New research examines how emotions affect memory during U.S. presidential election
November 4, 2024 (TORONTO) – As American voters head to the polls, Toronto Metropolitan University researchers have discovered a connection between election results and memory. Emotionally-charge events like elections can impact “hindsight bias” – a phenomenon that leads people to believe that they knew an event would turn out the way it did, even if they bet otherwise.
A study conducted by Toronto Metropolitan University psychology researchers Mane Kara-Yakoubian and Julia Spaniol examined voter predictions during the 2020 U.S. presidential election. They asked voters to predict the amount of votes each candidate would receive, then examined how voters recalled their predictions after the election results were announced.
The researchers found that voters who experienced negative emotions related to the election results remembered their predictions as being closer to the actual outcome than they were. For example, Donald Trump received 43% of electoral college votes in 2020. A voter who predicted Trump would gain 55% of the votes before the election, recalled that his prediction was 45%, and closer to the real results, after learning that Trump lost.
“We found that emotion played a role in hindsight bias,” said lead researcher Kara-Yakoubian. “Republicans, who were disappointed by Joe Biden's victory, showed more hindsight bias than Democrats, who were generally happy with Biden's victory. This was the case for both younger and older adults, suggesting everyone is susceptible to hindsight bias regardless of their age.”
While hindsight bias is very difficult to avoid, it may actually help people cope with negative emotions and “save face” among friends and peers. A person might say they were “just joking” after losing a bet to a friend, or that they “knew all along” that their favorite sports team was going to lose after predicting they’d win the playoffs.
“Knowing about hindsight bias can make us wiser, more intellectually humble and more curious about why our predictions sometimes fail,” said Kara-Yakoubian.
Emotional aftermath of the 2020 U.S. presidential election: a study of hindsight bias in younger and older adults (external link) was published in the journal Cognition and Emotion in October 2024.
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Michelle LePage
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Toronto Metropolitan University
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