Psychology Commons^™

The Economic And Psychological Metrics Of Political Decision-Making, Allyson Eslin

Honors College

This project investigates what economic and psychological attributes influence Maine voters in their political decision-making. I examine how two typically separate disciplines—economics and psychology—combine, in order to understand unique characteristics that inform a voter’s political decision-making. This knowledge is vital to the legislators who seek to understand and represent the people who elected them. I examine the impact of economic stress on important political attitudes, a metric that has never been used to examine Maine voters. To gather this data, approximately 2,000 Maine residents were surveyed in 2013 using a questionnaire delivered through the mail. Using inferential statistics and regression …