We should be wary of the media/*new polling outfit* and their intended "bandwagon Effect".....
Results and Interpretation of a Study of Effects of Poll Reports on Voter Preferences: The Mehrabian Polling Snowball Effect
Mehrabian, A. (1998). Effects of poll reports on voter preferences. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 28, 2119-2130.
Overall, results obtained from both studies were consistent in showing the superior strength of the bandwagon or rally-around-the-winner effect .... [That is, polling data showing a candidate as leading will tend to influence voters to select that candidate. Thus,] it is important to consider cumulative effects of the bandwagon effect when it is combined with repeated and closely spaced reports of polling data. Assuming that the bandwagon effect is operative and one candidate is an initial favorite by a slim margin, reports of polls showing that candidate as the leader in the race will increase his or her favorable margin. Subsequent reports, based on more recent and stronger margins, will in turn progressively strengthen that candidate's lead.
This unstable equilibrium effect of polling described in the preceding paragraph, or The Mehrabian Polling Snowball Effect (MPSE) , helps identify a potential way in which political organizations can be tempted to influence voting by sponsoring biased "polling studies" and reports. Poll results can be slanted easily through selection of slightly skewed respondent samples or the actual wording of questions used in the polls. Frequent reporting of slanted and invalid poll results can help propel a candidate to the forefront and, in fact, increase his/her lead over time. Similar considerations would apply to major political issues (rather than candidates) is various political campaigns.
Accordingly voters need to be educated about the Polling Snowball Effect so they can be specially vigilant when they are repeatedly barraged by polling reports favoring one candidate (or poll results that suggest popularity of a particular campaign issue) during political campaigns. Voters, in particular, need to educate themselves about the political orientations of entities that repeatedly sponsor polling studies.
http://www.kaaj.com/psych/abstract/pollsabstract.html
In layman’s term the bandwagon effect refers to people doing certain things because other people are doing them, regardless of their own beliefs, which they may ignore or override For instance, once a product becomes popular, more people tend to "get on the bandwagon" and buy it, too. The bandwagon effect has wide implications, but is commonly seen in politics and consumer behaviour. This effect in noticed and followed very much by the youth, where if people see many of their friends buying a particular phone, they could become more interested in buying that (Apple products for example).
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The bandwagon effect occurs in voting: some people vote for those candidates or parties who are likely to succeed (or are proclaimed as such by the media), hoping to be on the "winner's side" in the end.[8] The bandwagon effect has been applied to situations involving majority opinion, such as political outcomes, where people alter their opinions to the majority view (McAllister and Studlar 721). Such a shift in opinion can occur because individuals draw inferences from the decisions of others, as in an informational cascade.
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Several studies have tested this theory of the bandwagon effect in political decision making. In the 1994 study of Robert K. Goidel and Todd G. Shields in The Journal of Politics, 180 students at the University of Kentucky were randomly assigned to nine groups and were asked questions about the same set of election scenarios. About 70% of subjects received information about the expected winner (Goidel and Shields 807). Independents, which are those who do not vote based on the endorsement of any party and are ultimately neutral, were influenced strongly in favor of the person expected to win (Goidel and Shields 807-808). Expectations played a significant role throughout the study. It was found that independents are twice as likely to vote for the Republican candidate when the Republican is expected to win. From the results, it was also found that when the Democrat was expected to win, independent Republicans and weak Republicans were more likely to vote for the Democratic candidate (Goidel and Shields 808).
A study by Albert Mehrabian, reported in The Journal of Applied Social Psychology (1998), tested the relative importance of the bandwagon (rally around the winner) effect versus the underdog (empathic support for those trailing) effect. Bogus poll results presented to voters prior to the 1996 Republican primary clearly showed the bandwagon effect to predominate on balance. Indeed, approximately 6% of the variance in the vote was explained in terms of the bogus polls, showing that poll results (whether accurate or inaccurate) can significantly influence election results in closely contested elections. In particular, assuming that one candidate "is an initial favorite by a slim margin, reports of polls showing that candidate as the leader in the race will increase his or her favorable margin" (Mehrabian, 1998, p. 2128). Thus, as poll results are repeatedly reported, the bandwagon effect will tend to snowball and become a powerful aid to leading candidates.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandwagon_effect
Do Polls Influence the Vote? - The University of Michigan Press
http://www.press.umich.edu/pdf/0472099213-ch11.pdf
MASS MEDIA, THE ELECTORATE, AND THE BANDWAGON. A STUDY OF COMMUNICATION EFFECTS ON VOTE CHOICE IN GERMANY
The paper addresses two propositions: (1) that by
publishing news stories about the electoral strength of parties or candidates, the mass media contribute to shaping the voters' expectations about the likely outcome of an upcoming election; (2) that
these expectations in turn stimulate a bandwagon effect, i.e. they influence vote choice to the advantage of the apparent future winner of the election. Analyzing media content and survey data gathered during the campaign for the first all-German national election of December 2, 1990, it can be shown that (1)
interest in the media's political reporting as well as interpersonal political communication contributed significantly to converting voters to the view of the election outcome that was constantly presented by the mass media; (2) this belief in turn caused particularly unsophisticated independent voters to vote for the apparent winner of the election. Referring to the conceptual framework of ‘low information rationality’, this bandwagon effect is interpreted as ‘majority-led proxy voting’.
http://ijpor.oxfordjournals.org/content/8/3/266.short
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