Effects of Temporal Focus on the Relationship Between Expectations and Evaluation.

This article examines the effects of the inconsistency accounted for temporal focus, the degree to which an event occurs at a specific time that is known in advance. Events that confirm expectations have been shown to be more memorable than events that disconfirm expectations, but the reverse has also been shown to be true. In the present study, researchers surveyed a panel of 195 voters before and after the 1992 U.S. presidential election regarding two elements of the campaign: the debates, which were more temporally focused because they occurred at well- publicized, specific times; and advertising, which was more temporally unfocused because specific exposures were less anticipated or attended to than debates. Researchers measured the participants' expectations of debate and advertising performances by candidates before the election and, after the election, we measured the participants' evaluations of the candidates' actual performances. Researchers hypothesized that the relationship between expectations and performance for the debates, which were temporally focused, would be weaker than that for the advertising, which was temporally unfocused.