The Implementation Intention Strategy in Application to Political Campaigns.

Introduction: 

The main goal of political campaigning is to inspire voters to turnout on election day and to prove to them why a said candidate's policies and ideals align with their personal values. However, getting a voter excited about a specific campaign is far more complex and multifaceted than simply crafting a convincing argument or engaging in conversation: it is the result of calculated research and the implementation of behavioral science. 

Do You Have a Voting Plan?

In general, when we make a plan, or are assisted in making a plan, we are far more likely to fulfill our goals. The Implementation Intention Strategy helps us craft a plan to achieve a specific result. This strategy connects a certain situation to a specific action. Before the situation arises, we can map out our response, using this format: “If X happens, then I will initiate the goal-directed response y” (Gollwitzer, P. M. (1999)). This can provoke us to act automatically when X situation arises, thereby making it easier to manufacture the outcome of a situation, or reach a desired goal. 

In political canvassing, our desired goal is voter turnout and our situation is an upcoming election. During my first week working for the Dini for Hoboken campaign, I was taught to utilize the Implementation Intention Strategy in political canvassing to increase the likelihood of reaching campaign goals. During phone calls, and conversations with prospective voters, positing the question: Do You Have a Voting Plan? carries out the Implementation Intention strategy. A field study in 2008 conducted by Alan S. Gerber and Donald P. Green proved that positing this question can increase turnout by 9.1 percentage points. The experiment was carried out through phone calls where at random voters were either called with a script that included the Implementation Intention Strategy–the Do You Have a Voting Plan question–or the standard script, which merely encouraged the voter to turn out through explaining the basic importance of voting. Despite the fact that fewer voters on average were called with the implementation intention script (due to its longer length), the study's results proved a positive association between using this script and voter turnout. One of the most important things I have learned so far from my internship and this study is that when we don't posit the "Do you have a voting plan?" question, in many cases, individuals that were planning to vote can get swept away by the unexpected responsbilities of the day which can hinder them from actually getting out to vote. For example, if a father has to take his kids to school, and then go straight to work, and then has a doctor’s appointment after work, by the time he leaves his doctor’s appointment the polls could already be closed. So, If this father was asked the question: Do You Have a Voting Plan? the questioner could help him sort through his schedule ahead of time, so that he knows exactly when he is going to make time to vote, and this can prevent responsibilities and other activities from getting in the way of an individual's likelihood of voting. By mapping out a person’s schedule and designating a specific portion of the day for voting, the goal-directed response Y to event X(the election) is automatically engrained in that person’s brain–increasing the likelihood of their goal(going to vote) being accomplished.