Goddard, Paul (2012) Bias for proximity and gender in the voting patterns of contestants in the TV quiz-show ‘The Weakest Link’. In: SABE 2012, 12 - 15 July 2012, Granada, Spain. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

Field studies based on television quiz-shows are free from the kinds of demand characteristics and ethical concerns that can sometimes blight experimental work. Further, they are effectively double-blind, so providing a useful empirical test-bed for theories in social psychology, decision making and economics. The popular TV quiz-show The Weakest Link (WL) has already been used to assess the optimal banking strategy in an analysis of economic decision making (Haan, Los and Riyanto (In press)); as a test of gender and race discrimination in voting practice (Levitt, 2004; Antonovics, Arcidiacono & Walsh, 2005); to investigate the trade-off between risk and return strategies in game playing (Barmish & Boston, 2009); and to show ‘neighbour avoidance’ in first round voting (Goddard, Ashley, Fuller & Hudson, 2011). A similar procedure was used here to measure the voting behaviour of contestants as a function of the proximity of the voter to the candidate voted for and as a function of their gender. The aim was to test for proximity and/or gender biases in voting patterns.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Additional Information:	Field studies based on television quiz-shows are free from the kinds of demand characteristics and ethical concerns that can sometimes blight experimental work. Further, they are effectively double-blind, so providing a useful empirical test-bed for theories in social psychology, decision making and economics. The popular TV quiz-show The Weakest Link (WL) has already been used to assess the optimal banking strategy in an analysis of economic decision making (Haan, Los and Riyanto (In press)); as a test of gender and race discrimination in voting practice (Levitt, 2004; Antonovics, Arcidiacono & Walsh, 2005); to investigate the trade-off between risk and return strategies in game playing (Barmish & Boston, 2009); and to show ‘neighbour avoidance’ in first round voting (Goddard, Ashley, Fuller & Hudson, 2011). A similar procedure was used here to measure the voting behaviour of contestants as a function of the proximity of the voter to the candidate voted for and as a function of their gender. The aim was to test for proximity and/or gender biases in voting patterns.
Keywords:	voting patterns, proxemic bias
Subjects:	C Biological Sciences > C800 Psychology C Biological Sciences > C830 Experimental Psychology
Divisions:	College of Social Sciences > Faculty of Health & Social Sciences > School of Psychology
Depositing User:	Alison Wilson
Date Deposited:	26 Nov 2012 18:30
Last Modified:	13 Mar 2013 09:19
URI:	http://eprints.lincoln.ac.uk/id/eprint/6969

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