Abstract: Three studies show that people make karmic forecasts, expecting good things to come to those who perform good deeds, and predicting bad outcomes for wrongdoers. However, these justice-based forecasts only apply to others; when making forecasts about themselves, people tend to make optimistic predictions, regardless of whether they consider good or bad things that they did. This pattern emerged for both forecasts about the likelihood of experiencing positive versus negative events, as well as affective forecasts about how people will feel upon experiencing such events. Thus, there is a double standard for making forecasts about self versus others, with justice being a more fundamental motive in forecasts about others, and wishful thinking being a more fundamental motive in forecasts about the self.
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From a previous publication... Mata, A., Simão, C., Farias, A. R., & Steimer, A. (2018, July 12). Forecasting the Duration of Emotions: A Motivational Account and Self-Other Differences. Emotion, http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/emo0000455
Abstract: This research investigates the forecasts that people make about the duration of positive versus negative emotions, and tests whether these forecasts differ for self versus for others. Consistent with a motivated thinking framework, six studies show that people make optimistic, asymmetric forecasts that positive emotions will last longer than negative ones. However, for other people, wishful thinking is absent, and therefore people make less optimistic, more symmetric forecasts. Potential implications of these motivated forecasts and self–other differences are discussed.
General Discussion
Six studies provided systematic evidence for the influence of
wishful thinking on the estimated duration of emotions. In Studies
1 through 3, desirable emotions triggered by positive events were
expected to last longer than undesirable emotions triggered by
negative events, but this difference only held for the self, not for
other people. Additionally, Study 2 showed that desirability mediated the effect of event valence on expected emotional duration
only for the self, not for other people. Studies 4 through 5 directly
tested our motivational account: Study 4 revealed that manipulating the desirability of certain emotions (happiness depicted as less
desirable, and sadness as more desirable) influenced the forecasted
duration of those emotions. In Study 5 the same positive–negative
asymmetry that was found for the self in Studies 1 through 4 was
also observed for another person that was described as likable, but
not when the other person was described in a negative manner.
And Study 6 replicated the pattern of more optimistic forecasts
about the self versus about others, for a wide variety of emotions,
and importantly, both for positive and negative emotions: To the
extent that an emotion is desirable, be it positive or negative in
valence, people expect it to last longer for themselves than for
others. These results suggest that desirability is one of the factors
driving the forecasts that people make about how long they will
experience certain emotions: People expect themselves (or others)
to feel certain emotions for a longer while to the extent that that is
desirable. This research extends the body of findings in the optimism literature by showing that people not only expect to experience more positive events than negative ones, but they also
expect the positive emotions produced by the former to last longer
than the negative emotions resulting from the latter.
Differences From Previous Research
The vast majority of research on affective forecasting has focused on demonstrating people’s inability to accurately predict
future emotional reactions at a certain point of time in the future:
People overestimate their future emotional reactions to both positive and negative events, as compared with how they actually feel
when the time comes. In the present studies, we did not compare
forecasts against experience, but rather assessed in a direct way
estimates of emotion duration. This methodology revealed two
novel findings: first, people expect positive emotions to last longer
than negative ones, and second, this asymmetric pattern only holds
for themselves, not others.
At first, it might appear that our results contradict previous
findings in this field (see Wilson & Gilbert, 2003, for a review).
Indeed, previous studies typically show that the overestimation of
experienced affect when compared with forecasts is greater for
negative versus positive emotions, whereas the present studies
show that people forecast a longer duration for positive versus
negative emotions. This apparent discrepancy can be resolved if
we consider (1) differences in method and (2) differences in the
time course of positive versus negative emotions.
First, differences in method: Typical studies of affective forecasting compare the intensity (and not the duration) of forecasted
(T1) versus experienced (T2) emotions. The present studies, on the
other hand, compared forecasts (T1) about the duration of positive
versus negative emotions (as well as the critical social comparison
dimension: self vs. others). Thus, the present research cannot and
does not make claims about the accuracy of predictions, as it
neither tests nor shows whether there is overestimation about
positive versus negative emotions, but simply demonstrates that
positive emotions are estimated to last longer than negative ones.
There is a difference in the measures and contrasts that are relevant
to test different hypotheses: Research examining the impact bias is
concerned with comparing forecasts of intensity against intensity
of experience, whereas the present research is concerned with
testing a desirability bias in forecasts about the duration of positive
versus negative emotions.
More importantly, research on emotions and how they develop
across time reveals a crucial clue that reconciles our findings with
those of previous studies: People might predict a longer duration
for positive versus negative events (as was consistently observed
in the present studies), and yet overestimate the impact of negative
events to a greater extent, provided that negative emotions fade
more quickly than positive ones. Indeed, there is a great deal of
evidence suggesting that negative emotions fade more quickly than
positive ones (Ritchie, Skowronski, Hartnett, Wells, & Walker,
2009; Ritchie et al., 2006; Skowronski, Gibbons, Vogl, & Walker,
2004; Walker, Skowronski, Gibbons, Vogl, & Ritchie, 2009;
Walker, Skowronski, Gibbons, Vogl, & Thompson, 2003; Walker,
Skowronski, & Thompson, 2003; Walker, Vogl, & Thompson,
1997). This is known as the fading affect bias (Walker et al.,
2003), and it is explained by strategic memory rehearsal. For
instance, Walker et al. (2009) document different types of memory
rehearsal that prevent emotions from fading, such as “rehearsal for
maintaining memory for events” or “rehearsal for the purpose of
re-experiencing the emotion associated with the event”, and they
find that (1) memory rehearsal is more frequent for positive events
than for negative ones and (2) events that are frequently rehearsed
are associated with less fading of emotions. Thus, to the extent that
positive emotions are kept alive for longer, forecasts that such
emotions will last long might not be off target. On the other hand,
to the extent that negative emotions fade more quickly (for instance via coping mechanisms such as reappraisal or memory
suppression), people might err by a greater margin in their forecasts, such that they predict that they will have a certain duration
(though shorter than positive emotions—the optimistic bias that
we found), but fail to take into account the immune system
(immune neglect; Gilbert et al., 1998) and therefore fail to see how
they will last for much shorter than they predicted.
For instance, forecasters might predict that the duration of
positive emotions is x times longer than that of negative ones, but
to the extent that the difference in decay for negative versus positive
emotions is larger than x, we might observe both an optimistic bias in
predictions (predictions at T1: positive negative) and a greater
impact bias for negative versus positive emotions (comparing
predictions at T1 to experiences at T2). Thus, the self-protective
and enhancing nature of memory helps to both legitimize the
asymmetry that we found (i.e., forecasters might be accurate in
predicting that positive emotions last longer than negative ones)
and reconcile it with the typical findings in affective forecasting
research: For positive emotions, people actively work to keep them
alive, whereas for negative emotions they work at suppressing
them, and so it will be easier to overestimate the duration/impact
of negative emotions.
In addition to the relevance of studying forecasts about emotion
duration, we also believe that the asymmetry in affective forecasting that we find for self versus for others might be important in
explaining well-documented effects, such as the difference in
choice (for self) versus advice (for others), as we explain in the
following text.
Moreover, this research goes beyond the valence dimension that
previous research has focused on, by showing that regardless of
whether certain emotions are positive or negative, to the extent that
it is desirable to experience them in a certain situation, forecasters
predict that they will feel such emotions for a long time (even
clearly negative-valenced emotions such as shame, envy or disgust; Study 6). In this sense, these results do not allow for a simple
portrayal of our findings as merely showing that people make
optimistic predictions. In Study 6, it is not easy to define optimism.
What is more optimistic: to expect a positive emotion that is
nevertheless undesirable (or at least socially proscribed), or to
expect a desirable emotion that is nevertheless negative and upsetting? Indeed, it has recently been suggested that:
biases in emotion attribution might not always reflect a desire to view one’s self as experiencing more positively valenced emotions, but should flexibly tune individuals towards the belief that they experience more desirable emotions, irrespective of valence. This is also a natural prediction of theories of motivated cognition (e.g., Hughes & Zaki, 2015). Future work should test this prediction by varying the goal consistency of emotions across a variety of contexts. (Ong, Goodman, & Zaki, 2018, p. 124)Study 6 offers precisely this test.
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