Asking about Social Circles Improves Election Predictions Even with Many Political Parties
(2022) In International Journal of Public Opinion Research 34(1).- Abstract
Traditionally, election polls have asked for participants' own voting intentions. In four elections, we previously found that we could improve predictions by asking participants how they thought their social circles would vote. A potential concern is that the social-circle question might predict results less well in elections with larger numbers of political options because it becomes harder to accurately track how social contacts plan to vote. However, we now find that the social-circle question performs better than the own-intention question in predicting two elections with many political parties: The Netherlands' 2017 general election and the Swedish 2018 general election.
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/efb5452a-45fe-4047-b910-6a1f467455b3
- author
- De Bruin, Wändi Bruine ; Galesic, Mirta ; Bååth, Rasmus LU ; De Bresser, Jochem ; Hall, Lars LU ; Johansson, Petter LU ; Strandberg, Thomas LU and Van Soest, Arthur
- organization
- publishing date
- 2022
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- election polls, multiparty elections, social-circle questions, voting intentions
- in
- International Journal of Public Opinion Research
- volume
- 34
- issue
- 1
- article number
- edac006
- publisher
- Oxford University Press
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85129063117
- ISSN
- 0954-2892
- DOI
- 10.1093/ijpor/edac006
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- efb5452a-45fe-4047-b910-6a1f467455b3
- date added to LUP
- 2022-07-04 12:57:33
- date last changed
- 2022-07-04 12:57:33
@article{efb5452a-45fe-4047-b910-6a1f467455b3, abstract = {{<p>Traditionally, election polls have asked for participants' own voting intentions. In four elections, we previously found that we could improve predictions by asking participants how they thought their social circles would vote. A potential concern is that the social-circle question might predict results less well in elections with larger numbers of political options because it becomes harder to accurately track how social contacts plan to vote. However, we now find that the social-circle question performs better than the own-intention question in predicting two elections with many political parties: The Netherlands' 2017 general election and the Swedish 2018 general election. </p>}}, author = {{De Bruin, Wändi Bruine and Galesic, Mirta and Bååth, Rasmus and De Bresser, Jochem and Hall, Lars and Johansson, Petter and Strandberg, Thomas and Van Soest, Arthur}}, issn = {{0954-2892}}, keywords = {{election polls; multiparty elections; social-circle questions; voting intentions}}, language = {{eng}}, number = {{1}}, publisher = {{Oxford University Press}}, series = {{International Journal of Public Opinion Research}}, title = {{Asking about Social Circles Improves Election Predictions Even with Many Political Parties}}, url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ijpor/edac006}}, doi = {{10.1093/ijpor/edac006}}, volume = {{34}}, year = {{2022}}, }