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memory
Your memory of an event ignores its duration.
In a landmark 1996 study, patients rated a longer, painful medical procedure as less unpleasant simply because the final few minutes were slightly less painful.
Researchers demonstrated that our minds do not average out our experiences over time. Instead, when evaluating a past event, the brain relies almost entirely on two points: the most intense moment of the experience and the final moment.
A bad ending can retroactively ruin a long, pleasant experience.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Redelmeier & Kahneman, 1996, Pain (Peak-End Rule)
- What the check found
- The 1996 study in Pain established the Peak-End rule observationally; a subsequent 2003 randomized trial by the same authors explicitly lengthened the procedure to prove the effect experimentally.
- 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.