Memory retrieval processes help explain the incumbency advantage

Abstract

Voters prefer political candidates who are currently in office (incumbents) over new candidates (challengers). Using the premise of query theory (Johnson, Häubl & Keinan, 2007), we clarify the underlying cognitive mechanisms by asking whether memory retrieval sequences affect political decision making. Consistent with predictions, Experiment 1 (N= 256) replicated the incumbency advantage and showed that participants tended to first query information about the incumbent. Experiment 2 (N= 427) showed that experimentally manipulating participants’ query order altered the strength of the incumbency advantage. Experiment 3 (N= 713) replicated Experiment 1 and, in additional experimental conditions, showed that the effects of incumbency can be overridden by more valid cues, like the candidates’ ideology. Participants queried information about ideologically similar candidates earlier and also preferred these ideologically similar candidates. This is initial evidence for a cognitive, memory-retrieval process underling the incumbency advantage and political decision making.

Campaigning on the Ability to Govern: A Study of Strategic References to Competence Made by Political Parties in Europe

“…Numerous studies confirm that the incumbent candidates in two-party elections possess a significant advantage over the challenger. Their superior position is rooted in the resources they control (Fouirnaies and Hall 2014;Levitt and Wolfram 1997;Schleiter and Belu 2018), their visibility and quality as candidates (Carson et al 2007;Spälti et al 2017), media attention bias (Prior 2006) and campaign strategies they can employ which are not available to the challengers (Ashworth and de Mesquita 2008;da Fonseca 2017;Peskowitz 2019). The point of departure for this study lies in the findings of James Druckman et al (2009Druckman et al ( , 2020 that incumbent candidates are more inclined to highlight their accomplishments and competence than the candidates that challenge them in the election, because they prefer to avoid risks associated with other strategies, such as negative campaigning, for example.…”