CORA and the Department of Political Studies' Winter 2023 Speaker Series Present:

"Quality Control: Experiments on the Microfoundations of Retrospective Voting", with J. Scott Matthews

Thursday, February 16, 2023 | 2:30-4:00 PM

Robert Sutherland Hall Room 202

Light refreshments will be served!

J. Scott Matthews (Ph.D., UBC) is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Memorial University, where he studies elections, voting and public opinion in established democracies. 

Abstract: Conventional models of voting behavior depict individuals who judge governments for how the world unfolds during their time in office. This phenomenon of retrospective voting requires that individuals integrate and appraise streams of performance information over time. Yet past experimental studies short-circuit this “integration-appraisal” process.  We develop a new framework for studying retrospective voting and present eleven experiments building on that framework.  Notably, when we allow integration and appraisal to unfold freely, we find little support for models of “blind retrospection.” Although we observe clear recency bias, we find respondents who are quick to appraise and who make reasonable use of information cues. The results highlight the importance of centering the integration-appraisal challenge in both theoretical models and experimental designs and begin to uncover the cognitive foundations of retrospective voting.