Skip to main content
Log in

The race may be close but my horse is going to win: Wish fulfillment in the 1980 presidential election

  • Published:
Political Behavior Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Using data from the 1980 U.S. presidential election, we investigate the extent to which voter expectations about candidate electoral success and margin of victory are subject to systematic biases. In particular, we examine the extent to which candidate supporters overestimate their choice's likelihood of success. After finding a rather dramatic bias in the direction of “wishful thinking,” we review alternative explanations of this phenomenon, including a model based on nonrandom contact networks and one based on preference-related differences in expectations about exogenous variables that could affect the election outcome.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Asher, Herbert B. (1984).Presidential Elections and American Politics (3rd ed.) Homewood, IL: Dorsey Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Black, Duncan (1958).The Theory of Committees and Elections. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boucher, J., and Osgood, C. (1969). The Pollyana hypothesis.Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 8:1–8.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brody, Richard A., and Page, Benjamin I. (1972). The assessment of policy voting.American Political Science Review 66:450–458.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown, C. (1982). A false consensus bias in 1980 presidential preferences.Journal of Social Psychology 118:137–138.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carroll, J. (1978). The effect of imagining an event on expectations for the event: an interpretation in terms of the availability heuristic.Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 14:88–96.

    Google Scholar 

  • Condorcet, Marquis de (1785).Essai sur l'Application de l'Analyse à la Probabilité des Decisions Rendues à la Pluralité des Voix. Paris.

  • Downs, Anthony (1957).An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper and Row.

    Google Scholar 

  • Festinger, Leo (1957).A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Evanston, IL: Row-Peterson.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fischoff, Baruch, Lichtenstein, Sarah, Slovic, Paul, Derby, Stephen L., and Keeney, Ralph (1981).Acceptable Risk. London: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foster, Carroll (1984). The performance of rational voter models in recent presidential elections.American Political Science Review 78(3, September):678–690.

    Google Scholar 

  • Graber, Doris A. (1980).Mass Media and American Politics. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Granberg, Donald, and Brent, Edward (1983). When prophecy bends: the preference-expectation link in U.S. presidential elections, 1952–1980.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 45:477–491.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grofman, Bernard (1975). A comment on “democratic theory: a preliminary mathematical model.”Public Choice 21(Spring):100–103.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grofman, Bernard (1982). For single member districts, random is not equal. In B. Grofman, A. Lijphart, R. McKay, and H. Scarrow (eds.),Representation and Redistricting Issues, pp. 55–58. Boston: Lexington.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grofman, Bernard (1983). Models of voter turnout: an idiosyncratic review.Public Choice 41:55–61.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grofman, Bernard, Feld, Scott L., and Owen, Guillermo (1982). Evaluating the competence of experts pooling individual judgments into a collective choice and delegating decision and responsibility to subgroups. In Felix Geyer and Hans van der Zouwen (eds.),Dependence and Inequality, pp. 221–238. New York: Pergamon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grofman, Bernard, and Owen, Guillermo (1986). Condorcet models: avenues for future research. In Bernard Grofman and Guillermo Owen (eds.),Information Pooling and Group Decision Making. Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, forthcoming.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grofman, Bernard, Owen, Guillermo, and Feld, Scott L. (1983). Thirteen theorems in search of the truth.Theory and Decision 15:261–278.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hayes, S. (1936). The predictive ability of voters.Journal of Social Psychology 7:183–191.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heider, Fritz (1946). Attitudes and cognitive organization.Journal of Psychology 21:107–112.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heider, Fritz (1958).The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations. New York: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jacobson, Gary C. (1983).The Politics of Congressional Elections. Boston: Little Brown.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lazarsfeld, Paul F., Berelson, Bernard R., and Gaudet, Helen (1944).The People's Choice: How the Voter Makes Up His Mind in a Presidential Campaign. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Markus, Gregory B., and Converse, Philip E. (1979). A dynamic simultaneous equation model of electoral choice.American Political Science Review 73 (December): 1055–1070.

    Google Scholar 

  • Noelle-Neumann, Elisabeth (1984).Spiral of Silence. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Page, Richard A., and Brody, Benjamin I. (1972). Policy voting and the electoral process: the Vietnam war issue.American Political Science Review 66(September): 979–995.

    Google Scholar 

  • Page, Richard A., and Jones, Calvin C. (1979). Reciprocal effects of policy preferences, party loyalties and the vote.American Political Science Review 73(December): 1071–1089.

    Google Scholar 

  • Parducci, Allen, and Marshall, Louise M. (1962). Assimilation v. contrast in the anchoring of perceptual judgments of weight.Journal of Experimental Psychology 63: 426–437.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pomper, Gerald, with colleagues (1981).The Election of 1980: Reports and Interpretations. Chatham, NJ: Chatham House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Prescott, Eileen (1984). Word of mouth: playing on the prestige factor.Wall Street Journal (Feb. 7).

  • Riker, William H., and Ordeshook, Peter C. (1968). A theory of the calculus of voting.American Political Science Review 62:25–42.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schum, David (1986). Concentrated inference. In B. Grofman and G. Owen (eds.).Information Pooling and Group Decision Making. Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, forthcoming.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sears, David O., and Freedman, Jonathan L. (1967). Selective exposure to information: a critical review.Public Opinion Quarterly 31(Summer): 194–213.

    Google Scholar 

  • Taagepera, Rein (1973). Seats and votes: a generalization of the cube law of elections.Social Science Research 2(September): 257–275.

    Google Scholar 

  • Theil, H. (1970). The cube law revisited.Journal of American Statistical Association 65:1213.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Uhlaner, C.J., Grofman, B. The race may be close but my horse is going to win: Wish fulfillment in the 1980 presidential election. Polit Behav 8, 101–129 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00987179

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00987179

Keywords

Navigation