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memory
You do not remember an experience by its total duration.
A 1996 study showed that retrospective evaluations of pain are determined by the peak intensity and the final moment.
Patients undergoing procedures rated the experience based on their most intense discomfort and how they felt as the event ended. The total duration of the procedure had almost no influence on the memory of the event. We recall the high points and the conclusion, not the passage of time.
Your evaluation of a life event depends less on what happened and more on how it finished.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Redelmeier and Kahneman, 1996
- What the check found
- This is the seminal 1996 study (Redelmeier and Kahneman) that established the 'peak-end rule' in medical settings.
- 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.