Executive summary: Older Republican voters’ anti-immigration stance conflicts with economic theories predicting self-interested voting, since they tend to benefit from immigration. This “rational irrationality” stems from the tiny impact an individual vote has on election outcomes.
Key points:
Older Republicans vote against immigration despite personal economic gains from immigrants, contradicting self-interested voting theories.
Their individual votes have negligible impact on election outcomes and policies, so self-interest is outweighed by emotional rewards.
Voters indulge biases despite ignorance of harms since individual votes rarely directly affect personal well-being.
Anti-immigration stance persists as a collective action problem—as a group they influence policy, but as individuals they defect.
Voter turnout and irrationally biased choices stem from non-policy factors like civic duty, cheerleading, and xenophobia.
Rational ignorance disincentivizes voters from researching platform differences that barely influence personal outcomes.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, andcontact us if you have feedback.
Executive summary: Older Republican voters’ anti-immigration stance conflicts with economic theories predicting self-interested voting, since they tend to benefit from immigration. This “rational irrationality” stems from the tiny impact an individual vote has on election outcomes.
Key points:
Older Republicans vote against immigration despite personal economic gains from immigrants, contradicting self-interested voting theories.
Their individual votes have negligible impact on election outcomes and policies, so self-interest is outweighed by emotional rewards.
Voters indulge biases despite ignorance of harms since individual votes rarely directly affect personal well-being.
Anti-immigration stance persists as a collective action problem—as a group they influence policy, but as individuals they defect.
Voter turnout and irrationally biased choices stem from non-policy factors like civic duty, cheerleading, and xenophobia.
Rational ignorance disincentivizes voters from researching platform differences that barely influence personal outcomes.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.