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emotions
You are remarkably poor at predicting your future emotions.
The affective forecasting error demonstrates that people consistently overestimate the intensity and duration of their future emotional states.
You predict that a positive event will make you ecstatic for weeks, or a negative one will ruin your month. In reality, your brain's psychological immune system stabilizes your mood much faster than your conscious mind anticipates.
You are currently bracing for an emotional impact that will be shorter than you imagine.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Gilbert et al., 1998, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
- What the check found
- Gilbert et al. (1998) is the seminal paper on the durability bias (a component of impact bias). The definition provided in the claim accurately reflects the consensus on impact bias in the literature.
- 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.