Matthew Barnfield

@mbarnfield

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

760 Folgt1.004 Follower153 Posts

TikTok TikTok TikTok TikTok TikTok TikTok TikTok YouTube Bluesky

Ist das dein Profil?Übernimm es — dann gehört dir mbarnfield.dirty.social.Profil übernehmen

Matthew Barnfield@mbarnfield· 1d

But will he have that long? The public don't think so. Across the board, voters expect Burnham as PM for up to three years. And three years from now is, recall, when they tend to expect the next election.

Bar chart showing that most people, including voters for all different major parties, expect Andy Burnham to be prime minister for up to three years.

Matthew Barnfield@mbarnfield· 1d

But few thought he would be able to achieve these targets ahead of the next election (which most expect to take place in 2029 as scheduled). People mostly think he will need to win an election and get them done in a full parliament - if not longer, and if ever. Exception: introducing a wealth tax.

Bar chart showing the time frames in which the public expects Andy Burnham to be able to deliver some policy outcomes.

Matthew Barnfield@mbarnfield· 1d

I asked, from these options, which people think should be the top three priorities. They could also specify their own (among the few who did so, immigration was common). Three clearly emerged: the cost of living, economic growth in all regions, and a National Care Service.

Bar chart showing which policy targets respondents prioritised in survey. Only the targets in three areas have significant proportions of the public prioritising them: cost of living, regional growth, and social care.

Matthew Barnfield@mbarnfield· 1d

I gave people a selection of 10 policy ambitions across a range of domains, that have either been mentioned by Burnham himself, or associated with his government. These are all concrete targets/clearly defined outcomes, not just policy areas.

List of policy outcomes that people considered in survey:

1. Complete the largest council house building programme since the Second World War
2. Introduce London-style integrated public transport across the country (buses, trams and trains under one ticketing and network system)
3. Create a National Care Service, funded like the NHS, with free personal care at the point of use
4. Reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions, meaning the UK’s overall emissions would be balanced out by the amount removed from the atmosphere
5. Bring an end to rough sleeping nationally
6. Resolve the cost-of-living crisis
7. Get the economy growing in all regions of the country
8. Introduce proportional representation for general elections
9. Bring essential services under public control
10. Levy a new tax on property, land, or wealth

Matthew Barnfield@mbarnfield· 20d

A "continuation of decarbonising Miliband era" in the context of declining public support for net zero and climate change mitigation measures? How puzzling. I wish someone would write a Substack about how political science can make sense of this. open.substack.com/pub/drmatthe...

Matthew Barnfield@mbarnfield· Jun 5

doi.org/10.1017/S000...

Matthew Barnfield@mbarnfield· Jun 5

Matthew Barnfield@mbarnfield· Jun 3

I think you'll find that's four people, thank you very much.

Matthew Barnfield@mbarnfield· May 29

Reform is also the only party whose voters clearly oppose government action on climate change. Two in five of them think the government is already doing *far* too much. The modal view among "progressive"/"left"-bloc voters is that the government should do *much* more. 3/4

Matthew Barnfield@mbarnfield· May 29

The vast majority of British voters believe that climate change is real and caused by humans. But that's not (quite) a majority view among those who currently say they would vote Reform in a general election. 2/4

Matthew Barnfield@mbarnfield· May 21

Well quite! This one did actually reach nearly 40k students (and presumably will reach more) but granted that's a small fraction of the electorate. I think there is value in showing how hard this all is.

Matthew Barnfield@mbarnfield· May 20

This is valuable work, partly because it counters the idea that you can easily nudge the public into supporting climate policy. A three-hour active workshop increased support from either a minority to... a slightly larger minority, or from a slight majority to... a slightly larger majority.

Matthew Barnfield@mbarnfield· May 13

The bigger problem IMO is that there isn't a vision for the future underpinning the pitch. The politics of patience isn't a politics at all. Absent any such future-orientated argument, "impatience" is almost inevitable, as I argued @renewaljournal.bsky.social renewal.org.uk/blog/this-la... 7/7

Matthew Barnfield@mbarnfield· May 13

The trouble for the government is the heavy lifting done by that "ostensibly". As clearly, the policy doesn't match the pitch. What if voters aren't "impatient", but onto something? Gradual long-term change, by definition, doesn't appear suddenly after a decade of drudgery. 6/7

Matthew Barnfield@mbarnfield· May 13

But what does the "short term" mean to British voters? Typically about 2 years, as we showed in our @psjeditor.bsky.social paper. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... 3/7

Graph showing that people think the short term is about 1-3 years in politics, and the long term is about 5-10 years.

Matthew Barnfield@mbarnfield· May 13

In a separate survey, we found that among Labour's 2024 electorate, those who focus more on the short term in their political thinking were more likely to have abandoned the party since. giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/... theconversation.com/keir-starmer... 2/7

Graph showing those focused on the long term less likely to have switched away from Labour than those focused on the short term.

Matthew Barnfield@mbarnfield· May 13

Is impatience killing the government? Some data and some thoughts. @karlpike.bsky.social @philipjcowley.bsky.social and I found a year ago that people expected noticeable improvements in the NHS, schools, housing well within Labour's first parliament. www.politicshome.com/news/article... 1/7

Graph showing public expectations of length of time for change.

Matthew Barnfield@mbarnfield· Aug 6

I have a new article out at @polstudies.bsky.social. In "Electoral Hope", I make the case that supposedly irrational "wishful thinking" is actually a crucial part of how voters make rational sense of their role in democracies. OA link: doi.org/10.1177/0032...

Title page of article "Electoral Hope" in journal Political Studies.

Matthew Barnfield@mbarnfield· May 28

We then show that, when they know about the effect of pub. inv. in 5 years’ time (+0.14% pot. GDP), also knowing about its 50-year effects (+1.4% pot. GDP) significantly *reduces* support – as does hearing that things might not go as well as forecast.

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.

Matthew Barnfield@mbarnfield· May 28

This effect appears to be driven by people with the shortest-term understandings of “long term”. For those people, the difference between what they thought long term meant (e.g., 5 years) and what the Chancellor meant by it (50 years) was greatest.

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”.

Matthew Barnfield@mbarnfield· May 28

We find that this significantly affects public support for that public investment. When we told people pub.inv. would boost potential GDP “over the longer term”, they were significantly more supportive than when told that impact would happen “in 50 years’ time”. (But majority support regardless.)

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).

Matthew Barnfield@mbarnfield· May 28

But what is the “long term”? In two UK samples, we find that on average what the public takes politicians to mean by “short term” is around 1-3 years, and “long term” typically something in the range of only 5-10 years. That varies little across party lines, age groups, education levels, etc.

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.

Matthew Barnfield@mbarnfield· May 28

Our paper “Long-Term Time Horizons and Support for Public Investment” is open access @psjeditor.bsky.social (w/ @karlpike.bsky.social @philipjcowley.bsky.social). Whether the public supports policy that pays off in the long term depends on what “long term” means. doi.org/10.1111/psj.70040

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.

Matthew Barnfield@mbarnfield· May 9

Our paper "Wishful Thinking in Response to Events" is now out @electoralstudies.bsky.social! w/ @polpsychjoe.bsky.social @florianstoeckel.bsky.social @vittoriomerola.bsky.social @benlyons.bsky.social @jasonreifler.bsky.social et al www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

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.

Plot visualising three ways expectations might change in response to events: divergence, convergence, or parallelism.

Plot showing how expectations that different parties would enter into the governing coalition changed from before to after the 2021 German federal election.

Matthew Barnfield@mbarnfield· Mar 14

This paper has received a lot of useful feedback from many people over the past couple of years – thanks to all of you!

Acknowledgements section from article Hope, Optimism, and Expectations for the Political Future

Matthew Barnfield@mbarnfield· Mar 14

We show experimentally that polls and expert commentary (i.e., Twitter threads by @drjennings.bsky.social and @robfordmancs.bsky.social) significantly shape these electoral expectations, particularly by raising the expectations of otherwise unhopeful supporters of the winner.

Figure showing estimated effects of experimental treatments on electoral expectations.

Figure showing effect of experimental treatment on electoral expectations at different levels of optimism/hope.

Matthew Barnfield@mbarnfield· Mar 14

However, when it comes to electoral expectations, it is what psychologists call "hope" – the conviction that when there's a will, there's a way – that matters. Only hopeful people rated their preferred winner's chances higher than (hopeful) supporters of the opposing party.

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.

Matthew Barnfield@mbarnfield· Mar 14

In our UK sample we find that what psychologists call "dispositionally optimistic" people – those who tend to expect their lives to go well, come what may – are also more optimistic about future collective and societal outcomes. We call these "valence expectations".

Figure showing bar charts and predicted outcomes for a series of valence expectations items, at minimum and maximum levels of optimism/hope.

Matthew Barnfield@mbarnfield· Sep 2

Instead, in conjoint experiments with age-group blocking in the UK, I find that regardless of whether policy benefits will materialise within or beyond people's own lifetimes, they prefer them to come sooner rather than later.

Matthew Barnfield@mbarnfield· Oct 2

Today is the first day of my British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship at QMUL! I'll be studying 'The Political Psychology of the Future' – an attempt to do some blue sky thinking of my own about how politics works in people's heads.