Lewis A. Kornhauser (New York University (NYU) – School of Law), Jean-Pierre Benoit (London Business School – Department of Economics), Rebecca Morton (New York University (NYU) – Wilf Family Department of Politics), & Victoria Shineman have posted An Experimental Study of Simple Voting on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
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In a representative democracy, citizens do not vote directly over assemblies but instead for individual candidates, who then constitute the assembly that enacts the legislative program. This complicates our ability to define what is meant by sincere voting, which can be divided into two concepts: expressive and simple voting. We present the results of an experimental study of voting over candidates in assemblies in which the predictions of expressive and simple voting diverge. We find that subjects predominantly vote simply rather than expressively. However, we find that when the voting situation is complex either in that voters have heterogeneous preferences or the simple voting strategy involves voting for a least preferred candidate instead of a highly preferred candidate, voters are more attracted to expressive voting. Hence, significant simple voting occurs, but the extent is highly dependent on the voting situation.