{"id":1077,"date":"2016-11-16T11:52:47","date_gmt":"2016-11-16T11:52:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chief-exec.com\/?p=1077"},"modified":"2016-11-23T12:42:46","modified_gmt":"2016-11-23T12:42:46","slug":"political-regret-you-just-have-to-live-with","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chief-exec.com\/?p=1077","title":{"rendered":"Political regret you just have to live with"},"content":{"rendered":"

So why did so many political professionals fail to predict both Brexit and the US election result?<\/p>\n

Both are political earthquake events. Both seemed to result in counter-intuitive outcomes. In both cases, what seemed to be the safe choice was rejected for the riskier option.<\/p>\n

Behavioural scientists have already found a rich source of raw material for their research in the Brexit vote and will undoubtedly find a lot more in Donald Trump\u2019s stunning victory in the US presidential election.<\/p>\n

Normally, behavioural science would expect the \u201cstatus quo\u201d factor to be the strongest influence on decisions such as these. They say there is an innate bias in humans to stick with the familiar which, after nearly 50 years of membership of the European Union, should have meant that remaining within the EU would be the majority choice.<\/p>\n

But research conducted during the Brexit campaign by the UK\u2019s BrainJuicer research team found that, when asked to give an instant response to the question of whether they favoured leaving or remaining, 54 per cent said Leave and 46 per cent said Remain.<\/p>\n

\n

They say that there is clear evidence that some Leave voters are going through what they call \u201cexperienced regret\u201d, psychological punishment for a bad decision in the past.<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So, why the instinct to \u201cLeave\u201d rather than \u201cRemain\u201d? Why was the status quo effect in favour of remaining not working?<\/p>\n

Behavioural scientists suggest a few reasons.<\/p>\n

One was that, for older voters who overwhelmingly voted Leave, the familiarity they longed for was the pre-EU days.<\/p>\n

A second was that the UK public had never been convinced of the be<\/span>nefits of being in the European Union. The popular press image of the EU had always been intensely negative. With the benefits of membership always under-played, the public\u2019s instinctive sense was that a lot had been lost from membership.<\/p>\n

And the most important thing people felt had been lost was \u201ccontrol\u201d.<\/p>\n

Tom Ewing, senior director of BrainJuicer Labs, wrote in a blog that the Leave campaign\u2019s \u201ctake back control\u201d slogan was the most effective of the campaign because it tapped into a general community feeling of loss of British control to the EU.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn archetypal terms, this took their strongest story \u2013 rebirth, about learning from mistakes and starting over \u2013 and turning it into something that felt positive, dynamic, and forward looking (rebirth stories can tend to have a nostalgic component),\u201d he wrote. \u201cWith a powerful narrative in play, all Leave needed was the message discipline to continually reinforce it \u2013 which they had.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chicago University behavioural economist Richard Thaler reinforces this finding. He said in a recent interview with MarketWatch that, financially, leaving the EU didn\u2019t make sense. This was the overwhelming conclusion of standard economic analysis.<\/p>\n

But, he said, few voters would be making the kind of calculations that oped writers in the Wall Street Journal<\/em> or the Economist<\/em> were doing to reach this conclusion. He said Leave voters were acting instinctively.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost voters aren\u2019t really thinking about it in a very analytical way\u2026 The people behind the leave campaign were voting with their guts. There\u2019s no spreadsheet. This is much like a divorce without a prenup. You\u2019re voting to leave, and we\u2019ll take care of all the financial details later.\u201d<\/p>\n

But behavioural scientists are now also looking at post-Brexit vote psychology.<\/p>\n

And they detect something different: They believe that there are signs of a strong \u201cregret\u201d factor among Leave voters.<\/p>\n

They found that, in the days immediately after the vote, there was a high level of internet traffic around issues such as the benefits of UK membership of the EU and the potential costs of leaving it \u2013 significantly higher than before the referendum vote.<\/p>\n

They say that there is clear evidence that some Leave voters are going through what they call \u201cexperienced regret\u201d, psychological punishment for a bad decision in the past.<\/p>\n

They say that the punishment for this is usually that the individual does not make the same mistake again.<\/p>\n

But in the case of the Brexit vote, they are unlikely to get the chance.<\/p>\n

By Geoff Kitney<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

\"kitney-vb1\"<\/p>\n

Other articles associated with today’s editorial are:-<\/p>\n

Editorial:\u00a0 The science of Brexit behaviour<\/a><\/h4>\n

The psychology of government<\/a> by Geoff Kitney<\/h4>\n

All in it together \u2013 some of the time!<\/a> by David Rawlings<\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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