Far away or yesterday? Shifting perceptions of time for political ends

by Andrew J. Dawson, Scott A. Leith, Cindy L. P. Ward, Sarah Williams, Anne E. Wilson

Voters evaluate political candidates not only based on their recent record but their history, often faced with weighing the relevance of long-past misdeeds in current appraisal. How should a distant transgression be taken to reflect on the present? Across multiple years, political figures and incidents, we found that people’s subjective perceptions of time concerning political candidate’s histories can differ radically, regardless of objective fact; political bias shapes people’s perception of the time of things past. Results showed that despite equidistant calendar time, people subjectively view a favored politician’s successes and opposing politician’s failures as much closer in time, while a favored politician’s failures and opponent’s success seem much further away. Studies 1–3 tested the proposed phenomena across distinct (real and hypothetical) political contexts, while Study 4 tested the causal effects of temporal distance framing. Study 5 provided a final preregistered test of the findings. Overall, we demonstrate that partisans can protect their candidates and attack opponents by shifting their perception of time.