Abstract
Voting is considered to be one of the key components of democracy and youth participation is the vitality of the democratic system, however, statistically it is observed that the engagement of youth is declining. Employing concepts of behavioural economics and psychology in this study, the paper aims to investigate the influence of selected cognitive biases and digital media exposure on determining the voting behaviour of college-going Gen Z students in Bengaluru. Primary data was collected using structured questionnaires from around 510 students across 5 divisions of Bengaluru and 460 responses were considered after filtering the responses. The study adopts a quantitative, cross-sectional research design and uses binary regression model for analysis. The dependent variable is the voting behaviour and the independent variables are the cognitive biases, which includes present bias, rational ignorance, loss aversion, social norms, political efficacy, civic sense responsibility, status quo bias and trust deficit, along with digital media exposure.
The findings indicate that rational ignorance, loss aversion, social norms and political efficacy reduces voting, while civic sense responsibility and status quo bias increases participation. It is observed that civic sense responsibility is the strongest determinant of electoral participation, while present bias is insignificant. Digital media has a positive correlation but regression analysis highlights that higher exposure leads to lower youth turnout.
With a blend of behavioural and digital media determinants within a framework, this study contributes to the existing literature to understand the voting behaviour and attitude of the youth in an urban context.