The impact of incidental environmental factors on vote choice: how wind speed is related to more prevention-focused voting

Published in: Political Behavior — February 2023

Written by 

Cecilia Hyunjung Mo, Jon M. Jachimowicz, Jochen I. Menges and Adam D. Galinsky 

Summary 

What we found: Wind speed on election day affects voting behavior. Increased wind speed shifts voters toward selecting prevention-focused options (e.g., restricting immigration, rejecting Brexit, rejecting Scottish Independence) over promotion-focused options (e.g., promoting immigration, favoring Brexit, favoring Scottish Independence). However, wind speed only affects voting when an election clearly offers a choice between prevention and promotion-focused options.

Why it matters: Voting is thought to be a deliberate process, yet if incidental environmental factors affect vote choices, then important decisions throughout the world may be affected by irrelevant factors. To avoid or at least reduce the influence of such irrelevant factors, absentee voting and expanding voting periods beyond traditional election days is recommended.

What next: Leaders and organizations need to be mindful of the influence of irrelevant factors on decision making to avoid biased results. More research is needed to identify further irrelevant factors and to develop solutions to reduce and ideally, avoid the influence on decisions of such irrelevant factors.