, and Menopause. In The Secret of Our Success (pp. 117–139). Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvc77f0d.11
• Henrich, J., & Gil-White, F. J. (2001). The evolution of prestige: Freely conferred deference as a mechanism for enhancing the benefits of cultural transmission. Evolution and Human Behavior, 22(3), 165–196. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1090-5138(00)00071-4
• Karatnycky, A. (2019, April 24). Ukraine’s new president just won the first ever successful virtual campaign. POLITICO. https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-new-president-volodymyr-zelenskyjust-won-the-first-ever-successful-virtual-campaign/
• Lau, R. R., & Redlawsk, D. P. (2001). Advantages and Disadvantages of Cognitive Heuristics in Political Decision Making. American Journal of Political Science, 45(4), 951–971. https://doi.org/10.2307/2669334
• Pascual, A., Guéguen, N., Pujos, S., & Felonneau, M.-L. (2013). Foot-in-the-door and problematic requests: A field experiment. Social Influence, 8(1), 46–53. https://doi.org/10.1080/15534510.2012.696038
• Praino, R., Stockemer, D., & Ratis, J. (2014). Looking Good or Looking Competent? Physical Appearance and Electoral Success in the 2008 Congressional Elections. American Politics Research, 42(6), 1096–1117. https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X14532825
• Volodymyr Zelensky | Biography, Facts, Presidency, & Russian Invasion of Ukraine | Britannica. (2024, January 27). https://www.britannica.com/biography/Volodymyr-Zelensky