‘I Will Vote’: Using future-oriented frames to motivate voters

“I Voted” stickers are a a way for voters to promote civic participation in a country where more people didn’t vote in the most recent presidential election than voted for the winner. A new paper from researchers at Penn’s Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) examines these stickers’ influence on people’s voting intentions, and asks whether different language choices in this approach to voter outreach might make a bigger impact on civic engagement.

In “Motivating Future Voters: Comparing the Effects of ‘I Voted’ and ‘I Will Vote’ Stickers on Intention to Vote,” published in the journal Political Communication, Alon P. Kraitzman, a postdoctoral fellow at APPC; Stephanie L. DeMora, a former postdoctoral fellow at APPC; and Dolores Albarracín, the Amy Gutmann Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor in the Annenberg School for Communication and director of APPC’s Communication Science division, offer evidence that promoting voting in the future tense rather than the past tense—“I Will Vote” rather than “I Voted”—has a greater effect on citizens’ intentions to vote.

The researchers ran two complementary experiments about the influence of “I Voted” and “I Will Vote” stickers on voting intentions among U.S. adults who did not vote in previous presidential elections. The authors hypothesized that “I Will Vote” stickers would be effective in promoting voting intentions because a future-oriented perspective promotes thoughts about outcomes and planning. When people think of voting in the future, they visualize the activity and its outcomes, set clear goals, and consider potential obstacles and strategies to overcome them. This mental rehearsal strengthens their attitudes and belief in their capacity to successfully perform the intended behavior—in this case, voting in an upcoming election.

“This research highlights the importance of verb tense in political communication strategies,” says Kraitzman, the lead author, “and in particular the potential of future-oriented frames. When people think about the future, they are more likely to set, strive for, and achieve goals.”

Read more at Annenberg Public Policy Center.