How voters decide
Sir: The application of deep motivational research to commerce has revealed that consumers buy goods, such as motor-cars, for reasons other than they are consciously aware of. So far as I know, this technique has not been applied to politics and the motivation of the elector.
Can we be sure, for instance, that when some- one 'votes Labour' he is actually looking ahead hopefully to a Socialist government, and not merely gratifying an unconscious personal need at the moment of voting? If this latter should in fact be the case, he is not likely to be unduly disappointed by a government's forgetfulness of pledges.
The behaviour of the British voter, from one election to the next, does not suggest to me that a careful weighing of promise against fulfilment is part of his effective mental processes.
William Hardie The Royal Automobile Club, Pall Mall, London SW I
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