I thought I was done writing about yard signs, but when I woke up this morning, all of the Obama signs in my neighborhood were gone. Some people had them by the street, and others by their houses. All of them were gone. This was a targeted neighborhood beautification project, though, because the McCain signs were all still standing.
Obviously, this does make the neighborhood look like it leans a bit more to McCain than it does, but the real question here is why someone would steal the signs? The election is two weeks away, and early voting in Texas begins on Monday. Obama may be ahead in the national polls, but he is unlikely to carry the state of Texas.
So, what is the point of stealing Obama signs?
If you are a strong supporter of McCain right now, you are probably starting to feel a loss of control. The economic news is bad all over the world. McCain's poll numbers have dropped steadily over the past 6 weeks. His selection of Sarah Palin has not helped him to garner additional support. Although little of substance was said at any of the three debates, subsequent polls suggested that Obama was a clear winner of each of the debates in the public's mind.
A loss of perceived control is quite frustrating. For example, experiments have demonstrated that your performance on a test (like a math test) is worse if you are in a room with an annoying buzz than if you are in a quiet room. That finding alone would suggest that buzzes are distracting. However, the decrease in performance caused by the buzz is not as great if people know that they can end the test at any time without penalty. What makes the buzz frustrating is not just that it is there, but that it is there and you cannot do anything about it.
A common reaction to frustration caused by a lack of perceived control is to perform some action to try to regain control. Many McCain supporters have redoubled their efforts to support their candidate. Others may have given money to Republication candidates. These are productive responses to a loss of control.
Another strategy for regaining control is to remove the sources of frustration in the environment. In the case of the buzzing room I mentioned, that is a good and effective strategy. When it comes to yard signs, though, it is unproductive and inappropriate. So, it may be perfectly explicable why all of the Obama signs in our neighborhood disappeared, but it still doesn't make it the right thing to do.
Finally, I want to be clear as I end this entry. I am using this example, like all of the ones I pick in this blog, as an excuse to write about an interesting aspect of Psychology. I do not mean to say that all Republicans are the sort of people who would steal yard signs if given the chance and that all Democrats are not. In two weeks, the election will be over, and we're all going to have to find a way to get along.
