Affective Forecasting
The Basic Idea
At one point or another, we’ve all likely experienced something that made us feel like the world was ending. Whether it be the end of a romantic relationship, losing a family member, not getting the dream job, or anything else subjectively devastating, we may sometimes feel like we’ll never recover. Affective forecasting, also known as hedonic forecasting, refers to predictions of how we will feel about future emotional events.1
If we know anything about human judgements and decision making, it’s that they can be erroneous, and affective forecasting is no different.2 Generally, people tend to overestimate both the strength and duration of their emotional reactions.1 This is because people engage in focalism, thinking about the impact of events in isolation, and immune neglect, ignoring the techniques we use to alleviate feelings. Impact bias — overestimating the impact of an event — makes us poor judges of the speed and strength of our coping mechanisms. We actually adapt more readily than we’d expect.
Whether people overestimate how good or bad they will feel, overestimate how quickly those feelings will arise, or underestimate how quickly they will dissipate, the important point is that they overestimate how powerfully the event will impact their emotional lives.
– Timothy Wilson and Daniel Gilbert in their seminal work,“Affective Forecasting”
About the Author
Cece Li
Cece was a former content creator with a passion for behavioral science. She previously created content for The Decision Lab, and her insights continue to be valuable to our readers.
