Psychological Threat and Turnout Misreporting

Kuhn, Patrick M; Mellish, Samuel; Vivyan, Nick

Abstract

Direct survey measures of turnout often suffer from misreporting, particularly among non-voters. We investigate whether turnout misreporting in online surveys can be reduced by two new turnout question designs aimed at strengthening or buffering respondent's self-integrity against the perceived psychological threat of admitting non-voting. Drawing on evidence from survey experiments embedded in vote validated online surveys after the 2016 UK EU Referendum, we find that neither technique significantly improves turnout reporting accuracy. Our findings inform innovations in survey measurement of turnout and sensitive survey topics more generally.

Citation

Kuhn, P. M., Mellish, S., & Vivyan, N. (2021). Psychological Threat and Turnout Misreporting. Electoral Studies, 70, Article 102276. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2020.102276

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 29, 2020
• Online Publication Date: Jan 15, 2021
• Publication Date: 2021
• Deposit Date: Jan 5, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 15, 2022
• Journal: Electoral Studies
• Print ISSN: 0261-3794
• Electronic ISSN: 1873-6890
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 70
• Article Number: 102276
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2020.102276
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1282358