The impact of heuristics on political behavior*Egypt’s Morsi as a case study
To what extent do heuristics impact political behavior?
Abstract:
This paper aims to answer to what extent do heuristics impact political behavior, using Egypt’s Morsi as a case study, in the context of the democratic 2012 Egyptian presidential elections, this thesis was selected as it proves how cognitive shortcuts determine many of the political decisions and behaviors an individual makes without an actual pertinent thought process as opposed to a more typical optimal thought process, as for the context, it was chosen, as the multitude of pledges, ideological affiliation and personal character of Morsi makes the impact of heuristics visible and helps put this impact in picture, this research is significant in that, it explores the underlying cognitive inner workings of the individual and to what extent that impacts political behavior, as established: according to Stlowijk and Vis (2021) “heuristics are cognitive shortcuts that facilitate judgments and decision making”, current literature has not explored presidential figures in depth, especially as case studies, which will be a power of this research, such that it makes an applicable model out of this specificity, with its strength lying in its capacity for historical analysis, Finally, there will be a focus on representativeness, deservingness and partisanship heuristic with themes relating to the effect of heuristics on political behavior in citizens, elites and a combination thereof.
Introduction:
This research presents the working hypothesis that “Heuristics greatly impact political behavior, which occurred especially in Egypt, as a result of perceived and imparted impressions, the laidback mental process using the least mental energy along with the lack of proper assessment between the parties in question and the situational environment at hand” the first trial of democracy in Egypt provides a context for this study and subsequent analysis, the dynamic between citizens and the elite as will be expounded upon, form the process of heuristics formation and the subsequent responsive and conclusive turn of events, further the diverse range of heuristics used, make this research special in its own right, it focuses on a middle eastern country, the latter of which has not been researched of in previous heuristics research as relating to politics, the importance of this research is represented in its ability to show the dynamic between the elites and citizens in the context of heuristics as a back and forth genesis of said heuristics, the new field of heuristics in politics can be further enriched through the consideration of case studies, especially ones that use interviews to set the analysis and context in motion, the importance of heuristics lies in showing how mental and strategic processes are formed or optimized in politics, this is especially of the essence in elections which take place in a short almost emergency like timeframe, this research further shows the possible avenues of connecting to other departments of managerial nature, such as industrial engineering primarily, along with business studies and psychology to a lesser extent, the complexities of these process can be revealed and how they are exactly broken down and manifested, “This paper will argue that heuristics greatly impact political behavior especially as a result of the back and forth dynamic between citizens and the elite along with usage of the least mental effort as possible and assumptive thought process that leads to the usage of heuristics, using Egypt as a case study”
Body:
Literature review: According to Duval and Petry (2017) many citizens are unable to properly assess the performance of presidential candidates and lack the information along with extensive interest so as to choose a candidate reasonably, but rather exhibit a more random thought process along with being incompletely informed about a political issue and use said process in place of informed decision making, and while some might argue that differences in knowledge solely contribute to the political behaviors of citizens, but a response to this counterargument is that citizens might disregard information due to ideologically motivated reasoning along with said heuristics worsening decision making through misinformation that is produced through them, additionally using heuristics related to trust or affiliation with party ID might mislead citizens assessment of which pledges were fulfilled, such that those viewing a candidate negatively might see his fulfilled pledges as unfulfilled, while those who view him positively might find the candidates unfulfilled pledges as fulfilled, as a result of bias seemingly being a cognitive shortcut, the pledges themselves increase the bias towards said candidate.
Moreover, it is according to Lau and Redlawsk (2001) that citizen’s ignorance of much of political issues whether it be knowledge of legislatures or political events, hinders the efficiency of the democratic process, due to the usage of cognitive shortcuts through the least effort, which explains how this ignorance came about, this pattern could be observed when there is a lack of information and is applicable to life in general, for example the party affiliation heuristic, is a quick shortcut for voting, another is appearance which visualizes identity and likableness and the emotions that this politician conveys, another is ideology, which leads to assumptions for example on tax cuts or tax raises, the reliance on this “schemata” and inferred logic or expectations shows an important impact of heuristics on political behavior, the use of heuristics have been shown to decrease the accuracy of decision making in both knowledgeable and unknowledgeable citizens who voted for stereotypical or non-stereotypical candidates, except in the case of knowledgeable citizens who used heuristics for stereotypical candidates that in contrast showed an increase in the quality and accuracy of the decisions made, along with the usage of heuristics for no stereotypical candidates by unknowledgeable voters, which seems to increase efficiency as well.
According to Wang (2008) citizens are not that interested in gathering information about political issues, and are more likely to estimate political decisions such as voting through their emotions, this leads to the prominence of the affect heuristic, that standardizes a political attitude or decision in the mind of its beholder, said citizens use affect heuristic when faced with too complex of a cognitive political task, this heuristic is based on the amount of competency and warmth they feel from a candidate for an example, these 2 criteria map out on 4 axis of feelings, pity, empathy, envy and admiration, the latter of which seemed to have the highest prominence in determining political choice, this is shown in a sample group’s voting John Kerry over George Bush as a presidential candidate, in fact, this heuristic predicted the winner before the results in the sample, and although a weakness lies in the small size of the sample and correlation to this voting behavior might be caused by something other than this heuristic along with the mistake of using different heuristics on different groups, still the high prediction and high description fit indicate that while caution should be used, this heuristic is still of importance in determining political behavior.
In regards to elites, Miler (2009) argues that elites sometimes misinterpret the wishes of their constituents due to heuristics which said elites employ to expect their constituent’s demands, this occurs due to biases and incomplete information, and thus we see the effect of the availability heuristic on political behavior, to this extent, an important part of the research is that representatives, especially congressional ones might misrepresent their constituents, it could be said that decisions based on heuristics are definitely inefficient if said elites would have decided otherwise with more knowledge, these heuristics are more likely to come about as a result of the information environment, which constrains representatives from identifying with and understanding the large and varied numbers of constituents, frequency is an important determiner of the accessibility of information, as repetition increases the association of the constituents and the elite, and the elite with the demand at hand, representatives are then encouraged to seek a more thorough examination of their constituents needs as opposed to reliance on freely recalled information, which would lead representatives closer to the ideal of representing all their constituents.
Furthermore, Stolwijk and Vis (2021) postulate that systematic biases for elites stemming from heuristics can have a harmful impact on representative democracy, said elites use the representativeness heuristic which could cause biases to arise as a result of generalizations, policy measures stemming from these generalization might be unjust, harmful and problematic, time pressure seems to contribute to the usage of this heuristic along with having staff who are likeminded or with similar identities, who are likely to replicate the same biases.
In relation to both citizens and elites, according to Colombo and Steenbergen (2018) that if a decision is likely to be the same, then being knowledgeable or not is of less importance in comparison to using a heuristic, as it could save time and prove more optimal, yet, heuristics can form out of biases and negatively contribute to the political dynamic, for instance, heuristics identified with religion, can lead to specific choices or choice of political parties, and thus their standardization in the mind of the voter as the ‘religious party’, or for example from their facial features ,such that political competence is inferred from said criteria, cues could be sent for example relating to endorsements from political elites such that voters can shortcut their way into deciding without analyzing every part of the process ,parties can send cues based on the partisanship heuristic to advice voters through for example pamphlets or to use instructions online on how to vote in local elections, this in turn leads the constituent to vote for said party candidate using the same heuristic, the disconfirmation and confirmation bias resulting from these choices lead to misperceptions, this can send out wrong policy signals to elites or party leaders specifically, who might associate their own opinion to be closer to that of the partisan and vice-versa leading to a loop with the party adopting unwanted policies.
Subsequently, it is argued by Fortunato and Stevenson (2016) that senators who are more loyal to their parties principles are more likely to be voted in by account of their constituents partisanship heuristic, this comes in contrast with less loyal senators, constituents are also more likely to draw inferences on their senators vote on bills if the senator is more aligned with his party’s views, high interest voters are more likely to be associating with their senator and predicting their behavior, as opposed to their uninterested pears, but are less likely to predict their senators behavior if they were to not hold party loyalty on a bill, loyal senior and freshman senators have been found to have the same rate of party loyalty in voting on bills, in any case, citizens showed that the partisanship heuristic is a powerful tool in that it is used unknowingly yet is correct most of the time, in that senators are most likely to vote for their party’s policies, all this demonstrates how cognitive processes are shaped by political context.
Lastly, according to Petersen (2015) Heuristics are an evolutionary trait that helped our ancestors make decisions in their quasi-political small communities and are a result of traits and decisions obtained from the adaptation gained from past environments along with the reliance on motivational systems for outputs of heuristics, the deservingness heuristic for example in regards to welfare benefits show that receivers of welfare are not considered deserving if they are perceived as lazy by the public, while on the other hand are considered deserving if they are perceived as having bad luck and previously contributing to society, this dynamic influences how welfare plays in regarding ideology and voting behavior, this could be also applied to candidates who might be more likely to be elected if considered as deserving regardless of their current merit or future plans and expectations.
Methodology:
Two interviews were conducted with two Egyptians with 10 questions relating to Morsi’s Semblance, his pledges, character, persona, pathos, competency, deservingness, how informed Egyptians were of campaign pledges of that election, the role of bias in this dynamic, effect of political party affiliation on both Morsi and the Citizens of Egypt along with the dynamic of expectations and how that shapes and is shaped by heuristics, these interviews were conducted in a qualitative structured method in which interviewees would be given space to answer the questions at hand in interviews that are approximately 45 minutes, the first interview was mostly conducted in Arabic and transcribed into English, it took place in a café, while the second, that of Yousef was conducted in English, in a university campus studying hall, the interviewees were chosen as based on their vast theoretical and participatory or practical knowledge, the participants preferred not to disclose more information.
Interviews:
Our first interviewee is Omar, he identifies 2 groups of people in Egyptian society, those without critical thinking and those with critical thinking, the latter is not influenced by propaganda, while the former are very susceptible to influence, both groups make up 50 % of Egyptian society, he also thinks that most societies have more of the non-critical thinking groups, this manifests in the particular use of the representativeness heuristic by those who are not critical thinkers, since their guard is down they are more susceptible to be influenced based on representativeness.
He adds that in terms of Morsi, critical thinkers found his campaign as unrealistic, and that the ones without critical thinking were thinking unrealistically and dreaming, and that in turn influenced their political behavior, he continues that there are a lot of campaign promises and because Morsi was seen as resembling all their ideas, they were finding him as deserving, this forms in the way that said pledges are more believable since Morsi seems to embody or resemble their ideals.
Moreover, due to his insistence on religion and his resemblance to religiosity or religion and its symbols, lead to him drawing religious or fanatic people, and because the Islamic brotherhood already have an image and reputation in society, as opposed to the advertising nature of other parties, this made the Islamic brotherhood more successful, this is how Morsi’s semblance, ideological affiliation and party identification impacted voters in Egypt.
Regarding the degree of being informed or Knowledgeable of Egyptian citizens of the candidates for election, he points out that besides Morsi, since there was less discussion about Shafiq and other candidates, that lead to less fame, while for Morsi the controversial nature of the discussions around him basically gave Morsi free advertisement and lead to his fame, as for Shafiq, since many predicted that he would win, they did not try to vote for him nor cared to learn about him or other candidates, this went in favor of Morsi and his campaign.
While depending on the category of voters, in general, those belonging to the irrational category, found Morsi to be welcoming, and looked up to him, and found him to reflect competency and respectability based on his previous line of work, that being an assistant professor in California and later on a Professor in Egypt, he was the head of Engineering department there.
In regards to political party affiliation and lean, Omar adds that no matter the degree of importance of religion to an individual, a religious individual will lean towards Morsi as the religious and popular candidate, this manifests in Morsi’s political party’s representation of said religious fervor, such that many, even those who are religious but supportive of other parties would still chose Morsi as the religious candidate, as they lean towards him, especially when elections are between Shafiq the candidate that more closely represents the older establishment and Morsi the religious candidate.
Additionally voters drawn to Morsi, might be even more influenced when they hear of Morsi using past greatness as a way or pathos of convincing others, thus his voters or those that lean towards his campaign, further concede to said campaign, this is particularly evident, in Morsi’s constant reminders of how great Egypt was and how he can help bring that back, he would repeat how great Egypt was multiple times in a speech in order to appeal to the masses, he would also put a lot of emotions relating to pride, nostalgia and hope in relation to said reminders, he would constantly call out for the average man and his issues, this tactic seems to have drawn a lot of positive attention and traction to him.
Morsi’s expectations of his constituent’s demands were impacted by heuristics, in that Morsi’s campaign was shaped by religious and practical (realpolitik) expectations, yet most of his voters later on lead him on far too much, such that he became too confident in his power, this later on lead to his downfall, he was used to being powerful, to the extent that many people would believe anything he says, this also helps explain how his expectations went against his constituents demands.
Lastly, in regards to how Morsi’s extent of affiliation with his party impacted the political behavior of his voters after the election, for critical thinkers nothing changed, others found a change of heart to him as a result of him being incompetent, along with not fulfilling his promises, this was shaped by how far Morsi was drawing away from his party, and how that created a further sense of alienation with Morsi, from those who were hardline supporters of his party and its ideology, seeing this incompetency and lack of promise fulfilment, supporters were not finding compensation in these dealings.
Our second interviewee is Yousef, he explains that expectations are important in regards to the heuristics of political behavior, as it reflects the desires of people, this is especially true of Egypt which came out of a revolution, in which afterwards Egyptians were hopeful of rising back up, that hastened the expectations that were placed on Morsi, they found that Morsi’s pledges cannot lead to immediate change.
In regards to deservingness and campaign pledges, Morsi’s pledges were aimed to fix the things that others were scared to live through, after the revolution against Mubarak, people did not try to know more about his past life, the great pledges that were made in the campaign along with said ignorance added to the pain of voters and made other factors be as if obscure to them, markedly, heuristics as mentioned in the beginning of the interview “impact political behavior in a massive and important way”.
In regards to Morsi’s semblance, his ideological and party presentation… categories of people in Egypt vary but are united, this too is reflected in how Egyptians feel more warmth to candidates or characters who are kind and good looking, along with candidates that would follow their religion to a good degree as that shows that said person is respectful to his religion and gathers his sincerity from it, Morsi expected most voters to be supporters of his party, a trend or expectation that would continue after his term finished, the people thought him being religious would make his word more tangible, as for the party, Yousef notes that the majority voted regardless of the party, but rather they voted him as a man rather than the representative of his party or maybe even as a representative of his campaign, as such he showed himself as man not as a party.
In regards to how informed Egyptian citizens were of the candidates for election, the two main candidates were the only ones that had proper representation on social media, elections were remade just to settle the vote between the two, indeed Morsi and Shafiq had similar structure in regards to their campaign, yet the former went to the streets, he used to answer questions and was more closer to the people, he had more appearance in the streets as opposed to Shafiq, additionally, in general Shafiq as a person and candidate was so dull and offered basic things, he would pledge to increase bread production or would explain how important the production of bread is, his propaganda was not meaningful in general, it did not arouse strong feelings, one could say that Shafiq was not qualified to make a campaign.
In regards to Morsi’s Persona, its welcomness and competence, his appeal is very positive, he sounded really kind and impressive, and was really warm, people felt comfortable and that would affect their political behavior greatly, he was a kind and hopeful person, his positivity seemed particularly distinguishable from other candidates, additionally, in regards to party lean and affiliation, many choose to vote for a party regardless of proper knowledge of the candidate, some leaned towards Morsi as they are supportive of similar beliefs, so maybe it effected voting behavior in this way, party identification was primarily affected by ideological lean, and so those who voted for other Islamist parties ended up voting for Morsi as an approximation of their beliefs or the representation thereof.
In regards to the role of bias in this dynamic, a big portion of Egyptian society as any society have biases, the rich for example supported Shafiq especially against the poor, another case of bias would be religion, such that Morsi would provide more religious change and that would be completely different than the transitionary and old establishment status quo.
Morsi was using Pathos to an extreme, to the extent that most of his speeches were emotional, such that even when he was threatened by the army, he still went out to make a speech instead of using his guards or his supporters, he was constantly reminding that he is the rightful president, he should have used something other than just pathos or even manipulation, the influence of his pathos on creating votes covered something along one fifth of his voters, Moreover, creativity with showing love to the country is common to multiple presidential figures around the world, such as Donald Trump in the U.S along with Mubarak and later Al-Sisi of Egypt whom uses this tactic (Al-Sisi) to Justify what he is doing, for example he would begin by describing how much he loves Egypt and how great its history is, and then continue on by offering debatable policies.
In regards to Morsi’s extent of affiliation with his party, and how that impacted the political behavior of his voters after the election, in most of Morsi’s decisions he had to go back to his party, affecting his decision greatly, this was problematic and further exacerbated his downfall, further, his incompetency should have not led him to be silent against the army, but rather he should have used made him use his power against the army and try to distance himself from the party.
Lastly, Yousef makes a point that Heuristics should not be followed by elites, since every president wants to prove his success at some point, at some point a president would want to do something regardless of real knowledge, this is not only harmful in its own right but harmful to the process of democracy ,heuristics should not be followed by elites, as a lot of acceptance on a topic should lead the opinion of elites to go properly in the direction of the people and to achieve said demands of the people, heuristics would distort politicians understanding of their citizens’ demands, that would go against the process of applying democracy, democracy is about satisfying people, it supports the representation of the diverse and multiple opinions of people in the form of voting, this is especially important for Egypt as throughout its history many people were removed forcefully, this is referred to as “the curse of the rulers of Egypt” which started out in the 1200s and had a general pattern or trend of assassinations and forceful removals, Morsi or any other should have been only removed with elections, yet, because of his weak decisions, the Egyptian people got irritated and that led to his downfall.
Discussion and Findings:
The dissatisfaction that can result as a consequence of using heuristics is evident our case study of Egypt, and as demonstrated in the literature, over using heuristics can lead to the inefficiency or even disruption of the democratic process as Lau and Redlawsk (2001) have implied , which did occur as a result of Morsi not fulfilling his pledges, this trend seems to be perceivable in the interviews of both of our subjects who while having varying opinions, both establish that Morsi’s downfall came as a result of people associating with him and being impacted by heuristics, only for them to latter realize that the campaign pledges which bound them seem to have not been achieved and thus unbound themselves from it, in this sense those actors without critical thinking as our first interviewee would describe them, found themselves as one could infer, to tear apart the democracy that they themselves help build, resulting in the downfall of Morsi and the success of the non-democratic Egyptian military in taking hold of power.
Furthermore, Lau and Redlawsk (2001) have shown us that heuristics come as a result of the least effort used as cognitive shortcuts, this theme was of great prominence in that it plays a considerable and primary role in the genesis of heuristics in the mind of the individual, this theme is closely paralleled with the importance of expectations and assumptions that our second interviewee spoke about, as reliance on these expectations and assumptions greatly influences political behavior, as result of them being an important generator of low effort cognitive shortcuts….stereotypical candidates, which Morsi to a great extent is a befitting example, lead to greater instances or quantifications of heuristics generation, as in the opening of our second interviewee, these expectations reflect the desires of citizens, whose constant increase in the context of post-revolutionary Egypt resulted in a great disappointment.
As Duval and Petry (2017) have shown us, the thee relating to information about other candidates for both interviewees show that indeed Egyptians in general used random thought processes and heuristics to disregard other candidates as they were unaware of them, the difference lies however, in that our first interviewee found Morsi not to identify heavily with his party, while for our second interviewee, Morsi kept identifying more and more with his party as time passed on, the people in any case were evaluating Morsi not his party affiliation, but rather their own party affiliation which aggregated to Morsi as the representative of the religious political affiliations in general.
As Wang (2008) has shown us, both interviewees agree that the pathos and emotions that Morsi exhibited in his speeches, how he constantly reminded the people of Egyptian history, played well into the affect heuristic, our second interviewee sensed a feeling of a paternal or mentorship character from Morsi, which definitely impacted how he voted, the trust that was felt from Morsi, was further fueled by the campaign promises which signaled competency, together with those feelings that he exhibited make the affect heuristic an impactful heuristic especially in this case study, especially since the predictive powers of this heuristic might manifest in generalizing this trend to the Egyptian people.
Furthermore, as Miller (2009) has shown us, both interviewees agree that Morsi perceived the people as susceptible to getting their demands sidelined, and thus the great support which was fueled with excitement and trust, led Morsi to be more laid back, our first interviewee frames this situation as a result of the lack of critical thinking which seems to imply that said lack of critical thinking led the people to be blinded from the information in their surroundings, this too led Morsi to misunderstand what his representatives want and in what way or order, thus the availability heuristic here shows, how this dynamic further led to finding no quick or alternative to Morsi, on the eve that they lost democracy.
Likewise, as Stolwijk and Vis (2021) have shown us, our interviewees found heuristics to be a great cause of biases, this can in Egypt’s case be represented by Morsi trying to knock off the old establishment and replace it with religious institutions, is based on his biases towards the symbols of the old status quo, this shows how the heuristics related to religious identification, led Morsi to think that he knew what Egyptians wanted, and thus generalized without giving proper understanding of the different demands, that one of our interviews implies that Morsi should have covered the general common themes of these demands
As for Colombo and Steenbergen (2018) along with Fortunato and Stevenson (2016), our interviewees confirm that the appearance and guise of Morsi really impacted the way citizens think about him, for our first interviewee emotions overcame those without critical thinking, and led them to associate Morsi’s character with religious symbols, and thus any interested voter who finds religiosity to be important on a personal level or identifies himself with the more successful Islamic brotherhood, is using the partisanship heuristic to identify with the political party that he finds to be representative of this standardized mental image, as for our second interviewee he finds that citizens have contemplated and associated Morsi based on his individual characteristics and thus as mentioned that aggregated the vote to him, as displaying religiosity gave rise to a feeling of trust in relation to his perceived sincerity, a man of his word so to say, Morsi would go more out in the street, ask his partisans about their demands, in contrast to his more dull competition Shafiq who did not do the same, thus Morsi forms stronger bonds of partisanship and shows himself to be more representing of his people, political campaign and party; both interviewees agreed that Shafiq represented the old status quo, which those who were benefitting from, found no problem in maintaining the status quo as opposed to the more representative more partisanship adherent Morsi.
Lastly, in regards to deservingness heuristic, as Petersen (2015) has shown us, our first interviewee leads us to infer that the representation that voters felt from Morsi lead to their bias, which subsequently lead to the assumption that Morsi deserves to be elected, their unrealistic thought process lead them to take his campaign pledges as a given, his promises were more believable for them as they were not really critical thinkers, nor were they grounded in reality but rather a dreamlike state, as for the second interviewee he explains how Morsi’s pledges obscured much other details about Morsi’s life and capabilities, the fear to return to Mubarak’s time certainly played in this dynamic adding to the haziness and cloudiness of other details.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, heuristics do have a great impact on political behavior, the numerous heuristics which were discussed such as the affect heuristic, the representativeness heuristic, the partisanship and party identification heuristic along with the deservingness heuristic and many other, play into the decisions that both citizens and the elites take, as discussed before heuristics should not be used not by citizens nor elites to guide or influence their behavior, except in very rare cases relating to great knowledge and interest in stereotypical candidates as mentioned before, heuristics do detrimentally effect the democratic process or the political process in general, expectations surprisingly seemed to play into the formation of these thought processes, as for political behavior, voting, ideology and the possibility of rebelliousness or revolution, they are heavily impacted by heuristics, the stereotypical characteristics of politicians initiate heuristics in the mind of their observer, this can lead to inefficiencies in the political processes of a country, most use heuristics unknowingly, being unaware of said usage shows their danger, and the role they play in our thought processes, these are applicable to the Egyptian case study ,in any case the our case study showed how the usage of heuristics by both Morsi and voters in general, came as a result of assumptions that lead expectation to a disappointment, that in the end not only disrupted the democratic process in Egypt but resulted in its complete collapse, the usage of the least mental effort possible, hidden by complex justifications, reduces the quality of political discussions and the sharing of ideas, as mentioned, heuristics do impact political behavior to a great extent.
Limitations and Recommendations:
Previous studies did not put focus on how heuristics are formed, as such future studies should attempt to do so while using case studies to be able to manipulate variables and to infer their results from multiple case studies so as to be able to generalize trends and to expand more upon the emerging field of heuristics in politics, as for this research its limitation lies in its innovative abilities, which while of great quality, could have included heuristics from other fields, so as to test, compare and apply them, future researchers are also suggested to expand upon said heuristics of other fields ad to incorporate them within their research.
References:
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