Cognitive Ability and Voting Behaviour in the 2016 UK Referendum on European Union Membership

Abstract

On the June 23rd 2016, the UK voted to leave the European Union. The period leading up to the referendum was characterized by a significant volume of misinformation and disinformation. Existing literature has established the importance of cognitive ability in processing and discounting (mis/dis) information in decision making. We use a dataset of households from a national representative UK survey to investigate the relationship between cognitive ability and the propensity to vote Leave / Remain. In our preferred model—which restricts variation to couples within a household—we find statistically and economically significant evidence that the propensity to vote Remain is increasing in the voter’s cognitive ability: a one standard deviation cognitive ability advantage over one’s spouse increases the likelihood of voting to Remain in the EU by 17%. An important question then becomes how to improve individual and household decision making in the face of increasingly unmanageable amounts of (mis/dis) information.