The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life

by Kevin Simler

Political scientists often distinguish between “instrumental voting” and “expressive voting.” Instrumental voters use their votes in order to influence outcomes. They may be entirely altruistic (like a Do-Right) or entirely selfish, but regardless, they want their votes to make a difference. Expressive voters, however, don’t care about outcomes, but instead derive “expressive” value from the act of voting.39 Even if all of their chosen candidates end up losing in the election, expressive voters will still be happy to have cast their ballots. An apparatchik, then, is an expressive voter, but not just any expressive voter. While political scientists are mostly agnostic about why people like to express themselves at the voting booth, some treat expressive voting as an act of consumption—something we do in order to feel good, without concern for external benefits.40 In this view, voting is seen as providing a psychological reward, like getting to “affirm one’s identity” or “feel a sense of belonging.” But as we’ve seen many times in this book, explanations that are strictly psychological often fall prey to self-deception, and at any rate are often trumped by social explanations. Incentives that begin and end within one’s own head ultimately lead nowhere, whereas external incentives have real consequences, both material and biological. Thus the apparatchik is an expressive voter who is rewarded socially for expressing him- or herself at the polls.