It was important because we won: Self-serving biases shape the relationship between future thinking and remembering of elections

It was important because we won: Self-serving biases shape the relationship between future thinking and remembering of elections | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article It was important because we won: Self-serving biases shape the relationship between future thinking and remembering of elections Marius Boeltzig, Ricarda Schubotz, Scott Cole, Clare Rathbone This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-7658705/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Published Journal Publication published 18 Feb, 2026 Read the published version in Communications Psychology → Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract While it has been established that there is a strong relationship between remembering and future thinking, no study to date has directly compared these two processes in a longitudinal study using one specific significant public event. We employed this novel approach to uncover how the differences and similarities between remembering and imagining are influenced by self-serving biases evoked by the event itself. Across three longitudinal questionnaire studies testing participants before and after 2024 elections in Germany (N = 136), the UK (N = 89), and the USA (N = 243), we found novel evidence for self-serving biases in the congruence between future thinking and remembering. Election winners robustly remembered the election as more important and more vivid than they had imagined it before. In the US study, the inconsistency in attitudes across time caused by this shift was resolved by also misremembering the prediction given before the election, with Harris voters thinking they had predicted a less fair, and Trump voters thinking they had predicted a fairer election than they actually had. Additionally, there was an overestimation of pre-election optimism concerning the results among Harris voters, possibly to help explain current feelings about the outcome, and an underestimation of optimism for Trump voters, making the win seem more significant. The results reveal that phenomenological differences between remembering and future thinking are contingent on self-serving biases and indicate that participants misremember previous future thoughts in accordance with current needs and attitudes. These novel findings, spanning three nations, elucidate the self-enhancement and self-consistency biases that modify the way people remember and imagine publicly significant events. Consequently, these mechanisms can lead to entrenched polarization, as partisan beliefs are reinforced by biased future thinking and remembering. Social science/Psychology/Human behaviour Social science/Psychology future thinking memory self-serving bias memory bias polarization Full Text Additional Declarations There is NO Competing Interest. Supplementary Files Supplement.pdf Supplementary Material Cite Share Download PDF Status: Published Journal Publication published 18 Feb, 2026 Read the published version in Communications Psychology → Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-7658705","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":522979726,"identity":"56579dd7-3448-4deb-b392-9ba55fb90d97","order_by":0,"name":"Marius 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