Voting Intention and Choices: Are Voters Always Rational and Deliberative?

ABSTRACT: Human rationality--the ability to behave in order to maximize the achievement of their presumed goals (i.e., their optimal choices)--is the foundation for democracy. Research evidence has suggested that voters may not make decisions after exhaustively processing relevant information; instead, our decision-making capacity may be restricted by our own biases and the environment. In this paper, we investigate the extent to which humans in a democratic society can be rational when making decisions in a serious, complex situation-voting in a local political election. We believe examining human rationality in a political election is important, because a well-functioning democracy rests largely upon the rational choices of individual voters. Previous research has shown that explicit political att

SUBMITTER: Lee IC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4757036 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature