Markus Prior writes:
I have an opportunity to hire a postdoc to work on an interdisciplinary project about time preference and patience in politics. The three most recent postdocs on the project have all gone on to assistant professor positions and are all still involved in the research. I am particularly interested in candidates with experience in experimental political science, behavioral economics, or political/social psychology (esp memory). The description of the position is copied below and listed here.
OK, by “behavioral economics,” I think he means “cognitive psychology,” but I get the idea.
From the project description:
The School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, invites applications for a Postdoctoral Research Associate or more senior research position. Applications are welcome from recent Ph.D.s and Ph.D. students who expect to earn their Ph.D. by the start date. The position will start on or about September 1, 2026.
The researcher will be asked to participate in the Time in Politics Project that focuses on psychological processes related to time (such as impatience and present bias) and their causes and political consequences. The individual will work on aspects of the project that may include analysis of existing survey datasets, development of original surveys, and experimental designs. The project will combine a variety of different research approaches. . . .
The successful candidate will have research experience in political psychology, behavioral economics, or cognitive/social psychology, and a strong background in quantitative research and statistical methods. Experience with questionnaire development and survey design software (e.g., Qualtrics, oTree) is highly desirable, as are data management and programming skills, preferably in STATA. (STATA will be used for this project, but proficiency in equivalent programming languages is acceptable as long as the candidate is willing to learn STATA enough to manage and extend the project files.) The candidate should be well organized, attend to detail, and respond to deadlines in a timely fashion.
OK, that last bit seems appropriate. If you’re gonna work on project about time preference and patience, you should be able to respond to deadlines in a timely fashion. I’ve actually never seen such a condition in a job description. Isn’t that assumed that if you take a job that you’ll do things on time?
Also kinda funny that they’re using Stata. Maybe the postdoc will be able to talk the PI’s into switching to Python or whatever.
In all seriousness, Prior has done and continues to do important work on political information on public opinion, so this sounds like a great project for someone with the right background and interests.
I wonder if the project will get into the debates regarding the effects of the economy on voting: to what extent are voters reacting to recent economic conditions, or reports of economic conditions, or something else?
My friend Steve used to say “deadlines are our friends: how else would we know when to start?”
This research area does sound important. But I do question the terminology: myopia is considered as an excessive focus on the present, whether looking forward or backward. For me, present-focus when looking backwards is an issue of selective memory. Present-focus looking forward is more a matter of time preference. Apparently their research has found past myopia to be more pronounced that forward-looking myopia (suggesting somewhat hopefully that people are more willing to be patient when tackling long-term issues than their past myopia would suggest). But such forward looking patience strikes me as fraught with hypothetical scenarios: I suspect people are willing to be patient when confronted with hypothetical choices. When making their own personal choices (regarding consumption and investment, for example), I think people exhibit strong preference for immediate rewards.
In any case, I don’t question the importance of such work. But the terminology strikes me as confusing. I’m not sure that treating both past and future time preferences as “myopia” makes sense. To me, quite different psychological mechanisms (full disclosure: I have no expertise in psychology, so this is my uneducated view) are at work. I’d be interested in evidence that the two should sensibly be viewed as related phenomena.