In this paper we argue that this is partly due to the neglect of subconscious psychological processes. We test this idea in two priming experiments. In the first study subjects were subconsciously primed with words that either stimulated activism or passivism. In a second experiment subjects were offered the same words, but were primed subliminally. Results showed that subconsciously primed subjects in the activism condition reported stronger voting intentions than those in the passivism condition. However, no such effect was found in the second study. These findings suggest that individuals can be stimulated to vote through subconscious psychological processes, but only if the information upon which the effect is based is consciously processed.
