Center for Behavioral Decision Research

CBDR : Seminar Series : Seminar by Todd Rogers

Behavioral Science in the Wild: Three Ways Field Experiments were Used by Practitioners in the 2008 Election Cycle

	presented by Todd Rogers (Analyst Institute)


	Thursday, March 19	link to paper
	12pm
	Porter 223D	link to Speaker's Site

	Abstract:

	I will illustrate three ways that experiments were used by progressive organizations this election cycle. I will focus on one of those uses, generalizable theory building, and discuss an experiment involving a universe of over 200,000 eligible voters during the 2008 PA Primary election. Targets were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: untreated control, standard get-out-the-vote script (standard GOTV), standard GOTV plus a question asking whether the targeted intended to vote (self-prediction), and standard GOTV plus self-prediction plus three logistics questions about how the target will follow through on her intention to vote (implementation intention). The standard GOTV script had no impact on overall turnout. Similarly, self-prediction alone had no impact on turnout. Implementation intentions increased overall turnout by 4.1 percentage points. Moreover, among single-eligible-voter households, targets were 9.1 percentage points more likely to vote after receiving the implementation intentions script, whereas those in households with multiple eligible voters showed no increase in turnout from any of the scripts. Whether or not a target lived with other eligible voters significantly interacted with the script they received. I suggest that this heterogeneity resulted from the social context in which targets reside: those who live with others who likely share their intention to vote are more likely to organically engage in plan-making, thereby rendering a plan-making intervention useless. Consistent with this interpretation, those in single-eligible-voter households were much more likely to answer “Do not know” to all questions about their voting plans. I will discuss the implications of this research for voter mobilization, the formation of implementation intentions in the world, and other public advocacy interventions aimed at inducing the formation of implementation intentions.

	Host at CMU: Fischhoff