Where You Vote and How You Vote: Proto-5GW Thinking in a Study of the Context of Voting

Originally published 6/26/08 at Dreaming 5GW.

From NPR News: All Things Considered.

Study: Your Polling Place Affects How You Vote

“June 23, 2008 · A new study shows that where you vote affects how you vote. People who vote in schools, for example, are more likely to support a school funding initiative. The researchers suggest that the same sort of psychology might affect people who vote in churches.”

This story caught my attention not only because it has to do with elections (see #3), but because as proto-5GW thinking (not secrecy-shrouded full-on 5GW) it is an observable manipulation of context. Granted, in this particular study the difference in the voting pattern is small, yet with only this one variable of context being affected there is a measurable difference in the effect. I would envision a true 5GW actor affecting multiple variables in order to achieve a desired context and an ultimate effect that has become compounded in the process.

Update:

“Contextual priming: Where people vote affects how they vote”
by Jonah Berger, Marc Meredith , and S. Christian Wheeler 
  

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