Introduction

In previous chapters we considered the role of social information in such matters as the response to surveys or polls. The possession of information about the attitudes of others did not, in this work, affect the underlying individual attitudes, which were assumed to be immutable with respect to social information. Suppose, however, that knowledge of the attitudes or intentions of others affects our own intentions. Then the purveyors of social information evidently acquire considerable power to influence events. Such a contingency has long been noted by political pollsters, for instance. The bandwagon influence of surveyed intentions upon election outcomes is one such effect. Moreover, campaign money and activity is heavily dependent upon the performance in current opinion polls of the competing candidates, and the effects of such campaigning will in turn materially affect voter intentions. That many commentators – and indeed legislators – have expressed grave disquiet at the consequential effects of polls as news events is ample testimony to the pervasiveness and importance attached to the nonneutral effects of surveys of voter opinion. More recently it has been realized (see Section 4.3) that opinion polls may have a social function in transferring information about candidates to the electorate and vice versa so that the results of a cycle of polling and publication may be socially beneficial, a cause for encouragement rather than disquiet.

The behavior-modifying influence of published predictions is by no means confined to the political arena.