Comments on: Why You’re a Sucker for the Impact Bias http://www.spring.org.uk/2008/05/why-youre-sucker-for-impact-bias.php Understand your mind with the science of psychology - Mon, 04 May 2009 10:30:58 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Pegah http://www.spring.org.uk/2008/05/why-youre-sucker-for-impact-bias.php/comment-page-1#comment-21549 Pegah Mon, 05 May 2008 17:23:00 +0000 http://spring.org.uk/2008/05/why-youre-a-sucker-for-the-impact-bias.php#comment-21549 By the way, you are doing a good job here. I get notified of your new posts from google reader and I really enjoy reading them. <br /><br />Good Luck! By the way, you are doing a good job here. I get notified of your new posts from google reader and I really enjoy reading them.

Good Luck!

]]> By: Pegah http://www.spring.org.uk/2008/05/why-youre-sucker-for-impact-bias.php/comment-page-1#comment-21548 Pegah Mon, 05 May 2008 17:20:00 +0000 http://spring.org.uk/2008/05/why-youre-a-sucker-for-the-impact-bias.php#comment-21548 I suspect that there is another reason for this bias: it can be due to the "contrast" we perceive. When we think about a future event and estimate our feelings toward it, we are providing ourselves with a "baseline". When the real event happens , we unconscuiosly compare it to the sort of event we had in our mind(the "baseline") and if it turns out that the event we are experiencing is less severe or pleasurable, then we tend to degrade our feelings to make sense of this difference. I think this explains why unexpected presents make people happier . To sum it up, I think the critical determinant is unexpected-ness , rather than rationalization. I suspect that there is another reason for this bias: it can be due to the "contrast" we perceive. When we think about a future event and estimate our feelings toward it, we are providing ourselves with a "baseline". When the real event happens , we unconscuiosly compare it to the sort of event we had in our mind(the "baseline") and if it turns out that the event we are experiencing is less severe or pleasurable, then we tend to degrade our feelings to make sense of this difference. I think this explains why unexpected presents make people happier . To sum it up, I think the critical determinant is unexpected-ness , rather than rationalization.

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