Reason and Choice: A Conceptual Study of Consumer Decision Making and Electoral Behavior

Abstract

Rational choice supposes that individuals make their electoral decision in keeping with their own self-interest, undertaking a cost-benefit analysis, no different to choosing a product or service. Rather than reject the concept of rational choice, this paper will review the notions of rationality and reasoning, which, as Aristotle argues, are inseparable. We will support Marcus' (2002) grievance that emotional decision making is irrational and thus perceived negatively, rather than being seen to play an important motivational role in decision making. A framework is proposed that focuses upon the interplay among rationality, irrationality, reasoning, and emotion, and we argue that this is far more fluid than has been previously discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• electoral decision making
• emotion
• irrationality
• rationality
• reasoning

INTRODUCTION

Since Downs' (1957) seminal work, An Economic Theory of Democracy, rational choice has been an influential paradigm in electoral decision making (Brogan, 2001). Rational choice theory supposes that individuals make their buying decisions in line with their own self-interest, undertaking cost-benefit analyses. These notions of rationality have suggested that voters made their electoral decisions just as if they were buying products or services. But while many studies in political science have sought to demonstrate and discredit the efficacy of the rational choice model, the debate in the marketing arena has sought to question the applicability of one model to explain all consumers (Stone, 1954). And rather than looking purely at the decision making process, contemporary research looked to try to understand the impact of consumer choices upon decision making (see, for example, Belk, 1988).

Ferber (1981) argued that as rational choice provided an explanation for most electoral decision making, it was incumbent on governments and politicians to improve the amount and quality of the information upon which voters were able to draw. However, earlier behavioral studies of electoral behavior did not suggest this; they identified limited knowledge and involvement in electoral decision making (Campbell et al., 1960). Loewenstein (2001) notes that behavioral approaches have attracted followers in economics, finance, and law as well as marketing. While marketing has questioned economic rationality in terms of providing an adequate explanation of consumer choices, doubts have also been raised about the ability of economic rationality to explain electoral behavior.

We believe that by studying the arguments in political science, we can usefully add to the body of knowledge in consumer behavior. For while academic thinking is often compartmentalized by subject specialisms, it seems clear that consumers rarely make these distinctions: recent research by Crockett and Wallendorf (2004), for example, demonstrates how the normative political ideologies of consumers can provide explanations for behaviors in areas as diverse as shopping and food. Moreover, understanding the decision making process in voting may help us to uncover truths in other important fields where theory derived from the exchange process and where rationality has previously been forced to fit. These may include comparatively neglected areas such as gift giving (see, for example, Sojka, 1986) or more topical areas such as the take-up of recycling initiatives or charitable giving. The concept of altruism has long been problematic in rational choice theory and has tended to be reinterpreted in terms of satisfaction of psychological needs, yet altruism is at the fore of the debates in the areas of corporate and social responsibility and cause-related marketing. Can the thinking of political science throw any useful light on these areas of consumer behavior?

This conceptual article will argue that, in politics at least, there is no one model, particularly one as simple as the exchange process, that can explain why people make their electoral decisions. However, rather than reject the notion of rational choice outright, this paper will first review the notions of rationality and reasoning, and these are wide-ranging, encompassing economic rationality through to Habermas' (1986) notion of communicative rationality. Second, it will follow the thinking of Aristotle, who claimed that irrationality had some “participation with reason” (rev. 1976, 90). In line with this, we support Marcus’ (2002, 34) grievance that irrationality in the form of emotional decision making is “viewed as an explicit and central detriment to good citizenship,” rather than an important, integral component of motivation in electoral decision making. Finally, the paper will introduce a framework that focuses on the interplay among rationality, irrationality, reasoning, and emotion and argue that this is far more fluid than has been previously discussed.

RATIONAL CHOICE

Rational choice theory has been claimed to be the “prevailing view in political science today” (Brogan, 2001). While this could be true of some of the U.S. political science literature, in the main, the literature in both the United States and United Kingdom additionally uses behaviorist and sociopsychological models to explain electoral turnout and voting decisions. Much the same argument could be made about the study of consumer behavior: a scan of the articles of professional practitioners in marketing and a study of the content of many of the mainstream textbooks in the area would tend to highlight the continuing prevalence of “black box” approaches to the subject. Although as early as 1988 Belk was arguing that constructs of much greater subtlety and complexity needed to be considered, rational choice models continued to dominate parts of the discipline (see also Rogers, 1987). Williamson (2002) notes how the commercial sector continues to offer complex predictive models to its clients: models only loosely adapted from the earlier rational choice frameworks of the 1970s and 1980s (see also Nelson, 2002).

Rational choice in politics has perhaps an even longer pedigree: Downs' (1957) classic study on economic rationality argued that rationality is measured by how the electorate “strives for what they desire, or at least act as if they were pursuing some end” (Brams, 1985). There is no room for emotion or other variables that could affect the instrumental processing of the information. Downs cited a number of examples in which rational behavior could be clouded by secondary emotional factors but claimed that he was only looking from a political rather than a psychological perspective (Downs, 1957, 7). Curiously, though, rationality also appears to be discussed independently of ends, as if the voter merely seeks to selfishly satisfy his own needs. This type of explanation is mirrored in the wider consumer research literature: Sojka (1986), for example, argued that gift giving could be explained in terms of reciprocity, itself based on a satisfaction of psychological needs.

Does this mean that there is no morality in voting? It would appear that this is the case if one accepts the notion of economic rationality. The voters simply weigh the benefits and costs associated with their own individual gains. The model presented by Downs clearly explained one notion of the process of voting; however, it did not provide an adequate explanation of why people actually vote. Furthermore, when one considers this self-interest notion of “pocketbook voting,” there is little empirical evidence to support this (Udehn, 1996, 79). The theory suggests that pocketbook voting occurs among less knowledgeable voters (Carpini and Keeter, 1993, 1996; Lau and Redlawsk, 1997). However, Gomez and Wilson (2001), who explored levels of sophistication in economic voting, not only found heterogeneity among voters but also argued that the accepted view of pocketbook voting was undermined. They proposed that higher sophisticates were more likely to vote according to pocketbook rather than sociotropic considerations. Moreover, how does one decide what issues motivate voters when deciding what is in their self-interest? As Udehn noted, “it is clear that other considerations are at work also and may even be more decisive” (1996, 79).

Within rational choice theory, altruism is also inadequately explained since according to instrumental rationality theory, it is not rational to look at others’ interests unless they are of direct or indirect benefit to the individual making the decision. These issues are not satisfactorily accounted for within rational choice theory, which does not provide a consistent explanation of why people vote and how they come to their final decision (Green and Shapiro, 1994; Blais, 2000). Similar problems apply to consumer decisions such as charitable giving or participation in recycling schemes; Titmuss (1987) identified how paying people to donate blood actually appeared to reduce contributions. Loewenstein (2001) explains this by arguing that introducing money payments into what are considered to be socially desirable actions can transform them into market transactions, which paradoxically are less attractive than the original social motivations to participate. Economic rationality, Downs acknowledged, reduces the voter to an “artificial man” in a theoretical model (1957, 8): predictable and accurate, but impossible to prove empirically as man lives and works in a much more complex environment than Downs' equation was able to hypothesize.

Within the later rational choice literature, these anomalies were addressed, although adding potentially illuminating variables to the model seemed to reduce its efficacy. For instance, Riker and Ordeshook (1968) and Blais and Young (1999) explored the concept of duty as a component of voting. While Aldrich (1993) argued that there are other smaller variables to consider, “small changes in costs and benefits alter the turnout decision for many voters” and that for the majority of voters, “costs are usually low in a standard election.” However, in a closely fought election, this alters the stakes and then introduces the notion of the “strategic politician” (Aldrich, 1993), who focuses more on marginal seats where there is a greater propensity for the voter to turn out. Jackman (1993) suggests that Aldrich's study “restores political considerations to the analysis in turnout.” This would support the view of Negrine (1994, 145) who argued that “politicians…seek to influence by shaping the perceptions of events or by defining the nature of ‘reality’.”

Yet, voters have to take notice of politicians and collect information to make reasonable decisions based on their own self-interest, and information searching is a costly affair. Downs (1957) attempts to justify how a lack of involvement in the political process can be perceived as rational in terms of the belief that the voter has made a conscious decision that he or she has enough information to make a voting, or nonvoting, decision. He argues that there are a number of ways that information can be gained with little effort. For instance, ideology is a form of political shorthand (Udehn, 1996, 18), and heuristic devices are useful for making uninvolved decisions. Nevertheless, party identification is declining in many mature democracies, including Britain and the United States (see, for instance, Wattenberg, 1994; Crewe, 1992; Sarlvic et al., 1986; Budge, Crewe, and Fairlie, 1983).

INFORMATION PROCESSING

If party identification is declining, how does the voter evaluate the mass of information that bombards them from the many different media? A wealth of studies have identified the modern phenomenon of advertising avoidance: Speck and Elliott (1997) compared the effect across different media and several demographic groups, highlighting age and income as the best predictors for avoidance behaviors. Keane (1984) had earlier focused on the phenomenon among the elderly; more recently, Chang-Hoan and Choen (2004) have pursued the same theme in Internet advertising avoidance.

In political science, this type of problem has been identified in Lane's (1972) study, in which he questioned the decline of ideology in the wake of the knowledge society. In this scenario, information searching is costly, and as Lane suggests there is more information than ever available to the voter, even more so during election time. But it is irrational for voters to examine all the information that comes their way on a daily basis, as Miller, Brickman, and Bolen (1986) noted. How voters search and order available information has been the focus of a number of studies (see, for instance, Zaller, 1992). More specifically, Granberg (1982) examined how perceptions of issues affected voting intentions, while Carpini and Keeter (1993, 1996) and Gomez and Wilson (2001) explored the concept of sophistication and how the level of political sophistication can impact the search and evaluation aspect of processing that leads to the voting decision. Zaller (1992) argues that voters with high and low levels of awareness of political issues are unlikely to be swayed from their decision to vote or abstain, as it is members of the electorate with moderate levels of political awareness who are more likely to be influenced by campaign messages. Therefore, some voters are processing more information, as Lane would suggest, in the knowledge society, but this is only a partial explanation, as others are avoiding media coverage of politics. As the message sources increase in an attempt to reach the voter from every possible angle, other voters are switching off the traditional methods of communication. They are using heuristic devices, signs, symbols, and other forms of cognitive shortcuts that can reduce the costs of information searching. This would support the view of Gomez and Wilson (2001), who claim that there is far greater heterogeneity in electoral behavior than the literature suggests.

It is important to note, also, that wider studies of advertising avoidance are far from unanimous. In recent research reported from Britain, Nanayakkara (2004) suggests that consumers are less concerned with information overload than advertisers believe, while Gurau and Tinson (2003) argue that consumers have evolved a series of strategies for coping with overload, with an implicit recognition of the use of heuristic devices identified by Gomez and Wilson (2001) and cited earlier. However, Aronowitz (1987) claimed that the use of heuristic devices erodes the democratic decision making process, encouraging an impoverished form of discourse that has little bearing on reasoning or rationality.

The reluctance of political parties to debate issues in any real depth only serves to exacerbate the remoteness of the electorate from the process of government (Habermas, 1992, 218). For Habermas (1992, 220), this leads to the tendency of political parties and candidates to manipulate the message and prevent the formation of coherent public opinion.

So if “political shorthand” is undermined by the steady decline in party identification and information searching has been reduced to image, signs, and symbols, does this undermine the democratic decision making process? Habermas (1992, 219) argued that this is the case and would be more in keeping with an authoritarian regime, where voters have no opportunity to listen to debate and political discourse. This leads to a standardized response to issues. So Habermas (1992) argued that voters can be manipulated through political communications focusing upon anxieties and insecurities, which would suggest levels of irrationality and thereby take the opposite stance to rational choice.

RATIONAL ALTERNATIVES

At this stage in the discussion, it may be useful to introduce other less constrictive notions of rationality and evaluate how they may serve to examine electoral behavior more effectively. The concept of rationality as used in philosophical and sociological analysis differs from the meaning assigned to it in rational choice theory. For Wedgewood (1999), rationality was “just a matter of some sort of internal justification or coherence.” This perspective follows the Weberian concept of rationality in which, as Habermas (1986, 12) noted, goal seeking is closely aligned to problem solving, a teleological rationality. Rational choice is a narrow economic interpretation of teleological rationality, albeit means-rather than goal-focused. Downs (1957, 6) concedes this, while sociologists and philosophers advance a rather more elaborate perspective of the concept of rationality.

However, there are a number of areas in which philosophy concurs with economic theory. First, rational choice suggests a logical progression. If a person makes a decision, he or she would evaluate alternatives and progress through a series of steps toward the final decision. Second, rational thought is consistent; if a person were faced with the same alternatives at a later period, he or she would follow the same pattern and reach the same decision. However, this is where concepts of rationality diverge from instrumental rationality.

Simon (1982) introduces the notion of bounded rationality, whereby all people are rational in that they have reasons to behave in a rational way, although they do not always have the ability to be information-processing maximizers. This has received some criticism over time due to claims of misinterpretation and other criticisms upon the puzzle of finding where the boundaries actually lie (Lupia, McCubbins, and Popkin, 2000). Bounded rationality has also played its part in consumer research and has been subject to the same sorts of criticism (see, for example, the discussion in Loewenstein, 2001).

Habermas (1986) articulated four types of rationality, outlining a hierarchy indicating the different characteristics that distinguish the various levels. Habermas recognized that rationality is complex and gradually built an argument for communicative rationality. As he progressed his discussion, he considered each level of rationality and evaluated how each component contributed toward communicative rationality. The important factor is that there are different levels of rationality, and these are interchangeable, given the situation; this highlights the complexity of the whole process. First, each situation is different; the way the individual interprets the situation can determine the level of rationality, and the capability of the individual determines the extent of reasoning. Further, the complexity and intelligibility of the message also have an impact on how the message is understood and processed. However, rational decision making suggests that if a person were faced with the same alternatives at a later period, he or she would follow the same pattern and reach the same decision. However, this is the point at which concepts of rationality diverge from instrumental rationality.

Habermas postulated his notion of a holistic, complex rationality that is systemic (1986). Communicative action combines all other modes of rationality while augmenting these with the notion of communication. The communication aspect is “pragmatic” in that it is used to create understanding between other actors within the lifeworld. Through communication, they are able to interpret, react, and reflect on other actors' communications. Therefore, communicative action is not action with communication, it is communication between actors, which then leads to their actions, and it is a teleological process. Thus, Habermas argues that these utterances will be contested, debated, and elaborated, a process that hones the attitudes and behaviors of all individuals taking part. The key component of communicative rationality is the dimension of critical reasoning: an opinion can be formulated through communication with their normative group and media to which they are exposed. Alternative viewpoints are considered based on the same critical reasoning that the attitudes were developed so that the original opinion can be defended against criticism or amended in the light of new information.

This is a dialectic and reflective representation of rationality, which is the furthest removed from the Downsian model and possibly the most utopian of all the notions of rationality. Likewise, this type of rationality presupposes that the individual has the ability to reason and elaborate on political communications and also the motivation to become involved in the debate and deliberation process. Interestingly, Klein and Yadav (1989) found consumers (rather than voters) undertaking a form of dialectic by simplifying choice sets in complex decision contexts; at the same time, consumers felt less need to undertake this simplification where there were more dominated alternatives, something particularly relevant in the context of the electoral process. Petty and Cacioppo (1986) argued that the ability to reason and elaborate are important components in the elaboration process and that not all people have the same levels of ability and motivation. Therefore, processing is different for different groups of people. One has only to venture into areas in which sociolinguistics consider gender to note this. Tannen (1998) observed how women learn and decide differently than men (she stresses “moving from debate to dialogue”). It has to be noted, though, that the corollary is that men tend not to engage in this way. Tannen implicitly encouraged males also to adopt this “dualism” (what we term dialectic). Similarly, Stewart and Logan (1998) observed how “women generally use communication as a primary way to establish and maintain relationships with others, whereas men generally talk to exert control, preserve independence, and enhance status.” Stewart and Logan further undermined notions of the universality of dialectic approaches to decision making when they highlighted how women emphasize “equality, support, attention to the relationship, inclusivity,…and a preference for collaborative meaning-making.” Men's discourse, by contrast, functions “to exhibit knowledge or skill, accomplish goals, assert dominance,…and minimize relationship responsiveness.”

However, consumption decisions can be economic, social, and political. Holt (2002) argues that postmodern consumers use a dialectic process in the pursuit of personal sovereignty, with brands being used as authentic cultural resources. The political dimensions of this relate to the growing phenomenon of anti-branding and anti-corporatism within the political and social environment.

This would concur with the thinking of Fraser (1993) who took Habermas' notion of the public space still further, arguing that different groups of people exist in multiple public spaces that hold particular normative values and follow specific normative practices. Moreover, these public spaces do not operate in isolation; they are also interchangeable, and citizens may be able to access more than one public space at any one time. This type of consideration finds an echo in the wider consumer research literature. Ratner and Kahn's (2002) work on variety-seeking behavior, for example, identifies public scrutiny as being a key trigger in decision making: they find that consumers tend to opt for more variety in their choices where there is increased likelihood of their public evaluation.

Nevertheless, throughout all the notions of rationality outlined by Habermas, rationality is goal-driven and involves some degree of reasoning to a lesser or greater extent, and the drives for reasoning come from a variety of internal or external sources. For Rescher (1988, 2), rationality could be defined as a mode of understanding and making decisions based upon an “intelligent pursuit of appropriate objectives.” Habermas concurred with this, claiming, “well-grounded assertions and efficient actions are certainly a sign of rationality.” In the philosophical literature, rationality has also been used interchangeably with reason (Wedgewood, 1999, 6). Reasoned argument or reasoned action is arrived at through logical progression and evaluation of appropriate alternatives.

While Habermas identified four degrees of rationality, Rescher (1988) explored what he identified as the constituents of rationality, which could be viewed as cognitive, pragmatic, and evaluative. Cognitive rationality defines the information processing aspect of rationality, pragmatic rationality recognizes the nature of the situation in which individuals find themselves and identifies solutions that can solve the problem, and evaluative rationality describes the notion of evaluation of alternatives and preference ordering. These elements cannot be isolated from one another; they form an enduring whole in which all three are evident to a varying degree dependent upon circumstance. This holistic interpretation sits well with Habermas and his notion of communicative rationality, while advocates of economic rationality merely isolate the evaluative component from their definition of rationality.

Clearly, though, there is a strong economic basis for rationality whereby the evaluation of alternatives is often driven economically, and at election time, political communications often focus upon taxation (less) and spending on social services (more). However, in the philosophical literature, rationality is portrayed as complex and multifaceted. The sociological and philosophical literatures recognize the economic component that is prevalent in rational choice theory, but not to the exclusion of other notions that contribute to rational thought or reasoning. More recently, however, political scientists such as Popkin (1991) and Lupia et al. (2000, 7) have taken a broader view of rationality and suggest that “a rational choice is one that is based on reasons, irrespective of what these reasons may be” (Lupia et al., 2000, 7). This definition begins to confront some of the difficulties faced by rational choice theorists: What are these reasons? How are they developed, and most importantly, do these reasons form a coherent, logical progression toward their decision? Which is the strongest component of the rational choice paradigm? This in turn leads to the question, are these decisions rational? If not, in what way are they irrational?

NOTIONS OF IRRATIONALITY

So what constitutes irrationality? Some consumer researchers avoid this question by attempting to confront the paradoxes of shopping and choice behaviors under the umbrella of the postmodern consumer culture. We have already highlighted Holt's 2002 study of branding and counterculture in this paper, but similar themes are discussed by Thompson and Troester (2002), who draw attention to how fragmentation contributes to intercultural diversity.

Habermas (1986, 18) identified a number of criteria that demonstrate irrationality. He argued that rather than defending opinions with critical reasoning, an irrational person would respond inappropriately with stereotypical opinions and little cognitive elaboration. For instance, if a voter rejected group norms such as institutionalized beliefs accepted within their own social class or culture without the capacity of critical reasoning, then it could be argued that the person is behaving irrationally. For instance, if a senior citizen did not support an increase in pensions, this would be irrational and against the normative actions of other members of this group. Another irrational act would be to ignore the validity of the other argument even though it had been formulated rationally. If a person does not think through the arguments and just makes dogmatic assertions, through either a lack of consideration or interest, this is also considered irrational, although many may base their voting decisions in this way. Finally, deceiving oneself is clearly irrational.

For Aristotle, however, there were two components of irrationality. First, a vegetative irrationality, which is stimulated by instincts; these are basic subconscious drives where there is no reasoning. This is closely aligned to the later work of Freud and classical conditioning. Freud's work uncovered the “irrational and unconscious sector of man's nature…which had been neglected by modern rationalism” (Fromm, 1994). And, while not explicitly highlighting “irrationality,” Gould (1991), in the mainstream literature of consumer research, identified the potential value of using Jungian personality types in obtaining a more holistic picture of behavior.

The second component of irrationality, according to Aristotle, is desiderative irrationality. This is more complex, as some reasoning takes place, but this reasoning is limited to a sense of obedience to authority. This is more of a conscious progression, which is influenced by a course of reward and punishment that can determine the individual's behavior through a learning process. This leads to persuasion, or change in attitude or behavior. This desiderative component of irrationality is more closely linked to Skinner's notion (cited in Solomon, Bamossy, and Askegaard, 2002) of operant or instrumental conditioning. These drives can be manipulated through emotion such as fear or happiness, which leads to a further question of the nature of emotion and how it can affect electoral decision making. While remaining outside of the scope of the present study, the exploitation of fear by politicians—fear of terrorism, nuclear war, political extremists, and so forth—has once again has become highly topical.

EMOTION

Emotion has not been considered as a component of decision making within the rational choice paradigm: instead it has been broadly perceived as irrational and therefore irrelevant. Moreover, emotion has been either associated with weakness of both thinking and action (Evans, 2001, xi) or related to the notion of subconscious drives and manipulation by the “dark arts” of marketing and mass communication (Packard, 1991). However, emotion can also been defined in more positive terms, whereby it can contribute toward a reasoned understanding leading to more effective electoral decision making. Indeed, Koziak (1999) argued that “emotions are dependent upon belief, expressing evaluations, and learned through social and political life.” Emotion is an attribute of motivation (Marcus, 2002); for instance, strong emotions can lead to cognition and learning in respect of a particular issue, which is then added to the cognitive map that informs decision making. Although the balance between emotion and reason differs amongst individuals, it is interesting to note how this balance affects decisions. There are a number of ways in which emotion can affect awareness and cognition. For instance, enthusiasm or apathy determines the level of motivation and ultimately political participation or lack of it (Marcus, 2002; Marcus, Neuman, and Mackuen, 2000). In addition, extreme passionate emotions such as hate, anger, or fear affect awareness, which leads to cognition and influences electoral decision making (Devlin, 1986, 1993). But igniting these extreme emotions can have serious implications for political marketers and the political environment (Dean, 2004). Moreover, Chernev (2004) shows how motivation and goal orientation are key triggers in establishing among consumers their preference for change or for the status quo, for action or inaction: all of these, of course, are as important for political scientists as they are for those studying consumer behavior.

Although emotion can be shown to have links with awareness, learning, and cognition (Marcus, 2002), this paper argues that ability determines the extent of the interaction of emotion with reason. Returning to Aristotle's notion of “irrationality and its participation with reason” (1976, 90), it is clear that there are levels of “participation,” just as there are levels of “irrationality,” levels of “rationality,” and levels of “emotion.” These are interrelated and dynamic.

A TENTATIVE FRAMEWORK

The model tentatively proposed in this paper employs a two-dimensional continuum: the first dimension represents the two components of reasoning ability and identifies the extremes of rationality (rationality/irrationality) and security (secure/insecure); the second dimension consists of two components of emotion, passion (enthusiasm/apathy) and depth (volatility/calm). The rationality dimension combines Habermas’ notion of communicative rationality with Aristotle's notions of desiderative and vegetative irrationality. It is proposed that rationality will be evaluated by three factors: first, knowledge of political system and issues; second, level of education, in line with the ability dimension of Petty and Cacioppo's elaboration likelihood model (1986); and finally, coherence and consistency of the cognitive maps used to make decisions on political issues. The second component of the reasoning dimensions will be to evaluate the feelings of security that are held. It is hypothesized that levels of security will be altered depending upon perceived risk factors. The emotion continuum is defined in terms of levels of enthusiasm (Marcus, 2002) and volatility, in terms of higher- and lower-order affective reactions (Shiv and Fedorikhin, 1999). Types of emotion such as fear, anger, pleasure, happiness, love, and sadness largely determine the level of enthusiasm or involvement but also determine the type of interaction with rationality.

This model highlights the complexity of the reasoning process among voters and the difficulties encountered when attempting to predict electoral behavior. It emphasizes that different groups have different levels of knowledge, cognitive ability, involvement, and motivation and that these factors determine the level of involvement in the electoral process. For instance, there are groups of voters or nonvoters who have a strong capacity for reason and feel passionate about political issues; however, there are others who also have a strong capacity for reason but are apathetic toward the political process. There will also be groups at the opposite end of the rationality spectrum who have strong feelings for particular issues but do not have the ability or level of knowledge to make a reasoned decision. Still others in a similar position on the rationality continuum are apathetic about politics. This would explain why some people are highly involved in the political process while others know little and avoid politics altogether. However, this is not to suggest that this model provides a coherent response to the problem of understanding political behavior, but it can provide illumination into how different groups take on political messages and integrate them with their existing cognitive maps. Although situational factors influence saliency of political issues, changes in the cognitive maps takes time. Interestingly, existing cognitive maps that are used for one purpose can be used for another, and this again adds to the complexity. Broadly speaking, however, we can suggest that the two by two dimensional continuum will produce eight quadrants (Figure 1).

FIGURE 1 Quadrants produced by the two-by-two dimensional continuum.

The model suggests that people in the four exterior (extreme) quadrants would be more susceptible to emotional messages and react more strongly, while people exhibiting characteristics in the four internal (moderate) quadrants are calm, with considered responses to emotional messages. However, this paper posits that there is a dynamic element to each continuum and that people can move from one quadrant to another, depending on how issues or messages are internalized.

TENTATIVE CONCLUSIONS AND FURTHER RESEARCH

As rational choice theory works toward explaining some of the problematic issues, it is clear that electoral decision making is multifaceted. Although some individuals do display evidence of economic rationality, many do not; some get heavily involved in the political process while others avoid it altogether. Emotion is an integral part of the electoral decision making process and should not be perceived as a negative aspect of electoral decision making; rather, it should be encouraged to solicit participation. Marcus' (2002) argument is persuasive in that he incorporates the notion of emotion into electoral decision making, but we need to build a greater understanding of how an individual's emotion interacts with his or her reasoning ability, as this interaction is much more dynamic than the literature suggests. However, political practitioners need to be aware of the issues of unleashing certain emotions, as they are less likely to motivate reasoned cognition.

Motivation is crucial to levels of involvement, but ability is significant also, and individuals have different types of motivation and levels of ability. Electoral decision making is complex, as individuals use a combination of rational and irrational reasoning, use heuristic devices, and are influenced emotionally by media messages and situational and group dynamics. But the implications are wider than voter behaviors: understanding the role of motivation and reasoning in politics can help to shape our understanding of the decision making process in areas nonprofit marketing—all areas in which notions of altruism, identity, duty, fear, and guilt may be more prevalent than economic rationality. Just as consumer researchers have recently been exploring the impact of the political ideologies of consumers on their shopping behaviors (Crockett and Wallendorf, 2004), so it is interesting to see the same sort of debate taking place in political science as in consumer research.

Perhaps one of the lessons of this paper may be that for consumers, at least, there is little difference in the process of deciding whether to vote, to give blood, to give to charity, or to recycle one's household waste. Nevertheless, whatever the process, it seems clear that economic rationality can rarely provide more than a passing explanation. Moreover, it is worth remembering that just as the academic debate in political science is often remote from political practice, rational choice theory is alive and well in the market research industry and in management consultancy (Williamson, 2002). There is still much to do.

The authors would like to thank the reviewers for their constructive and helpful comments on this paper.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dianne Dean

Dianne Dean is a lecturer in Marketing in the University of Hull Business School. Robin Croft is a principal lecturer at the University of Glamorgan.