Abstract
We study how payoff valence affects voting behavior on the distribution of monetary outcomes framed as gains or losses in a group when using standard plurality voting (PV) procedures and when using approval voting (AV). The latter method allows the subjects to approve of as many alternatives as they wish and has been shown to eliminate the incentives to vote strategically. For both methods, we observe that voters express higher support for egalitarian allocations (and lower support for selfish options) when sharing gains than when sharing losses. Moreover, the average number of approved alternatives per ballot is higher when distributions are framed in terms of gains than when they are framed in terms of losses. We also discuss under which circumstances the shift in voting behavior is more likely to produce changes in the electoral outcome. The results suggest that framing manipulations (payoff valence) can significantly impact voting behavior.
Highlights
An extensive theoretical and empirical literature has discussed the virtues and vices of different voting methods (e.g., Riker, 1982)
We find that manipulating the payoff valence in terms of gains or losses from a reference point significantly affects voting behavior, in the sense of increasing the support of the selfish alternative under losses
That is when sharing losses in this voting context, subjects are mainly concerned about minimizing their losses and, they support the selfish alternative less often under a gain frame than under a loss frame
Summary
An extensive theoretical and empirical literature has discussed the virtues and vices of different voting methods (e.g., Riker, 1982). Several empirical studies have tested the performance of AV in the field by conducting large-scale field experiments during actual elections (Laslier and Van der Straeten, 2008; Alós-Ferrer and Granic, 2010, 2012; Baujard and Igersheim, 2010) and in the lab (Laslier, 2010; Bassi, 2015; Granic, 2017). This method has been adopted (in sometimes slightly altered forms) by many scientific, engineering, and professional societies, including, among others, the American Mathematical Society, the U.S National Academy of Sciences, the election of Secretary-General of the United Nations, and the Social Choice and Welfare Society. It has been proposed as an alternative for political elections and is currently used for municipal elections in Fargo (North Dakota) and Saint Louis (Missouri)
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