In the world of psychology, one of the traditional ways to address the concept of persuasion is by way of Petty and Cacioppo's Elaboration Likelihood Model. According to the model, there are two "routes" in persuasion: the central route and the peripheral route. While the central route requires attention to the content at hand, the peripheral route only relies on various non-message cues - particularly expert status.
It's within this context that the outcome of the Brexit vote becomes even more baffling.
For those who are unaware, Brexit is the concept of the United Kindgom's exit from the European Union as voted on by general election on June 23. There's a lot to it. For those who want to learn more of the details, here's a quick article from the BBC about the referendum. Alternatively, take a quick few minutes to watch this John Oliver recap of it before the election. (Be warned that he and others use some strong language. Also, the last three-to-four minutes of it aren't as important to the point and are mostly comedy).
Got it? Good. So you see the election results from the BBC article where 52% of people in the UK decided to leave the EU. Simple as that - the United Kingdom has left the EU - right?
Well, since said vote, the value of the British Pound has dropped to its lowest point in just over three decades, Scotland is en route to another independence vote, Northern Ireland officials are calling for a poll regarding unifying with the Republic of Ireland and British Prime Minister David Cameron stepped down from his post.
All of this happened within 15 hours of the results.
The Telegraph provided an interesting breakdown of who voted Brexit and who voted to remain. Results showed that many with lower levels of education and many older voters went Brexit, perhaps for a variety of reasons. However, perhaps many of the votes came by way of persuasive politicians who succeeded in their arguments by way of the peripheral route - including Nigel Farage who, after the result, redacted bold statements used in the Leave campaign.
Many voters woke up...unhappy, to put it lightly. Many took to Twitter to satirically parody the aftermath,
Hey @Nigel_Farage pic.twitter.com/G3rjtIZHCc
— Evelyn Hollow (@_EvelynHollow) June 24, 2016
rant about the situation as a whole,
The most articulate take on #Brexit is actually this FT reader comment today. pic.twitter.com/98b4DwsrTV
— Nicole Perlroth (@nicoleperlroth) June">https://twitter.com/nicoleperlroth/status/74627241... 24, 2016
and outright regret the votes they made.
Why are humans so f***ing stupid pic.twitter.com/m0q5t8afl7
— Nibel (@Nibellion) June 24, 2016
(Author's note: The last tweet was edited because of profanity)
Needless to say, the United Kingdom is currently in mild-to-serious chaos because of a vote that, with some more attentiveness and/or a little more legitimate voting, could easily have not happened. Now, the United States, emancipated child of the UK, needs to take notice.
Come this November, Americans have a pretty big vote coming up regarding who will lead this country for the next four to eight years. To many, the election is less a vote for who they prefer and more a vote for who they dislike least between polarizing figures from both sides. It could be easy to fall into a pattern of learned helplessness and just let whatever happens happen, voting haphazardly, if at all.
But the aftermath of the Brexit vote is an amplified version of what could happen if people vote without informing themselves, vote just for kicks and giggles or fail to vote at all. It may not happen exactly the same way, nor may it happen overnight, but these unfortunate happenings in the UK could await us in some permutation if we don't stay informed and, just as importantly, don't learn from and listen to all sides of the argument before putting the ballot in the collection device.
So take the British EU referendum as a cautionary tale: Take your vote seriously. It could count more than you know.
