Weather Affects Voting Decisions

Abstract

If election outcomes in democratic societies followed rational choice models, individuals would make their decision after deliberately considering electoral options. The current research finds, however, that an incidental factor – weather on Election Day – affects voting decisions. Specifically, we find that higher wind speed increases vote totals in favor of campaigns that reflect safety, risk-aversion, and status quo preservation. We present a causal theoretical model for how wind speed affects voting decisions: higher wind speed increases a psychological prevention focus that makes voters opt for prevention-focused options (e.g., status-quo) rather than promotion-focused options (e.g., change). The results of a series of archival analyses of actual elections (the “Brexit” vote, the Scotland independence referendum, 10 years of Swiss referendums, and 100 years of US presidential elections), two field studies, and four experiments support the idea that individuals exposed to higher wind speeds become more prevention focused and more likely to support prevention-focused electoral options. We present data that shows that regulatory focus is the mechanism linking wind speed to electoral vote totals through both the experimental-causal-chain method and through statistical moderation. Our experimental-causal-chain approach found that (a) an experimental manipulation of wind speed affected regulatory focus; (b) an experimental manipulation of wind speed affected voting decisions; (c) an experimental manipulation of regulatory focus affected voting decisions. Our analysis of the Swiss referendums and US presidential elections found that wind speed only affected elections involving clear prevention versus promotion options. The findings highlight the importance of incidental environmental factors for voting decisions.