Counterfactual Thinking and Gender Difference Effect on Voting Decision

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume III, Issue X, October 2019 | ISSN 2454–6186

Counterfactual Thinking and Gender Difference Effect on Voting Decision

Larry Okechukwu Awo^1*, Christopher Agha Oko¹, Abubakar Yahaya¹, Perpetua Chinyere Chukwu¹

¹Citizenship Education Unit, School of General Studies, Federal Polytechnic of Oil and Gas, Bonny Island, Nigeria
^*Corresponding Author

Abstract: – General elections globally have been characterized by large or low turnout of voters. Numerous reasons has been suggested as plausible explanations of voting decision during elections. We adopted a 2×2 factorial design to test the effects of counterfactual thinking and gender differences in the voting decision of Nigerian voters during the 2019 general election. One hundred and twenty (60 male, 60 female) National Diploma 1 students of a Federal Polytechnic (age range = 19-27, mean age = 22.37, SD =2.85) participated in the study. Counterfactual thinking was varied into downward and upward counterfactual conditions, while gender was categorized into male and female electorates. The counterfactual voting thought, and the reasons to vote questionnaire were the stimulus materials used to assess counterfactual thinking and voting decision respectively. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) result revealed significant main effects for counterfactuals and gender on voting decision. The interaction of counterfactual thinking and gender had nosignificant effect on voting decision, (p>.05). The implications and limitations of these findings were discussed and suggestions were made for future studies

I. INTRODUCTION

Democracy enables citizens and electorates the opportunity to choose leaders that reflect their aggregate will and choice through voting. Voting is an expression of an individual choice for apolitical candidate, and/or specific political structure (Balis, Gidengil & Nevitte, 2004). According to the Universal Declaration of Human Right, “voting is a fundamental right of almost all citizens over the age of eighteen, and it ensures that the will of the people is preserved” (Human Right Commission of Pakistan, HRCP, 2008, p.144). Going by this declaration, Nigerians of age 18 years or above, have the right to vote after getting registered through the Independent National Electoral omission (INEC) whenever national or state elections are held (usually every 4 years).Muhammad and Hasan (2016), and Muhammad (2013) enumerated the psychological factors that determine votes during elections to include political party of candidate, party integrity, party leadership, party manifesto and party previous performance, candidate’s integrity, candidate’s election campaign, candidate’s previous performance, candidate’s education, candidate personality, candidate’s race, candidate’s socioeconomic status, family head decision and good governance.

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