The effects of choice context on decision-making: An application to voter fatigue.

by Scott Nicholson

This paper exploits a natural experiment in which choice fatigue is isolated as an explanation for the usage of heuristics in decision-making. The empirical application provides evidence that voters who see a given contest relatively further down the ballot are more likely to vote "no" and to abstain. Within-election exogenous variation in ballot position is primarily due to differences in the set of overlaying local political jurisdictions. My central finding is that lowering a proposition 10 positions on the ballot increases precinct-level "no" votes and undervotes by 1.3 and 0.7 percentage points, respectively. Interestingly, 8 of 124 statewide propositions in the dataset have winning margins within the range of the "no" estimate. The empirical analysis employs a unique precinct-level panel dataset of votes cast for the entire menu of federal, state & local ballot choices in primary and general elections between 1992 and 2006 in San Diego County, California. Implications of the results range from the dissemination of information by firms and policy makers to the design of electoral institutions and the strategic use of ballot propositions.

74 pages, NOOK Study eTextbook

First published September 4, 2011

About the author

Dr. Scott Nicholson is an Associate Professor at Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies and the Director of the Because Play Matters game lab. His areas of interest include meaningful gamification and the creation of transformative games for informal learning and training. During the 2011-2012 academic year, he was a visiting professor at MIT in Comparative Media Studies and the GAMBIT game lab. Dr. Nicholson is a published board game designer, wrote the book Everyone Plays at the Library, and was an academic reference librarian. His research blog is at http://becauseplaymatters.com.