Implicit attitudes and inconsistent issue voting: the example of the radical right vote*

Transcription

1 Implicit attitudes and inconsistent issue voting: the example of the radical right vote* David Johann (University of Vienna) Sylvia Kritzinger (University of Vienna) Colin Tucker Smith (University of Florida) Be aware: 1st DRAFT Please do not cite without author s permission Abstract Keywords Correct voting, Consistent voting, Explicit versus Implicit Attitudes, SC-IAT, Austria *This work is supported by the Austrian National Election Study (AUTNES), a National Research Network (NFN) sponsored by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) [S10902-G11]. We thank Johann Gründl and Lena Raffetseder for their helpful support. 1

2 Introduction In the area of issue voting it is often assumed that voters should choose the party which is closest to them in terms of issue preferences. Hence, voters are supposed to act rationally choosing the party with the highest utilities. It follows that the issue distance between a party s policy position and the one of the voter acts as predictor of electoral preferences (e.g. Downs, 1957; Grofman and Merrill, 1999). If voters choose the party that corresponds best with their attitudes and preferences this is sometimes labelled as correct voting (e.g. Lau and Redlawsk, 1997; Lau et al., 2008; Rosema and de Vries, 2011; Kraft, 2012; Johann and Glantschnigg, 2013) and sometimes as consistent voting (e.g. Baum and Jamison, 2006; Schmitt-Beck and Kraft, 2014). 1 Consistent voting is widely considered a normatively desirable behaviour (e.g. Lau et al., 2008; Johann and Glantschnigg, 2013; Schmitt-Beck and Kraft, 2014). For example, Lau et al. argue: [V]otes freely given are meaningless unless they accurately reflect a citizen s true preferences (2008: 396). Scholarly work has however shown that not all citizens vote consistently with their policy preferences. In contrast, a considerable amount of voters rather vote for parties that do not best represent their policy preferences (e.g. Rosema and de Vries, 2011; Kraft, 2012; Wagner et al., 2012; Lau et al., 2013; Johann and Glantschnigg, 2013). A large number of studies have therefore tried to identify factors that help (or hinder) the voters to choose the party that best represents their policy preferences. Factors researchers analysed are on the one hand, voters cognitive capacity, voters motivation and voter heuristics (e.g. Lau et al., 2008; Kraft, 2012; Popa, 2012; Johann and Glantschnigg, 2013), and on the other hand, information effects such as political conversation, campaign contacts and news media coverage (Baum and Jamison, 2006; Johann and Glantschnigg, 2013; Schmitt-Beck and Kraft, 2014). What all these studies have in common is that they first and foremost examine consistent voting as a result of an individual s deliberative/explicit cognitive components that underlie its decision-making processes. In other words, they only focus on voters capacity and motivation to detect the party which best suits their individual policy preferences. When analysing citizens political attitudes and behaviour, recent research has however also started to consider implicit processes and attitudes as potential influencing factors (e.g. Glaser and Finn, 1 In the following we use the term consistent voting. 2

3 2013). Unlike explicit attitudes these implicit attitudes derive from possibly unconscious cognitive processes of the individual: they occur without individuals being able to modify them through processes of conscious reflexion (e.g. Plischke, 2012). The question then arises whether implicit affective processes influence voters party choice the same way as the aforementioned explicit attitudes. As the direction and strength of an implicit attitude is relatively difficult for an individual to consciously control, one might assume the effects of implicit attitudes to differ from those of explicit attitudes. Particularly, in regards to inconsistent voting implicit attitudes might provide additional explanatory power. Hence, in this paper we aim to take implicit attitudes in addition to explicit attitudes into account when exploring consistent voting. In particular, we are interested in analysing potential differences across types of attitudes on consistent voting. We assume that due to the lower control respondents can exert on implicit attitudes, they have unique effects on consistent voting. Moreover, we expect that implicit attitudes affect inconsistent voting much stronger than explicit attitudes. As such, we strive to provide an additional explanation why voters do not vote consistently with their policy preferences. We use data from a national election study, namely the Austrian national election study (AUTNES). In an online panel survey capturing campaign effects, we conducted an experiment measuring implicit attitude: the Single Category Implicit Association Test (SC-IAT). The experiment is designed to capture implicit attitudes towards one of the political parties running in the campaign: the radical-right Austrian Freedom Party, FPÖ. Hence, we study the question of (in)consistent issue voting and implicit attitudes using the example of right-wing voting. In addition to the measure capturing implicit attitudes, AUTNES also included several questions on explicit attitudes (e.g. party identification) as well as issue preferences. In the remainder of the paper, we first consider consistent and inconsistent voting before describing implicit attitudes and our hypotheses in more detail. After presenting our data and methods, we show evidence that implicit attitudes overall exert an unique effect on vote choice, but most importantly, they are an important factor in explaining why individuals choose a party (in our case a radical-right party) that does not represent their party preferences best. Implicit attitudes influence an individual s behaviour which from a cost-benefit perspective conflict with 3

4 her policy preferences. We conclude by pointing out new avenues for experimental research on citizens behaviour. Vote Choice Models on Consistent Voting and Explicit and Implicit Attitudes Based on the assumption that voters act rationally, citizens voting decisions are considered to be based on their issue stances (e.g. Downs, 1957; Grofmann and Merrill, 1999). Citizens should be able to select between political actors and make a choice that is consistent with their own views, attitudes and preferences, otherwise they may fail to choose actors that represent their interests best (e.g. Lau and Redlawsk, 1997). This type of behaviour is commonly known as consistent voting (e.g. Baum and Jamison, 2006; Schmitt-Beck and Kraft, 2014). However, citizens often choose a party that does not represent their policy preferences (e.g. Lau et al., 2013; Johann and Glantschnigg, 2013), sometimes even without realizing it (e.g. Lenz, 2012). First, indicators such as the individuals education degree, their level of political knowledge and interest in politics are considered important assets which allow them to detect the party which best suits their individual policy preferences (e.g. Lau et al., 2008; Kraft, 2012; Popa, 2012). At the same time, empirical research has shown that voters are often quite uninformed and unknowledgeable about parties policy positions. In these circumstances, voters in general use heuristics (substitutes for information and knowledge) to find their ideal party (and to vote for it). Party identification is often considered as such a characteristic (e.g. Popkin 1991; Popa, 2012). The party simply supplies cues by which the individual evaluates elements of politics, and hence, policy orientations (preferences) are considered effects of party identification (Rohrschneider and Whitefield, 2012; Smith et al., 2012). From this perspective consistent voting is the outcome of citizens deliberate responses which are controlled and reflective. This is a common approach in survey research interested in opinions and behaviours of individuals. But what if consistent voting is driven by parameters other than those explicit and deliberate ones? Overall, research in the area of social psychology assumes that human social cognition follows a dual process: on the one hand, there are explicit attitudes that determine the behaviour of humans, on the other hand, humans possess also implicit attitudes. The latter humans cannot control to the 4

5 same extent as the explicit ones: As they are not (or less) aware of them (Bargh, 1994), humans have greater difficulties accessing them that easily if at all (e.g. Banaji, Lemm and Carpenter, 2001). 2 The exposure to a target automatically releases a reaction, which can be considered an implicit attitude towards the target (e.g. Lodge and Taber, 2005). 3 In contrast, explicit attitudes stem from a deliberative process of the information on the target and are put consciously in contrast with previous beliefs and attitudes. While recent research has thus acknowledged that implicit processes impacts citizens behaviours in addition to citizens explicit cognitive processes, research in political science has widely neglected the effect of spontaneous (affective) reactions on citizens behaviour in general and on vote choice model in particular. Recent research in social psychology has however impressively shown that these implicit attitudes can predict political behaviour (e.g. Jost et al., 2009; e.g. Arcuri et al., 2008), and so, the relationship between political outcomes and implicit processes has become a research focus in this area (Ksiazkiewicz and Hedrick, 2013). Based on this research, in this paper we merge the different research traditions from the area of political science and social psychology, and examine both explicit and implicit attitudes in explaining consistent voting behaviour. The overall question we follow in this paper is the extent to which both explicit and implicit attitudes impact citizens consistent voting behaviour. While we already know how explicit attitudes affect consistent voting patterns (see before), we still lack knowledge on the impact of implicit attitudes, and in particular, whether they can exert a unique effect. As implicit attitudes cannot be consciously modified (Plischke, 2012), they may provide additional explanation on citizens voting patterns in particular, on those which do not reflect on their policy preferences, namely inconsistent voting. Furthermore, implicit associations may set the respondents on the wrong track because implicit associations can bias the interpretation of information and/or lead to selective exposure to information in a way that is consistent with the implicit attitudes (Gawronski et al., 2015) but inconsistent with the explicit attitudes. Hence, the more fine-grained research question of this paper is whether and how the two types of attitudes differ in their effect on consistent voting patterns. 2 Some research even suggests that explicit and implicit attitudes stem from different neural pathways (Stanley, Phelps, and Banaji, 2008) 3 For a thorough review on this literature see Ksiazkiewicz and Hedrick (2013). 5

6 We study the following hypotheses. We expect that both types of attitudes have an effect on citizens voting patterns. So far research has assumed that all factors influencing consistent voting do conversely also provide explanation for inconsistent voting. 4 However, one might also assume that different mechanisms explain consistent and inconsistent voting patterns. Therefore, we study the effect of both explicit and implicit attitudes separately for consistent and inconsistent voting. Starting with explicit attitudes we follow Campbell et al. (1954) who state that party identification acts as an explicit connection to a party. Party identification helps to reduce the policy distances between voters and party as the latter ones [ ] formulate issues based on the interests of its social base (Rohrschneider and Whitefield, 2012: 1322). As such, party identification can be considered an important heuristic to predict vote choice (e.g. Bartels 2000). H1a: The stronger a voter s party identification the more likely she votes consistently with her party preferences. H1b: PID has no effect on the likelihood to vote inconsistently. When exploring implicit attitudes we overall do also expect a positive association between attitude and behaviour. But with regards to inconsistent voting we expect that implicit attitudes release a different behaviour. Hence, we state the following: H2: The more positive a voter s implicit association with a specific party, the more likely she votes for the party independent of whether she should vote for the party in terms of attitudes congruence. As in socially sensitive areas implicit attitudes tend to predict behaviour better than explicit attitudes (Greenwald et al., 2009; Ksiazkiewicz and Hedrick, 2013), 5 in order to test our hypotheses we focus on right-wing voting. Voting for radical right parties is in general considered a socially undesirable behaviour (Aichholzer et al., 2014) where implicit attitudes might provide additional leverage to understand citizens behaviour. 4 In the sense, that voters formulating positive explicit/implicit attitudes towards a party are more likely to vote consistently with their policy preferences, while voters formulating negative explicit/implicit attitudes towards a party are less likely to vote consistently with their policy preferences. 5 In socially less sensitive areas implicit measures might be less important in explaining behaviour. There, the explicit measures are capturing the individual s behaviour to a large extent (e.g. Roccato and Zogmaister, 2010). 6

7 Data and Methods Data To analyze our research question we use the AUTNES TV-Debates Panel Study 2013 (Kritzinger et al., 2014a, 2014b), a four-wave online panel study conducted during (waves 1 to 3) and after (wave 4) the Austrian national election campaign The AUTNES TV-Debates Panel Study 2013 is based on a quota sample which represents some of the main characteristics of the Austrian population (age, gender, region). 7 Only respondents with access to the internet were surveyed. N=1414 respondents (of N=3084 respondents who took part in wave 1) participated in all four waves (see Kritzinger et al., 2014b). Dependent variable Our dependent variable indicates (1) whether or not the respondents voted for the FPÖ and, in case they voted for the FPÖ, (2) whether or not their vote choice was attitude consistent. Attitude consistent means that the voters voted for the party that is closest to them in terms of policy preferences, attitude inconsistent in turn means that the voters voted for a party that is not closest to them in terms of policy preferences. Whether or not a respondents vote choice corresponds with their policy preferences is evaluated by employing the left-right proximity. The respondents left-right position is measured using the classic 11-point-scale. 8 In order to measure the parties left-right positions we draw on the AUTNES candidate survey (Müller et al., 2015) and use the mean rating of the candidates of the respective parties. We consider the parties in parliament (in addition to the FPÖ, the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ), the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP), The Greens, The New Austria (NEOS) and the Team Stronach) as well as the Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ) that failed to reach the four-per cent threshold to enter parliament. 6 Field time wave 1: August 14-26, 2013; Field time wave 2: September 9-12, 2013 (Split 1), and September 17-19, 2013 (Split 2); Field time wave 3: September 26-29, 2013; Field time wave 4: September 30-October 6, 2013 (see Kritzinger et al., 2014a; Kritzinger et al., 2014b). 7 The sample is composed of 47.6% men and 52.4% women (population: 48.8% men, 51.2% women). Young citizens (20 to 29-years-olds: 20.3% [population: 14.9%]; 30 to 39-years-olds: 18.4% [population: 15.1%]) are overrepresented, older citizens (70+: 3.3% [population: 15.2%]) are underrepresented (see Kritzinger et al., 2014a, 2014b). 8 In politics people often talk about left and right. Where would you place yourself on a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 means left and 10 means right? 7

8 Table 1 indicates how the dependent variable is distributed. 25% of the respondents declared to have voted for the FPÖ, 9 75% declared to not have voted for the FPÖ. Approximately half of the respondents who voted for the FPÖ casted an inconsistent vote, meaning they chose the party not closest to them in terms of left-right proximity. Table 1: Dependent variable in % Did not vote for the FPÖ (501) Did vote for the FPÖ & vote choice inconsistent (FPÖ not closest party) (84) Did vote for the FPÖ & vote choice consistent (FPÖ closest party) (83) Total (668) Main co-variates Explicit attitudes towards the FPÖ: Party identification (PID) In order to measure the explicit attitudes towards the FPÖ we draw on four questions that indicate whether and to what extent the respondents feel close to a particular political party (for more information on the question wording, see Appendix B). Combining these four questions we build a 4-point-scale ranging from 0= I do not feel close to the FPÖ to 1= I feel very close to the FPÖ (Mean=0.09, SD=0.23). Implicit attitudes towards the FPÖ: SC-IAT Unlike explicit attitudes, implicit attitudes cannot be measured by directly addressing these attitudes (e.g. Gawronski et al., 2015; Plischke, 2012). Hence, indirect measures such as the Implicit Association Test (IAT) (Greenwald et al., 1998) or the Affect Misattribution Procedure (AMP) (Payne et al., 2005) have been widely used in the literature to capture implicit attitudes. In order to measure implicit attitudes towards the FPÖ we use a modification of the classical IAT, namely the Single Category Implicit Association Test (SC-IAT) (Karpinski & Steinman, 2006; for more information on the AUTNES s SC-IAT, see Kritzinger et al., 2014b, 2014c). The SC-IAT follows 9 Actual vote share of the FPÖ was 20.5 per cent. 8

9 the same procedure as the original IAT, but only one target category (in this case the FPÖ) and two attribute categories are needed instead of two contrasting target categories and two attribute categories as in a classical IAT design (Karpinski and Steinman, 2006; Kritzinger et al., 2014b). The design of the AUTNES s SC-IAT is based on implicit association tests that are provided by Project Implicit 10. Respondents in the AUTNES s SC-IAT were redirected to a separate webpage after completing the regular questionnaire of wave 3. In total N=1258 respondents completed the SC-IAT (see Kritzinger et al., 2014a). The SC-IAT scores are based on reaction times (see e.g. Karpinski and Steinman, 2006; Plischke, 2012): The respondents were requested to use the keys E and I of their keyboard in order to categorize specific words or images that were displayed on their screen as fast as they could while making as few mistakes as possible (see Kritzinger et al., 2014b, 2014c). The AUTNES-SC-IAT consisted of three blocks (see Table 1). In the first block the respondents were confronted with negatively (Pain, Torture, Fear, Hate, Murder) and positively (Love, Luck, Joy, Fun, Peace) connoted words. These words had to be allocated to the attribute categories Bad (E-key) and Good (I-key). In blocks 2 and 3 the respondents were additionally confronted with stimuli of the FPÖ (FPÖ, Die FPÖ, Die Blauen, Die Freiheitlichen). In Block 2 the positively and negatively connoted words as well as the stimuli of the FPÖ had to be allocated to the categories Bad (E-key) and Good or FPÖ (I-key), in Block 3 the positively and negatively connoted words as well as the stimuli of the FPÖ had to be assigned to the categories Bad or FPÖ (E-key) and Good (I-key) (Block 3) (see Table 1 and Kritzinger et al., 2014c). Table 2: Setup AUTNES SC-IAT Block Category labels for left Category labels for Aim Trials response key (key E ) right response key (key I ) 1 Bad vs. Good Training 15 2 Bad vs. Good or FPÖ Measurement 40 3 Bad or FPÖ vs. Good Measurement 40 The following stimuli were used: Good: Love, Luck, Joy, Fun, Peace; Bad: Pain, Torture, Fear, Hate, Murder; FPÖstimuli: FPÖ, Die FPÖ, Die Blauen, Die Freiheitlichen

10 The first block only serves for training purposes (e.g. Plischke, 2012). In order to assess the implicit attitudes towards the FPÖ, the Blocks 2 and 3 are needed. Respondents who complete the SC-IAT according to the introduction unconsciously use their spontaneous affect towards the stimuli as aids in order to cope with the task (e.g. Plischke, 2012). Hence, respondents who completed Block 2 faster than Block 3 are considered to have relatively positive associations with the FPÖ; respondents who completed Block 3 faster than Block 2 are considered to have relatively negative associations with the FPÖ. The SC-IAT scores were computed by (a) subtracting the reaction times of the third block from the reaction times of the second block and by (b) dividing the resulting difference value by the intra-individual standard deviation of all reaction times. This procedure takes into account that the general reaction-time differs between individuals (see e.g. Plischke, 2012). The magnitude of the relative difference between the reaction times of Block 2 and Block 3 indicates the strength of the preferences (e.g., Ksiazkiewicz and Hedrick, 2013). It is common practice (see e.g. Friese et al., 2012; Greenwald et al., 1998; Plischke, 2012) that respondents, who completed at least 10% of their trials in less than 300 ms or more than 3000 ms, respectively, and/or who completed the SC-IAT with more than 25% errors (= incorrect allocation), are excluded from data analyses. We followed this convention in our study. Finally, the SC-IAT scores were recoded to range from 0 (= most negative implicit association with the FPÖ) to 1 (= most positive implicit association with the FPÖ) (Mean=0.61, SD=0.13). Importantly, the implicit attitudes towards the FPÖ correlate moderately with the explicit attitudes towards the FPÖ (r= 0.40, p<0.001). While this indicates that both implicit and explicit attitudes point to the same target, the moderate correlations also illustrate that that the two attitudes are largely distinct. Control variables As control variables we consider several variables which former research has shown to impact consistent voting decisions: union membership and the degree of religiosity as indicators for political heuristics that go beyond party identification, interest in politics and attentiveness to the campaign as indicators for political motivation, education as indicator for political expertise, as well as media consumption (newspapers, TV, internet). We additionally consider some control variables that are known to have an effect on the probability to vote for the FPÖ (e.g., Plasser and Ulram, 10

11 2000; Johann et al., 2014): sex, age and the sympathy towards the party leader of the FPÖ (in election of 2013 it was Heinz-Christian Strache). Except for age, all control variables were rescaled to range from 0 to 1 (for more information on question wording, coding and the distribution of the control variables, see Appendix A & B). Models We test our hypotheses by estimating seven multinomial logit (MNL) models with respondents who did not vote for the FPÖ as baseline category. Our first model (Model 1) only contains the control variables. The models 2 to 4 include one (Models 2 and 3) or both (Model 4) attitudes toward the FPÖ measures (explicit and/or implicit measure, respectively). The models 5 to 7 contain the control variables as well as one (Models 5 and 6) or both (Model 7) attitudes toward the FPÖ measures. In addition to the logit coefficients we also present marginal effects conditional on voters explicit and implicit attitudes towards the FPÖ. In calculating the marginal effects, we use the observed-value approach (Hanmer and Kalkan, 2013). Results In Table 3 we present the results of our MNL models with respondents who did not vote for the FPÖ as a reference category. Starting with our baseline model (Model 1) we can observe that the sympathy for the party leader of the FPÖ, Heinz-Christian Strache, has a statistically significant effect (p<.001) independently of whether the vote choice for the FPÖ is issue consistent or not. Beyond that, we can only observe a statistically significant negative effect of the degree of religiosity on issue consistent vote decisions (p<0.05) as previous research has already indicated. Other than that, we find no statistically significant effects. McFadden s R² is Turning to our main independent variables we find that explicit as well as implicit attitudes towards the FPÖ prove to be important factors in explaining vote decisions. The logit coefficients are statistically significant (p<.001) and positive independently of whether the vote choice for the FPÖ is issue consistent or not and independently of whether we utilize control variables or not. Moreover, all fit indices we examine (Log likelihood, McFadden s R², AIC, BIC) indicate that explicit as well as implicit attitudes towards the FPÖ substantially contribute to the explanation of our 11

12 dependent variable. This is also true if we include both explicit and implicit attitudes measures together in our models (see Models 4 and 7). Focusing only on logit coefficients when interpreting MNL results might be misleading because the direction and strength of the effects depend on the reference category that is chosen (Kühnel and Krebs, 2010). We therefore also present marginal effects conditional on voters explicit and implicit attitudes towards the FPÖ. The resulting marginal effects are presented in Figure 1. Starting with the marginal effects of the explicit attitudes towards the FPÖ we can observe that closeness to the FPÖ in terms of party identification does not have a significant effect on the likelihood to cast an issue inconsistent vote, but it increases the likelihood to cast an issue consistent vote for the FPÖ. We thus could confirm H1a and H1b: while consistent voting is related to strong party identification, inconsistent voting is not related to weak party identification. In turn, implicit attitudes towards the FPÖ positively affect both the likelihood to cast an issue consistent and an issue inconsistent vote for the FPÖ. The change in the predicted probabilities triggered by the implicit attitudes towards the FPÖ amounts to more than 30 per cent. Hypothesis 2 proved to be correct. 12

13 Table 3: MNL-Models (Reference category: Did not vote for the FPÖ) Model (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) Did vote for the FPÖ & vote choice inconsistent Sympathy Heinz-Christian Strache 5.60*** (0.52) 4.94*** (0.55) 5.22*** (0.56) 4.57*** (0.59) Interest in politics -1.45# (0.81) -1.79* (0.84) (0.85) (0.89) Attentiveness to current campaign 0.95 (0.70) 1.63* (0.75) 0.88 (0.74) 1.39# (0.81) Education (Matura) (0.32) (0.33) (0.33) (0.34) Sex (Men) -0.54# (0.32) -0.66* (0.33) -0.90** (0.34) -1.08** (0.36) Age 0.00 (0.01) 0.01 (0.01) (0.01) 0.00 (0.01) Degree of religiosity (0.49) (0.50) (0.51) (0.52) Union membership 0.09 (0.35) (0.37) 0.05 (0.36) (0.39) Information on political events: in newspapers (0.57) -1.00# (0.59) (0.60) -1.04# (0.62) Information on political events: on TV (0.64) (0.65) (0.67) (0.69) Information on political events: online 0.48 (0.52) 0.54 (0.55) 0.50 (0.55) 0.60 (0.57) Explicit attitudes towards the FPÖ (PID FPÖ) 6.99*** (0.86) 6.43*** (0.91) 4.12*** (0.98) 4.20*** (1.05) Implicit Attitudes towards the FPÖ (SC-IAT) 10.32*** (1.23) 9.67*** (1.36) 8.74*** (1.66) 9.03*** (1.75) Constant -2.74*** (0.71) -2.27*** (0.14) -8.40*** (0.84) Did vote for the FPÖ & vote choice consistent Sympathy Heinz-Christian Strache 6.37*** (0.59) Interest in politics (0.84) Attentiveness to campaign 1.31# (0.75) Education (Matura) -0.56# (0.33) Sex (Men) 0.09 (0.35) Age (0.01) Degree of religiosity -1.24* (0.55) Union membership (0.39) Information on political events: in newspapers -0.99# (0.59) Information on political events: on TV (0.65) Information on political events: online 0.53 (0.54) Explicit attitudes towards the FPÖ (PID FPÖ) 8.93*** (0.88) Implicit Attitudes towards the FPÖ (SC-IAT) 13.62*** (1.37) Constant -4.05*** -2.93*** *** (0.80) (0.19) (0.97) -8.41*** (0.93) 8.23*** (0.93) 11.77*** (1.63) *** (1.15) -2.92*** (0.73) 4.64*** (0.65) (0.94) 2.45** (0.86) (0.37) (0.38) 0.01 (0.01) -1.10# (0.61) -0.79# (0.45) -1.12# (0.66) (0.73) 0.68 (0.62) 6.12*** (1.00) -4.10*** (0.87) -7.95*** (1.26) 5.81*** (0.63) (0.90) 1.15 (0.80) (0.35) (0.37) (0.01) -1.26* (0.57) (0.42) -1.08# (0.64) (0.70) 0.70 (0.58) 10.81*** (1.76) *** (1.38) -8.41*** (1.36) 4.18*** (0.69) (0.99) 2.22* (0.93) (0.39) (0.41) 0.00 (0.01) -1.17# (0.63) -0.79# (0.47) -1.17# (0.69) (0.77) 0.80 (0.64) 6.17*** (1.08) 10.28*** (1.91) *** (1.51) N Mean Variance Inflation Factor Log likelihood McFadden s R² AIC BIC Note: Presented are unstandardized logit-coefficients. Standard errors in parentheses. # p<.10, * p<.05, ** p<.01, *** p<

14 Figure 1: Marginal effects conditional on explicit and implicit attitudes towards the FPÖ Note: In calculating the marginal effects, we use the observed-value approach (Hanmer and Kalkan, 2013). 14

15 Conclusion The literature on vote choice models in general and on consistent voting in particular has hitherto mainly focused on individuals explicit cognitive components to examine their behaviour. Consistent voting patterns of citizens were considered as a function of citizens deliberative decision-making processes on which party fits their policy preferences best. Lately, in addition to explicit attitudes, implicit attitudes have also gained importance in explaining citizens behaviour and beliefs. Unlike explicit attitudes, they are released by rather unconscious processes which cannot be modified/manipulated by the humans. In this paper we analysed both types of attitudes assuming that both exert an influence on citizens voting behaviour. But while we expected a straightforward impact of explicit attitudes (e.g. stronger party identification is connected to more consistent voting), we assumed slightly different patterns for implicit attitudes. Unlike deliberative processes, these automatically generated affective attitudes act independently on voters behaviour and impact voting patterns differently. Our results do indeed show that both implicit and explicit attitudes impact consistent voting patterns, but the effect differs. Explicit attitudes behave as expected: the stronger the party identifications the more likely it is that voters vote consistently with their party preferences, hence indicating that party identification works as a good heuristic to reflect policy interests. However, and most interestingly, we do not see any linear relationship: inconsistent voting cannot be explained by lower explicit attitudes. In fact, we do not see any relationship at all. It seems that the inconsistent voting is not the outcome of a negative deliberative function. Hence, unlike assumed in previous research, inconsistent voting does not represent the other end of the consistent voting dimension. When taking implicit attitudes into account the pictures slightly changes. As expected, positive implicit attitudes also increase the likelihood to vote consistently. Unlike the explicit attitudes, implicit attitudes do however also impact inconsistent voting. The effect of spontaneous (affective) reactions, resulting from uncontrolled processes, is positively related to inconsistent voting: the more positive a voter s implicit attitudes towards the radical-right party, the more likely she will vote for it, even if the party does not represent her policy preferences best. So, inconsistent voting seems to be rather a function of implicit rather than explicit attitudes. 15

16 Dividing between consistent and inconsistent voting patterns and looking at implicit and explicit attitudes, in this paper we have unfolded some interesting mechanisms. Consistent and inconsistent voting do not follow the same dimension as previously assumed. While explicit attitudes are relevant for consistent voting patterns, implicit attitudes are an important factor explaining why individuals choose a party (in our case a radical-right party) that does not represent their policy preferences best. Implicit attitudes influence an individual s behaviour which from a cost-benefit perspective conflict with her preferences/interests (e.g. Glaser and Finn 2013). They simply follow the party they positively associate with. It hints to an overall, unconscious and spontaneous positive association with the FPÖ, where policy preferences are not of relevance. Which other conclusions can we draw from these first findings? Given the decline in partisanship (explicit attitudes) and the increase of undecided voters implicit attitudes might become more important predictors in vote choice models as it is currently the case. Overall, we can conclude that it is important to combine individuals explicit and implicit attitudes to be better able to model vote choice preferences of voters. 16

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20 Appendix A Descriptive statistics of independent variables Variable N Min. Max. Mean SD Implicit Attitudes towards the FPÖ (SC-IAT) Explicit attitudes towards the FPÖ (PID FPÖ) Sympathy Heinz-Christian Strache Degree of religiosity Union membership Interest in politics Attentiveness to campaign Information on political events: in newspapers Information on political events: on TV Information on political events: online Education (Matura) Sex (Men) Age

21 Appendix B Question wording and coding Variable Question wording Coding Implicit Attitudes towards the FPÖ (SC-IAT) [see Appendix C] Metric variable, rescaled to range from 0= relatively negative implicit associations with FPÖ to 1= relatively positive implicit associations with FPÖ Explicit attitudes towards the FPÖ (PID FPÖ) Sympathy Heinz-Christian Strache Degree of religiosity In Austria many people feel close to a political party although they sometimes vote for another party. What about you? Generally speaking, do you feel close to a particular party? [If no :] Do you generally think of yourself as a little closer to one of the parties than the others? Which party is that? Do you feel very close, fairly close or not very close to this party? How much do you like the following politicians? Would you say that you are not at all religious, a little religious, somewhat religious, or very religious? 4-point-scale from 0= I do not feel close to the FPÖ to 1= I feel very close to the FPÖ 11-point-scale, rescaled to range from 0= strongly dislike to 1= strongly like 4-point-scale, rescaled to range from 0= not at all religious to 1= very religious Union membership Are you a member of a trade union? 0= no, 1= yes Interest in politics Generally speaking, are you very, fairly, a little or not at all interested in politics? 4-point-scale, rescaled to range from 0= not at all interested to 1= very interested Attentiveness to campaign Information on political events: in newspapers Information on political events: on TV Information on political events: online Education (Matura) How closely are you following the current election campaign? Very closely, fairly closely, not very closely, or not at all closely? How often do you inform yourself about the political events in Austria through newspapers? How often do you inform yourself about the political events in Austria through television? How often do you inform yourself about the political events in Austria through the internet? What is the highest level of education that you have achieved? 4-point-scale, rescaled to range from 0= not at all closely to 1= very closely 5-point-scale, rescaled to range from 0= never to 1= almost every day 5-point-scale, rescaled to range from 0= never to 1= almost every day 5-point-scale, rescaled to range from 0= never to 1= almost every day 1=degree that allows high school entrance, 0=otherwise Sex (Men) Are you male or female? 0= female, 1= male Age When were you born? Age in years (year of interview year of birth) 21

22 Appendix C AUTNES-SC-IAT (see Kritzinger et al., 2014c) 22

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