Intensity Bias in Affective Forecasting: The Role of Temporal Focus

Buehler, Roger; McFarland, Cathy

doi:10.1177/01461672012711009

Cited by 200 publications

(177 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…This impact bias-the tendency of people to overestimate the emotional impact of future events on their lives-has received ample empirical support. For example, it has been shown that romantic partners overestimate how bad they feel if their relationship ends, football fans overestimate their happiness after their team won a game, college students overestimate their negative emotions if they would be assigned to an ''undesirable'' dormitory, people gambling with money overestimate how unhappy they feel when they lose, professors overestimate their positive emotions following a positive tenure decision, and people taking their driver's license exam overestimate their disappointment after failing the exam (Dunn, Wilson, & Gilbert, 2003;Finkenauer, Gallucci, Van Dijk, & Pollmann, 2007;Gilbert, Pinel, Wilson, Blumberg, & Wheatley, 1998;Kermer, Driver-Linn, Wilson, & Gilbert, 2006;Wilson, Wheatley, Meyers, Gilbert, & Axsom, 2000; see also Buehler & McFarland, 2001;Gilbert, Gill, & Wilson, 2002;Gilbert, Lieberman, Morewedge, & Wilson, 2004;Gilbert, Morewedge, Risen, & Wilson, 2004;Loewenstein & Schkade, 1999;Sanna & Schwarz, 2004;Wilson, Meyers, & Gilbert, 2001.…”

Section: Affective Forecasting and The Impact Biasmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Misprediction of Emotions in Track Athletics: Is Experience the Teacher of all Things?

Dijk¹,

Finkenauer²,

Pollmann³

2008

Basic and Applied Social Psychology

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People commonly overestimate the intensity of their emotions toward future events. In other words, they display an impact bias. This research addresses the question whether people learn from their experiences and correct for the impact bias. We hypothesize that athletes display an impact bias and, counterintuitively, that increased experience with an event increases this impact bias. A field study in the context of competitive track athletics supported our hypotheses by showing that athletes clearly overestimated their emotions toward the outcome of a track event and that this impact bias was more pronounced for negative events than for positive events. Moreover, with increased athletic experience this impact bias became larger. This effect could not be explained by athletes' forecasted emotions, but it could be explained by the emotions they actually felt following the race. The more experience athletes had with athletics, the less they felt negative emotions after unsuccessful goal attainment. These findings are discussed in relation to possible underlying emotion regulation processes.

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Section: Affective Forecasting and The Impact Biasmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Misprediction of Emotions in Track Athletics: Is Experience the Teacher of all Things?

Dijk¹,

Finkenauer²,

Pollmann³

2008

Basic and Applied Social Psychology

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“…Existing studies on mathematics anxiety have predominately used the less costly and more convenient trait assessment method (Wilhelm, Perrez, & Pawlik, 2011). However, in comparison with scores obtained by multiple state assessments, which are regarded as reflecting actual emotions as they are experienced (Robinson & Clore, 2002), trait assessments of emotions are generally overestimated (Buehler & McFarland, 2001). It has been argued that the discrepancy between trait and state measures of emotions (i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The trait-state discrepancy in anxiety and the role of academic self-concept The discrepancy between trait and state self-reports of emotion (referred to from here on as the trait-state discrepancy) reflects the observation that trait emotions are usually overestimated in comparison with state emotions (also termed sometimes as intensity bias; Buehler & McFarland, 2001). In their accessibility model of emotional self-report, Robinson and Clore (2002) postulated that subjective beliefs play an important role in the trait-state discrepancy.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experiencing more mathematics anxiety than expected? Contrasting trait and state anxiety in high achieving students

Roos

Bieg

Goetz

et al. 2015

High Ability Studies

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This study examined mathematics anxiety among high and low achieving students (N = 237, grades 9 and 10) by contrasting trait (habitual) and state (momentary) assessments of anxiety. Previous studies have found that trait anxiety measures are typically rated higher than state measures. Furthermore, the academic self concept has been identified to play a moderating role in the trait state discrepancy, with higher academic self concept leading to a lower dis crepancy (i.e. less overestimation of trait anxiety if state assessments reflect actual experience). Therefore, we assumed that high achievers who were expected to have high academic self concepts would exhibit a smaller trait state discrepancy than low achievers. Results confirmed these assumptions and revealed that high achievers even underestimated their trait anxiety. Implications are discussed.

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“…In the past several decades, psychologists and behavioral decision theorists have accumulated ample evidence showing that people often over-predict the intensity or duration of their future affective reaction, a phenomenon called the impact bias (Gilbert, Driver-Linn, & Wilson, 2002;. Here, we follow Wilson and Gilbert (2003) to use "impact bias" to refer to both intensity bias (e.g., Buehler & McFarland, 2001) and durability bias (Gilbert, Pinel, Wilson, Blumberg, & Wheatley, 1998).…”

Section: Impact Biasmentioning

confidence: 99%