Descriptive Social Norms and Intentions to Vote in Ghana: A Randomized Experiment in the 2024 Presidential Election

ABSTRACT We examine the impact of descriptive social norms—individuals' perceptions of others' behaviors—on people's intentions to vote in Ghana. Previous research has demonstrated that people often conform to commonly observed behaviors in their surroundings in various contexts. However, there has been limited experimental investigation of the effects of descriptive social norms in encouraging voting, particularly outside the United States. Given this research gap, we conducted two randomized experiments incorporated into online surveys of voters in Ghana, one conducted shortly before and the other following the 2024 general election. Our results reveal that a message emphasizing high voter turnout (a descriptive social norm of high participation) did not influence people's intentions to vote. Our results imply that the effectiveness of interventions to raise voter turnout may be substantially moderated by the salience of the election.