The Neuroeconomics of Voting: Neural Evidence of Different Sources of Utility in Voting

Which motives drive the decision of a voter to approve or reject a policy proposal? The Public Choice literature distinguishes between instrumental and expressive voting motives. We investigated the importance of these motives by analyzing the patterns of neural activity in different voting situations. We conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment that investigates neural activation at the moment of voting and used the altruism scale proposed by Tankersley, Stowe, and Huettell (2007) to differentiate between altruists and nonaltruists. Nonaltruists showed neural activation patterns that were consistent with expressive voting motives. Among nonaltruists, we also observed activation patterns that point at egoistic instrumental motives. Both results are in line with the corresponding Public Choice literature. On the other hand, we found no evidence for expressive voting motives among altruists. Their neural activation pattern was generally much less conclusive with respect to the underlying motives.