Whne I worked recently as a volunteer for the Obama campaign in Florida I used mostly prompts to get likely supporters to show up to vote. I did this one person at a time as I went door to door. It was a time-consuming process because homes were often spread out and the residents often were either not home or not inclined to answer the door. I left written info on their doors in those cases.

Some days I went rogue and used my own strategies to drum up votes. For instance, during early voting, another volunteer and I spent a day or so at a local college asking student after student going by the library whether they had voted. My thought was that most students would vote for Obama if they voted. We asked hundreds of students, and hundreds more saw the signs we carried that encouraged voting. We praised those who said they had already voted, and we gave information to those who wanted it (e.g., that they did not need to have a voter registration card as long as they were actually registered). In a few hours we interacted with more potential voters than we did in weeks of going door to door. Did our efforts work? We have no way of telling.

The other rogue strategy I used was sending an email to dozens of academic psychologists at universities in Florida. I asked them to vote early and then to tell their friends, family, and students that they and voted and enjoyed the experience. I explained that their reinforced model might prompt others to vote, through vicarious reinforcement, a topic on which I have published research articles. I guessed, based on personal experience, that the vast majority of academic psychologists would vote for Obama and that their friends and family members would too — if they voted. I also expected that a strong majority of their college students would vote for Obama. I focused on lower-rank academics and women. I chose the lower rank academics because I expected they would be teaching more students and they would be more open to suggestions than higher rank academics. I chose women because I expected them to be less resistant to cooperating with someone who contacts them out of the blue. Were my assumptions right? Did my efforts work? I can’t tell. I wasn’t doing an experiment — I was applying psychology toward a short-term goal. Much of life is like that — we take actions on the basis of past experiences and educated guesses. Soldiers often operate like that. I operate like that every time I play tennis.Whether we judged right is often hard to tell, except by determining whether we achieved the big objective. In the case of my rogue work for the campaign, I don’t have an urge to second-guess my actions — Obama carried Florida by a slim margin.

What important decisions have my made lately based on your past experiences and your own judgment? With what result?

John Malouff, PhD, JD
Assoc Prof of Psychology