Life-cycle effects on social pressure to vote

• Recent scholarship reveals social pressure can compel citizens to conform to social norms like voting in elections.
• Literatures in psychology and political science suggest we should observe heterogeneity in the impact of social pressure to vote.
• We test the hypotheses that age, a key demographic characteristic, moderates the impact of social pressure.
• Using evidence from a large-scale randomized field experiment conducted in August 2006, we show that older voters are significantly more responsive to social pressure compared to younger voters.
• The findings suggest both practical and theoretical implications.

Recent scholarship reveals social pressure can compel citizens to conform to social norms like voting in elections. In this study, we investigate heterogeneity in the impact of social pressure to vote. We find that age, a key demographic characteristic, moderates the impact of social pressure. Using evidence from a large-scale randomized field experiment conducted in August 2006, we show that older voters are significantly more responsive to social pressure compared to younger voters. Given the emerging consensus that social pressure can be marshaled effectively to stimulate voting in elections, such investigations yield critical insights of both practical and theoretical significance.