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.
Full content URL: http://sabegranada.com/abstracts.php
Documents |
|
![]()
|
PDF
abstract_sabe12.pdf - Whole Document 93kB |
Item Type: | Conference or Workshop contribution (Paper) |
---|---|
Item Status: | Live Archive |
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.
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 Science > School of Psychology |
ID Code: | 6969 |
Deposited On: | 26 Nov 2012 18:30 |
Repository Staff Only: item control page