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Understanding the emotional act of voting

Nature Human Behaviour volume 1, Article number: 0024 (2017) Cite this article

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To understand voting behaviour, we must consider voters' emotions and their interaction with electoral arrangements and the complex functions elections serve in democracies. We can then optimize voting via electoral ergonomics — the design of electoral arrangements that consider voters' bodies and minds.

Within the space of five months in 2016, two consecutive electoral earthquakes shook the Western world: the victory of the ‘leave’ (or ‘Brexit’) camp in the 23 June referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union, and that of Donald Trump in the US presidential election of 8 November. Both outcomes seemed to contradict the predictions of opinion polls as well as electoral stock markets, and meant camps that unprecedented national and international stakeholders had warned against ended up winning. The emotional tension of both votes led to questions about what had changed in the political psychology of voters, and indeed of nations, to lead to outcomes that many had thought — or wished — to be impossible.

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Figure 1: Vote for far right parties among polling station and postal voters by age group in the 2010 UK general elections.
Figure 2: How voting at a polling station or on the internet affects young people's emotions during their first vote.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Michael Bruter and Sarah Harrison direct the ECREP initiative at the London School of Economics, London WC2A 2AE, UK.,

    Michael Bruter & Sarah Harrison

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  1. Michael Bruter
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  2. Sarah Harrison
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Correspondence to Michael Bruter.

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Bruter, M., Harrison, S. Understanding the emotional act of voting. Nat Hum Behav 1, 0024 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-016-0024

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