AFFECTIVE FORECASTING
PSYC 385
Affective Forecasting - Definition
Creation of Affective Forecasts
Components of Forecasts
1. Valence
2. Specific emotions
3. Intensity
4. Duration
Impact Bias
The tendency to overestimate the enduring impact that future events will have on our emotional reactions.
Se-ries1
Predicted Experienced
Time
Intensity
Neglecting Other Outcomes
Focalism: Tendency to focus on just the emotional experience at hand, neglecting the extent to which unrelated events will also be affecting their thoughts and emotions.Misconstrual problem: sometimes people will mistakenly imagine the wrong event.
Differences > similarities
Isolation effect: occurs when people disregard components that the alternatives share and focus on the components that distinguish them.
Past Experiences
Don’t remember enough information about our previous emotional states
Peak & end rules
Impossible to Predict Future
Projection Bias How you feel now is not how you feel later
Affective Experiences
Expectation Effects
Expectations influence outcomes Self-fulfilling prophecy
Where else we go wrong
Hot & cold states Groceries while hungry
Emotional evanescence
Adaptation level theories1. People orient towards unexpected but relevant info
in their environment2. Experience more intense emotional reactions to
unexpected, relevant info than to other events3. Once an unexpected event occurs and people have a
relatively intense emotional reaction, they attempt to make sense of the event, quickly and automatically
4. When people make sense of an event it no longer seems surprising or unexpected, and as a result they think about it less and it produces a less intense emotional reaction
Psychological Immune System
We have many psychological defenses that detect and neutralize events that challenge people’s sense of well-being.
Not a conscious process
Immune Neglect
Similar to ordinization
Do you think negative feedback will feel terrible?
Summary of Errors
Why don’t we learn?
Recall is subject to same biases Intensity & duration are remembered
incorrectly Focalism
How can we improve?
Research on prediction suggests: Adopting an outside view Performing some cognitive repairs Aggregating Predictions