Matthew Barnfield

@mbarnfield.bsky.social

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British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at Queen Mary University of London. matthewbarnfield.co.uk

Graph showing that people think the short term is about 1-3 years in politics, and the long term is about 5-10 years.
Graph showing those focused on the long term less likely to have switched away from Labour than those focused on the short term.
Graph showing public expectations of length of time for change.
Title page of article "Electoral Hope" in journal Political Studies.
Bar chart with overlaid dot-and-whisker plot both showing primarily that support for public investment is higher when people are only told it will boost potential GDP by 0.14% in 5 years than when they are also told it will boost potential GDP by 1.4% in 50 years.
Bar chart showing the distribution of perceived meanings of “long term” among people who were told about public investment effects “over the longer term” and those told about public investment effects “in 50 years’ time”. The distributions are very similar in the 1-15 year range. Overlaid with a line showing how the difference in average support for public investment across these two groups varies according to these perceived meanings of “long term”. The effect is strongly negative at lower levels of the perceived meaning of “long term”, and approaches zero at higher levels of perceived meaning of “long term”.
Bar chart with overlaid dot-and-whisker plot both showing that support for public investment is higher when people are told it will boost potential GDP “over the longer term” (how the Chancellor worded it) than when they are told about that impact on potential growth happens “in 50 years’ time” (the time frame of the forecast underlying this claim).
Boxplot showing meanings of “short term” and “long term” in two samples. In Study 1 sample, median meaning of short term is 2 years, lower quartile 1 year, upper quartile 3 years; median meaning of long term is 8 years, lower quartile 5 years, upper quartile 10 years. In Study 2 sample, median meaning of short term is 2 years, lower quartile 1 year, upper quartile 3 years; median meaning of long term is 10 years, lower quartile 5 years, upper quartile 10 years.
Title and abstract. Title: Long-Term Time Horizons and Support for Public Investment. Abstract: Generating public support for long term public investment may require understanding what citizens perceive as the “long term” in politics and how these perceptions shape their preferences. Across two studies, we find that UK citizens generally understand “long term” as 5–10 years. These perceptions appear to shape support for a real, salient, recent case of large-scale public investment: the October 2024 UK budget. Study 1 shows that stating the economic effects of the budget's public investment measures will come “in 50 years' time" rather than “over the longer term” reduces support—with some evidence the effect may be driven by those with the shortest perceived time horizons. Study 2 reveals that when the 5-year benefits of investment—within voters' typical long-term time horizon—are known, highlighting its 50-year benefits lowers support for public investment. But across the board, we find that a majority supports public investment when made aware of its economic effects over any time frame. These findings improve understandings of voters' purported short-termism in a contingent real-world context, with implications for the communication of long-term public policy.
Title page. Title: Wishful thinking in response to events: Evidence from the 2021 German federal election. Abstract: When making uncertain judgments about the political future, people consistently see desired outcomes as more likely. But when major events reduce uncertainty about what is possible in the future, how do people's expectations respond? In a panel study conducted during the 2021 German federal election, we find that citizens' predictions of likely coalitions converge after the election takes place, but even after this convergence those expectations remain marked by significant partisan gaps. The election result substantially reduces uncertainty about coalition formation—decreasing, but far from eliminating, differences in expectations between groups with different preferences. Our findings provide a clear case of static wishful thinking (contemporaneous association between preferences and expectations) without dynamic wishful thinking (divergence over time in expectations in line with preferences), suggesting that citizens' expectations of the future, regardless of their prior commitments, respond accordingly to events, but wishful thinking persists even in contexts of dramatically reduced uncertainty.
Acknowledgements section from article Hope, Optimism, and Expectations for the Political Future
Figure showing estimated effects of experimental treatments on electoral expectations.
Figure showing the predicted difference in expectations of the Labour and Conservative parties' chances of winning among those who preferred each party, across levels of optimism/hope.
Figure showing bar charts and predicted outcomes for a series of valence expectations items, at minimum and maximum levels of optimism/hope.