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Voting Behavior behavior of public decision-makers has been a central concern for political scientists. In order to make inferences and predictions about behavior concerning voting decision, certain key public influences such as cultural factors must be considered. Surveys from different countries indicate that people are generally happier in individualistic cultures where they have rights such as the right to vote

These influences include the role of emotions, political socialization, tolerance of diversity of political views and the media. The effect of these influences on voting behavior is best understood through theories on the formation of attitudes, beliefs, schema, knowledge structures and the practice of information processing. The degree to which voting decision is affected by internal processing systems of political information and external influences, alters the quality of making truly democratic decisions.

Affective states
A growing literature finds that affective states play a role in public voting behavior. Evidence has shown a significant impact on voting decisions of a variety of events that are irrelevant to the evaluation of candidates, such as the outcome of football matches, weather, etc. While much of the political science and economics literature has assumed that irrelevant events have trivial significance on political behavior, political scientists have begun to incorporate social psychological theories that challenge this notion. The mechanism that has been posited for this effect is emotion.