Mini-Max Regret Theory in Mid-Term Elections

When we studied voter abstention as explained by David Johnson, one of the central issues we had to confront—after recognizing the strong disincentives to exercise the franchise—was why there was any civic participation at all. Considering how low the potential payoff generally is, why isn't voter participation in the single digits? Why does anyone go to the polls? We tossed around a few different theories. The theory that appeals most to me is one Johnson explicitly considers: the expressive power of the vote. I discussed this in my last blog post about Hong Kong. However, we also considered the "mini-max regret" explanation. Under this theory, people make decisions based on regrets, regardless of possibilities and independent of possible payoffs. Given a set of choices, then (such as voting vs. non-voting), people will choose the option that minimizes their maximum possible regret. We used this model to show that the maximum regret under not voting is larger than the maximum regret under voting, and therefore people may choose to vote.

It occurred to me that this theory of conceptualizing people's actions via regret-minimization (rather than utility-maximization) might apply to all sorts of situations. In this article from The Wall Street Journal, we see there is a combination of widespread voter apathy about the upcoming mid-term elections in Congress and a strong possibility of electing a Republican-majority legislature. Leaving aside the question of voter participation, we can use the mini-max regret theory to understand why people might be voting for Republican candidates over Democrat candidates. The article states: "But the GOP's advantage springs more from intense anti-Obama feelings than from a wave of voters who believe Republicans will transform Washington." Senator Lindsay Graham confirms this sentiment. What it expresses, in my opinion, is precisely what the mini-max regret theory predicts: people often make decisions based on what they don't want, rather than what they affirmatively do want. For voter participation, people don't want the possible regret of failing to cast the tie-breaking vote; for choosing political candidates, people often make decisions based on who they don't want in office. Specifically in this case, the regret of having more Democrats like Obama in office is the controlling factor in voters' minds, rather than some positive expected utility from having Republicans in control. Although in practice cost-minimization and utility-maximization frequently go hand-in-hand, how we think about behavior changes subtly when you employ the mini-max regret theory. I believe it provides a useful framework for understanding voter behavior in the upcoming federal elections.