Imagine for a second... Affective Forecasting

One thing I have learned in reading Paul Eckman's book "Emotions Revealed" is that people are driven by emotions. It's easy to see why; everywhere we go and everything we do involves some sort of emotional transaction. As inquisitive people, we want to know what elicits certain emotions and predict their occurrence in our daily lives. I've never heard of an animal that daydreamed, but ask anyone around you and they will confess that their mind occasionally wanders towards the imaginings of a different reality or of their future. If we all do it, then we're probably good at making these predictions, right? Wrong. It seems that when people make predictions about the impact of a future events on their emotional state, a process known as affective forecasting, these predictions often fall prey to the impact bias (Wilson & Gilbert, 2003; Wilson & Gilbert, 2005). The impact bias, also termed the durability bias, occurs when we fail to make appropriate predictions about the impact of major life events on our emotional conditions (Gilbert et al., 1998). Social psychologists have found two possible reasons for the possible biases in affective forecasting. For one thing, when we contemplate hypothetical negative events, we fail to appropriately estimate the extent to which we effectively cope with the adversity we are experiencing. This is good news for coping, but underestimations of effective coping can lead us to incorrectly predict our future happiness (Gilbert et al., 1998). Furthermore, it is thought that "tunnel vision" biases our affective forecasting as well. When contemplating the future, we tend to fail to consider all aspects of our lives that contribute to the emotion we are attempting to predict. Thus, when asked to predict how happy a pay raise would make us, we fail to consider other factors (i.e., close relationships, economic crisis, etc.) that have an emotional impact on our lives.

After learning about the tendencies of affective forecasting, I was startled to realize the number of times I have fallen prey to the impact bias. Knowing that I am not alone in my ability to inappropriately forecast, I set out to document my friends doing just that. After reading about studies conducted by social psychologist Daniel Gilbert and others, I created a list of eight scenarios and asked people (a) to identify the emotion they would feel, (b) the extent to which they would feel it by rating the emotional impact on a scale of 1 (lowest) to 10 (highest), and (c) how long they would feel the predicted emotion. As you can hear in the videos, the following scenarios are presented:

• The candidate you supported won the presidential election.
• The candidate you supported lost the presidential election.
• You win one million dollars by playing the lottery.
• A close friend passes away.
• You have just graduated from high school and are offered a scholarship that will allow you to attend the college of your dreams.
• Your favorite pet runs away from home and you cannot find it.
• You save up and finally buy your "dream car."
• Due to the economic crisis, you are forced to take a job that you are overqualified for and do not enjoy.

I chose these scenarios after thinking about events that have either recently transpired or are likely to occur in the lives of the people around me. It is known that, for most negative life events (every other question asked), even the most negative occurrences affect us for a period of no more than three months. In predicting future happiness after an election, voters with winning and losing candidates showed no differences in happiness levels one month post-election. The temporal effects of life events on emotional wellfare have been replicated in countless studies.

Although we often fall prey to the impact bias, it can be avoided. As Wilson et al. (2000) noted, when students were reminded of their daily activities before making predictions, the bias disappeared. By reminding ourselves of all the events that contribute to our future emotions, we become more rational forecasters and make better predictions. This can be seen in my final interview of a former social psychology student who was able to make appropriate predictions, armed with her knowledge of the impact bias. Although I documented my non-social psychology friends making this error countless times, I was careful to inform them of the concept after each interview in hopes of helping them to make better predictions about their futures. Each person was able to realize that they had greatly overestimated the impact of the scenarios I presented and adjusted their estimations to be more accurate. It is my hope that, when appropriate reminders are present, we will all be able to make better predictions and thus avoid disappointment and unrealistic expectations.

Eckman, Paul. (2007). Emotions revealed: Recognizing faces and feelings to improve communication and emotional life. New York: Holt.

Gilbert, D. T., Pinel, E. C., Wilson, T. D., Blumberg, S. J., & Wheatley, T. (1998). Immune neglect: A source of durability bias in affective forecasting. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 617-638.

Wilson, T. D., Wheatley, T., Meyers, J. M., Gilbert, D. T., & Axsom, D. (2000). Focalism: A source of durability bias in affective forecasting. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 821-836.

Wilson, T. D. & Gilbert, D. T. (2003). Affective forecasting. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 35, 345-411.

Wilson, T. D., & Gilbert, D. T. (2005). Affective forecasting: Knowing what to want. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14, 131-134.