Explaining Away: A Model of Affective Adaptation

Wilson, Timothy D.; Gilbert, Daniel T.

doi:10.1111/j.1745-6924.2008.00085.x

Cited by 424 publications

(434 citation statements)

References 154 publications

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“…Originally conceived of as a "basic emotion" (e.g., Darwin, 1872;Ekman & Friesen, 1971;Izard, 1977;Plutchik, 1991;Tomkins, 1962), more recently surprise has been re-appraised as a cognitive state because, unlike most emotions, it can be either positively or negatively valenced (Ortony & Turner, 1990; see also Kahneman & Miller, 1986;Maguire et al, 2011). Indeed, nowadays, cognitive aspects of surprise are routinely mentioned in the affective literature; for instance, Wilson and Gilbert (2008) explicitly discuss explanatory aspects of surprise in affective adaptation.…”

Section: A Cognitive Emotion: Theoretical Perspectives On Surprisementioning

confidence: 99%

Why some surprises are more surprising than others: Surprise as a metacognitive sense of explanatory difficulty

Foster

Keane

2015

Cognitive Psychology

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The UCD community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters! (@ucd_oa) Some rights reserved. For more information, please see the item record link above. TitleWhy some surprises are more surprising than others: Surprise as a metacognitive sense of explanatory difficulty Publisher's statement This is the author's version of a work that was accepted for publication in Cognitive Psychology. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Cognitive Psychology (VOL 81, ISSUE 2015, (2015 Early theories of surprise, including Darwin's, argued that it was predominantly a basic emotion. Recently, theories have taken a more cognitive view of surprise, casting it as a process of "making sense of surprising events". The current paper advances the view that the essence of this sense-making process is explanation; specifically, that people's perception of surprise is a metacognitive estimate of the cognitive work involved in explaining an abnormal event. So, some surprises are more surprising because they are harder toexplain. This proposal is tested in eight experiments that explore how (i) the contents of memory can influence surprise, (ii) different classes of scenarios can retrieve more/less relevant knowledge from memory to explain surprising outcomes, (iii) how partial explanations constrain the explanation process reducing surprise, (iv) how, overall, any factor that acts to increase the cognitive work in explaining a surprising event, results in higher levels of surprise (e.g., task demands to find several rather than just one explanation). Across the present studies, using a many different materials, paradigms and measures, it is consistently and repeatedly found that the difficulty of explaining a surprising outcome is the best predictor for people's perceptions of the surprisingness of events. Alternative accounts of these results are considered, as are future directions for this research.

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Section: A Cognitive Emotion: Theoretical Perspectives On Surprisementioning

confidence: 99%

Why some surprises are more surprising than others: Surprise as a metacognitive sense of explanatory difficulty

Foster

Keane

2015

Cognitive Psychology

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“…Humans' disproportionate sensitivity to negative stimuli and the general finding that "bad is stronger than good" (Baumeister et al, 2001) may have an explanation rooted in evolutionary biology (McDermott et al, 2008), since in terms of survival the avoidance of threats is more important than a missed opportunity. Volatility also leads to uncertainty and such feelings are attention-seeking (Wiggins et al, 1992), and may prevent individuals from adapting to shocks (Wilson and Gilbert, 2008). Periods of economic contraction not only involve a loss of national income but also an increase in economic uncertainty (Bloom, 2009(Bloom, , 2014, which is arguably intensified by the disproportionate coverage of negative news about macroeconomic trends compared to respective positive trends (Soroka, 2006).…”

Section: Mechanismsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual Experience of Positive and Negative Growth is Asymmetric: Global Evidence from Subjective Well-Being Data

et al. 2014

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Are individuals more sensitive to losses than gains in macroeconomic growth? Using subjective well-being measures across three large data sets, we observe an asymmetry in the way positive and negative economic growth are experienced, with losses having more than twice as much impact on individual happiness as compared to equivalent gains. We use Gallup World Poll data drawn from 151 countries, BRFSS data taken from a representative sample of 2.5 million US respondents, and Eurobarometer data that cover multiple business cycles over four decades. This research provides a new perspective on the welfare cost of business cycles with implications for growth policy and our understanding of the long-run relationship between GDP and subjective well-being. JEL Codes: D03, O11, D69, I39

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“…The downside of this sense-making is that it also speeds recovery from positive events, a process that Wilson and Gilbert (2008) refer to as the "pleasure paradox." Focusing on the ways in which a positive outcome is remarkable, rather than predictable, prolongs positive emotion.…”

Section: How Social Sharing May Increase and Sustain Positive Emotionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Keeping the magic alive: social sharing of positive life experiences sustains happiness

Hovasapian

Levine

2018

Cognition and Emotion

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Explaining Away: A Model of Affective Adaptation

Cited by 424 publications

References 154 publications

Why some surprises are more surprising than others: Surprise as a metacognitive sense of explanatory difficulty

Why some surprises are more surprising than others: Surprise as a metacognitive sense of explanatory difficulty

Individual Experience of Positive and Negative Growth is Asymmetric: Global Evidence from Subjective Well-Being Data

Keeping the magic alive: social sharing of positive life experiences sustains happiness

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