General Election 2015: Are you suffering from ‘decisional stress’?

Lower voter numbers could be down to anxiety rather than apathy.

Many UK voters may be suffering from ‘decisional stress’ ahead of Thursday’s General Election and it might stop some from turning out.

Low voter turnout has often been blamed on apathy, but Professor Gerard Hodgkinson, Head of the Behavioural Science Group at Warwick Business School, believes people not voting could be using a defence mechanism due to the decisional stress experienced when facing complex, uncertain choices.

He said: “Many voters are under decisional stress. Whenever decision makers face a series of invidious choices, where whichever option they take could result in losing out materially, financially or socially, they feel conflicted, an experience that many find too stressful to bear.

“As a result many people will opt out of the decision-making process as a way of alleviating that stress, while others will jump prematurely to a decision before they have had a chance to fully weigh up all the relevant options.

“Both of these ways of coping are dysfunctional and often lead to feeling regret once the decision process has ended.

“Another dysfunctional way of coping is by letting somebody else decide for us – for example, by accepting uncritically the views of an admired figure in the public eye – effectively ‘passing the buck’, rather than taking personal responsibility for the decision at hand.

“To make a rational decision we need to weigh up all the alternatives in front of us quite carefully, which is something we find difficult to do, so in many ways people will find ways of short-cutting that process or simply opting out, which is the easiest way of avoiding the stress.”

And Professor Hodgkinson believes the fragmented nature of the current election is adding to voters’ decisional stress as they are bombarded with information.

“Unless voters have a clear route map through this complexity and uncertainty, politicians are unwittingly adding to voters’ decisional stress,” said Professor Hodgkinson.

Thankfully Professor Hodgkinson has some words of advice for stressed voters.

“Clarifying the way forward by homing in on the things that matter most and then weighing up the pros and cons is surely more likely to result in a better quality decision than jumping haphazardly from one problem and set of ideas to another.”

Good luck on Thursday.

Are you feeling stressed about Thursday’s vote? Tell us in the comments below or on our Facebook page.