A Lesson in Science & Psychology
You should look up two very influential people to understand how buying cheap political yard signs can absolutely alter the outcome of your election. They are: political scientist Mel Kahn and psychologist Irving Kirsch. Both have thoughts on how if you purchase those cheap election signs, the investment produces a ton of voter turnout you wouldn’t get otherwise. And you’re in it to win it, right?
What Kahn Says
Mel Kahn has been a political science professor for 50 years. That’s half a century! Suffice it to say, he has absorbed and taught a bit more than a tad of information on elections. On political yard signs, Kahn states, “People don’t vote for persons whose name they do not know. And so, it’s a way, at the grassroots level, of establishing name recognition.” Kahn adds that for each yard sign posted, it earns a candidate six to 10 votes. Doing the easy math, if you put 10,000 cheap campaign signs out there, that comes to 60,000 to 100,000 votes. You think that might be able to swing an election in your favor?
What Kirsch Says
In 1985, Kirsch hypothesized that people who see a candidate’s name on political lawn signs are recipients of a placebo effect and classic conditioning. The placebo effect can change the behavioral strategies a person pursues. Classic conditioning can affect earlier stages of information processing. So, when people drive by and see cheap political campaign signs, and they haven’t gotten educated on an upcoming election, that first name recognition might stick in their minds, and they vote for that candidate.
While neither of these extremely smart men’s theories is absolutely proven by testing, they didn’t make it to their elevated stations in life by being stupid. So maybe the smart decision by candidates looking to win an election would be – put up political yard signs.