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decision making
You are a terrible judge of your future self.
A 2003 study found that people systematically underestimate how much their future preferences will change based on their current state.
Participants in a cold state struggled to accurately predict their own behavior when hot, such as when feeling thirsty or emotional. They assumed their current desires and habits would remain constant, failing to account for how changing internal states alter their decision-making.
You make long-term plans for a version of you that no longer exists.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Loewenstein, O'Donoghue, and Rabin, 2003, Quarterly Journal of Economics
- What the check found
- The paper 'Projection Bias in Predicting Future Utility' by Loewenstein, O'Donoghue, and Rabin (2003) is indeed the seminal source for the term and theory of projection bias.
- Confidence
- Well replicated
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.