With election day approaching quickly, this week’s lesson on community psychology made me think about the psychology of voting. I early voted last week on a Thursday afternoon and the polls were absolutely packed. I took my fiancé to vote on Saturday and there was a line extended outside of the board of elections! This early voter turnout was fairly shocking to me because when I early voted in the last midterm election (on a weekday afternoon the week before the election just like this year), I was the only person at my polling place. Nationwide statistics support my observations that early voting turnout has has a massive increase, and suggest that the overall election turnout will continue to trend high. “Democratic and Republican analysts, along with independent political scientists, say turnout could approach 50 percent, levels not seen for a midterm since the turbulent 1960s” (US News 2018). This makes me wonder, what compels people to vote? What makes this election different from previous ones? Could community psychology have an effect on voter turnout?
Community psychology can be defined as psychology concerning “the relationships of individuals with communities and society” (Schneider et al. 2012). To me, this definition makes it clear that community psychology and voting go hand and hand; the choice to vote (or not to vote) is a direct reflection of an individual’s relationship with their community and their society, because it shows whether or not that individual has the desire to effect social change and have a voice in community matters.
Multiple concepts discussed by Schneider et. al (2012) suggest ways in which community psychology could be effecting voter turnout. First of all, they assert that there are certain factors which can determine a person’s sense of community—including membership, influence, integration and fulfillment of needs, and shared emotional connection. Of those elements, I think that the one having the largest effect on voter turnout is a strong emotional connection. However, I do not think that the shared emotion that people are bonding over is a positive one: I think that people are coming together based on their shared anxiety and stress. “This year’s midterms, two years after the surprise election of President Trump, have brought on a major case of national anxiety. The tenor and tone of the national discourse has deteriorated to the point that most Americans think it will lead to violence” (Elving 2018). I think that this anxiety has connected many community members based on a shared emotional experience, thus motivating people to be active community members and vote.
Additionally, I think that concept of diffusion of responsibility has come into play in these midterms. As previously cited by Elving, the election of Donald Trump was a huge surprise to democrats. From my personal experience, most people believed that their was no real chance that he would ever get elected. But despite this, “Democratic base did not turn out to vote as it did for Obama. Those sure-Democrats who stayed home handed the election to Trump” (Ben-Shahar 2016). Ben-Shahar points out that Trump did not receive many new voters, but that because of a huge decrease in Democratic party turnout he was able to win the election. I hypothesize that this phenomenon occurred because of diffusion of responsibility. Diffusion of responsibility is, “where observers do not help because they believe that other observers will help” (Schneider et a. 2012). Democrats thought it was so obvious that Trump would not win, that they thought that plenty of others would vote against him and that their vote would not make a big difference, so they did not vote. So, after watching these assumptions be incorrect when Trump was indeed elected, community members now see the importance of their involvement and are showing up at the polls for midterms.
Finally, I think that this midterm election turnout has been influence by organizations and public figures. Whether or not community psychology served to inform these organization and public figures, there strategies are community with how social psychology can work to bring about social change. Over the past few weeks, I have received constant reminders to vote. Facebook has displayed a banner at the top of my new feed reminding me of voter registration and of the beginning of early voting, companies and organizations (such as Planned Parenthood, Greenpeace, and even Chipotle) have sent me text reminders to vote, and citizens have marched down the streets of my city with signs and banners reminding their community to vote. Not only have all of these sources served as a reminder to vote, they all provided information on how and where to vote with links to websites that will tell you your early voting and election day polling location, as well as that location’s hours. I would classify these methods of influence under the community psychology tactics of citizen participation and popular education—because they encouraged citizens to be involved in their communities and shared important information on how to do so (Schneider et al. 2012).
Overall, I think it is clear that community psychology has played a large roll in this year’s midterm election so far. Voters in 2018 are coming into election season with a shared emotional experience of anxiety, a better understanding of the error of diffusion of responsibility, and strong encouragement from public actors to vote. I hope that in future elections, people’s sense of community will remain strong and voter turnout will continue to rise. I believe that if influential organizations and public actors continue to use principals of community psychology, that rise will be possible.
Works Cited
Ben-Shahar, Omri. “The Non-Voters Who Decided The Election: Trump Won Because Of Lower Democratic Turnout.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 14 June 2018, www.forbes.com/sites/omribenshahar/2016/11/17/the-non-voters-who-decided-the-election-trump-won-because-of-lower-democratic-turnout/#43b9b9fa53ab.
Elving, Ron. “There’s Plenty To Stress Over In The ‘Anxiety Election.’ But What Will It Settle?” NPR, NPR, 3 Nov. 2018, www.npr.org/2018/11/03/663752006/theres-plenty-to-stress-over-in-the-anxiety-election-but-what-will-it-settle.
Schneider, F.W., Gruman, J.A., Coutts, L.M. (2012). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (2nd ed). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
“States’ Early Turnout Setting Records Ahead of Election Day.” U.S. News & World Report, U.S. News & World Report, 3 Nov. 2018, 12:35 a.m., www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2018-11-03/states-early-turnout-setting-records-ahead-of-election-day.
Reading your post was like reading something that came from my own mind. Voting is so important and I think our country really got a sense of that in the 2016 election. The division in the country is increasing, I do see it escalating to violence in fact in several cases it has. Also, many of the teenagers who weren’t 18 before, are now able to vote and I think that is going a long way to increase voter turn out. Watching what happens when you don’t vote, when you assume everyone else will is by far the biggest motivation for voters this election season. We want to be heard and this is the best way to do that.