Context and the canvass: The mechanisms of interaction

This paper examines two influences on an individual's decision to vote or not to vote on election day: the partisan door-to-door canvass and the social setting. Because that decision is important to political parties and candidates, they do what they can to influence the individual's decision, with the campaign canvass being one of the most important and effective methods. However, the decision also takes place in a social setting and is influenced by others in that setting. This paper examines these two influences on the individual and finds how they interact and that one conditions the other; the paper argues that the conditioning occurs because the social setting and canvass share a similarity in mechanism in the way that each exerts influence on the individual.