Do “undecided” voters actually make their choices before they realize?
“Many people, especially early in the political process, declare themselves as undecided,” Nosek said. “But while they have consciously said that they are undecided, they unconsciously may have already made a choice.” And in a close election, undecided voters may determine the outcome the moment they make their decisions known on Election Day. Nosek and colleagues Mahzarin Banaji of Harvard University and Tony Greenwald of the University of Washington developed the Implicit Association Test to assess mental associations that may be different than what people know or say about themselves. A dozen years of research and hundreds of published studies suggest that people have implicit belief systems that may contradict their declared beliefs. These implicit beliefs can affect actions, such as how they vote at the moment it comes time to explicitly decide. The research team operates “Project Implicit,” a publicly accessible research and education Web site (www.implicit.harvard.edu) at which
