The question of the article is whether cognitive dissonance plays a role in the elections and the voting process. Cognitive dissonance supposes that people who have chosen a specific behavior will align their attitudes according to such behavior. In case the behavior is realized to be unwanted or negative later, the individual will be even more inclined to repeat the behavior and support it by changing their attitude to fit that behavior.
This is an important issue because it greatly affects the results of the election and the way people view themselves and the government. If people chose leaders only due to a misplaced feeling of self worth or importance of their own comfort and self respect, than the leaders chosen do not really reflect the qualities of morality and justice. This means that people select leaders out of lowered feelings of own opinions and thus, the whole system becomes pointless.
The framework that is used to study the problem is the statistical method that will compare people who are eligible to vote, versus those who are not yet of age, thus do not vote. The outcome of the future elections and preferences are predicted to be affected by the previous selection of the candidate.
Specific aspects of individuals are examined, more particularly age, previous knowledge of the candidate and general political education, as well as interest in government and economical state of the country. Preferential views of the members of the same party are also taken into account.
This sort of research model is advantageous, as it addresses issues that were given little attention in the past. Also, the age of voting has been changed and this added a large amount of population to the voting process. The authors also address the voting by other racial groups and this issue has become a significant determinant. Placebo technique was used in the study to determine the effecting variables and biases of the study.
Data that used was taken from the statistics of previous voting processes. Voting numbers from 1978 until year 2000 are being analyzed, to determine any patterns or irregularities. The National Election Study or NES is being used to determine people’s political attitudes, behaviors and general views towards politicians, governmental institutions and elections in general. There were also interviews conducted that included personal questions.
As the opinions of individuals greatly vary, NES allows for a more specific determination of opinions towards certain politicians. The dependent variable was the amount of individual feeling people had towards the president. A number of personal characteristics of the leader that people expect to see were also included, to give a better picture of what the public views as important qualities of a politician.
The tables used in the study show the relationship between different social classes and races. Marital status, education, place of residence, age, race and preference to a specific political party were considered to show the statistical difference between people’s beliefs and behaviors. Also, variables were compared according to presidential elections and senatorial ones.
The results have shown that there is a positive correlation between previous voting and future selection of the candidate. Even though there are limitations and variables that cannot be fully controlled, there is dependency which leads to polarization. Further studies and testing are needed to increase the reliability of such studies.