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Correcting mistakes: cognitive dissonance and political attitudes in Sweden and the United States

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Abstract

Cognitive dissonance theory predicts that the act of voting makes people more positive toward the party or candidate they have voted for. Following Mullainathan and Washington (Am. Econ. J. Appl. Econ. 1:86–111, 2009), I test this prediction by using exogenous variation in turnout provided by the voting age restriction. I improve on previous studies by investigating political attitudes, measured just before elections, when they are highly predictive of voting. In contrast to earlier studies I find no effect of voting on political attitudes. This result holds for both Sweden and the United States.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN) and Uppsala Center for Fiscal Studies (UCFS), Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

    Mikael Elinder

  2. Department of Economics, Uppsala University, Box 513, 75120, Uppsala, Sweden

    Mikael Elinder

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  1. Mikael Elinder
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Correspondence to Mikael Elinder.

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Supplementary material to: “Correcting mistakes: Cognitive dissonance and political attitudes in Sweden and the United States” (PDF 94 KB)

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Elinder, M. Correcting mistakes: cognitive dissonance and political attitudes in Sweden and the United States. Public Choice 153, 235–249 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-011-9791-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-011-9791-1

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