The Effect of Spotlight on the Allocation of Voter Attention: Evidence From Block-Voting Ballots.
The prevailing notion in electoral studies suggests that salient candidates boost the visibility of their neighbors on the ballot, whereas the selective visual attention theory from psychology predicts the opposite. This article leverages the unique setting of large Chinese block-voting ballots, whi...
| Publicado en: | Political Studies Vol. 73; no. 2; pp. 523 - 547 |
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| Autores principales: | , |
| Formato: | Artículo |
| Publicado: |
Sage Publications Inc.
May2025
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| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=185038035&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 185038035 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00323217 PSZ jtl: Political Studies issn: 00323217 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: May2025 vid: 73 iid: 2 pid: 344 pub: Sage Publications Inc. artinfo: ui: 185038035 10.1177/00323217241254335 ppf: 523 ppct: 24 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T db: hlh ui: 185038035 – @attributes: type: P db: hlh ui: 185038035 tig: atl: The Effect of Spotlight on the Allocation of Voter Attention: Evidence From Block-Voting Ballots. aug: au: Li, Yiran Li, Tao affil: Department of Government and International Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon, Hong Kong Department of Social Sciences, School of Arts and Social Sciences, Hong Kong Metropolitan University, Kowloon, Hong Kong su: Psychology Neighborhoods Placebos Media exposure Voters sug: subj: Psychology Neighborhoods Placebos Media exposure Voters keyword: ballot position effect block voting selective visual attention spotlight effect ballot position effect block voting selective visual attention spotlight effect ab: The prevailing notion in electoral studies suggests that salient candidates boost the visibility of their neighbors on the ballot, whereas the selective visual attention theory from psychology predicts the opposite. This article leverages the unique setting of large Chinese block-voting ballots, which originally came from Europe, to resolve the theoretical controversy. Our findings reveal that conventional ballot position effects persist, with top-listed candidates receiving more votes. More importantly, we demonstrate that a candidate who receives more votes steals the spotlight of the local neighborhood by reducing the votes of her immediate neighbors. The selective visual attention effects vanish in randomly reshuffled placebo ballots yet remain robust when we use pre-election media exposure as an instrumental variable for the votes of spotlight candidates. Our research offers a novel perspective on the interaction between voter attention and candidate positioning, supporting the selective visual attention theory within an electoral context. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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