Guide to Psychology Blogs - Update and Call for Links
As ever I'm always on the lookout for accessible, fresh blogging in psychology and related fields. So if you'd like to suggest your own blog or someone else's work for inclusion then leave a comment below or drop me an email.
[Photo by DogFromSPACE]
Labels: Psychology Guides
13 Ways to Quickly Improve Your Decision-Making
In his new book Professor Gary Marcus of New York University likens the mind to a 'kluge' - an engineering term meaning a clumsy or inelegant solution to a problem.
To combat the 'klugey' nature of our minds, Professor Marcus provides 13 quick techniques based on psychological research to help us combat its inherent flaws in decision-making.
1. Whenever possible, consider alternatives
Our brains are not good at evaluating evidence dispassionately. Force yourself to generate alternatives. Research has demonstrated the value of counter-factual thinking: thinking about the opposite helps us make better decisions.
2. Reframe the question
Our memories are highly contextual so the background to any issue we consider has a huge impact on how we view it. Politicians, advertisers and other influencers use framing extensively to persuade us of their point of view. You can fight back by reframing their propositions.
3. Correlation doesn't equal causation
An oldie but a goldie. There's a clear correlation between foot size and being richer, owning your own house and having a better education. On the other hand people with smaller feet are often still struggling with potty training. Guessed it yet? People with small feet are usually children, so of course they have less money, don't own their own houses and, haven't been to school yet. Correlation doesn't equal causation.
4. Never forget the sample size
When we think about someone and a few seconds later they call us, is that evidence of ESP? Consider the sample size. How many times have you thought about that person in the past year? How many times have they called you in the last year? What first seems like a freak occurrence soon starts to look inevitable. Sample sizes are easy to forget.
5. Anticipate your impulsivity
The best of intentions often break down in the face of vicious temptation. People find it difficult to predict just how far off course their emotions can pull them (e.g. the projection bias). Use any method you can to counter your impulsivity: cancel the credit card, join a Christmas Club, avoid the confectionary store. It's all about planning ahead.
6. Make contingency plans
Humans are better at concrete goals; abstract goals like 'read more' or 'lose weight' get lost in the mix. Substitute these with: 'read this book by next Tuesday' and 'don't buy any junk food on the weekly shop'.
7. Make important decisions when relaxed and rested
What, I need to explain this?
8. Weigh costs against benefits
Common advice but actually quite tricky to do. Research shows that our minds prefer to consider either costs or benefits; taking both into account takes considerable effort. Professor Marcus points out that one factor we often forget is the 'opportunity cost': when we do one thing, we can't be doing something else. When I watch TV the benefit might be relaxation and enjoyment but the cost is that I can't be reading that mind-improving book that's being lying around for weeks.
9. Imagine your decision will be spot-checked
When we think someone will check up on us we make more cognitive effort, leading to better decision-making. Even if no-one is checking up on you, imagine their reaction if they did: would you be proud of your decision?
10. Distance yourself
When making decisions we are influenced by whatever thoughts and emotions are swirling around in our heads at that moment. Help distance yourself by thinking about how this decision will affect you in the future. Big decisions are always better made after a night's sleep. Again, it's common advice but it can be surprisingly difficult to distance yourself.
11. Beware the vivid, personal and anecdotal
It's so easy for us to be swayed by vivid or personal stories that we may ignore more considered, scientific evidence. Remember that our minds are naturally fascinated and influenced by the sensational at the cost of quotidian. Look carefully at the information source - are you being manipulated?
12. All decisions are not equal
Some decisions are more important than others. Not all decisions warrant effortful deliberation: sometimes it's better just to choose and be done with it. The trick is knowing which is which - experience should provide strong clues.
13. Be rational!
Sounds vacuous, right? But Professor Marcus argues that research suggests just reminding ourselves to think rationally could help us make better decisions. Consciously trying to think rationally will also help activate all the other techniques described here. Our memories being what they are, this is no bad thing.
» Buy it now from Amazon.com.
» Kluge is released in the UK on the 5 June, you can pre-order from Amazon.co.uk.
Labels: Decision-making
Why Familiarity Really Does Breed Contempt
"Hell is other people." -- Jean-Paul Sartre
"I only drink to make other people seem interesting" -- George Jean Nathan
"Fish and visitors smell in three days." -- Benjamin Franklin
Given how irritating other people sometimes are, it's surprising how many of us are eternal optimists about forming new relationships. Indeed people seem primed to like others: the 'mere exposure effect' is a robust social psychological finding demonstrating that just being exposed to someone causes us to like them more.
If the 'mere exposure' effect holds for developing social relationships then, as we come to know more about others, we should come to like them more.A good example of the 'mere exposure' effect is a study by Moreland and Beach (1992) who introduced four fake students to a large college course. Each of the fake students - chosen to be of similar appearance - attended the course to varying degrees, some going to many classes, others to few; but none interacted with the other students.
At the end of the course the one student most people preferred, despite never having talked to her, was the one who had attended the most classes.
If the mere exposure effect holds for developing social relationships then, as we come to know more about others, we should come to like them more. It seems familiarity should breed liking. A recent study by Michael I. Norton from the Harvard Business School and colleagues certainly suggests that this is most people's intuitive understanding (Norton, Frost & Ariely, 2007).
Norton and colleagues first surveyed members of an online dating site, asking them whether they generally preferred someone they knew little about, or who they knew more about. 81% said they would prefer the person they knew more about. In a second survey of undergraduate students fully 88% said they would prefer someone they knew more about.
So much for people's expectations, let's see how they really behave.
Familiarity breeds contempt
In the next part of the study by Norton and colleagues participants were given a list of traits about another person and asked how much they would like that person. In fact the traits were generated to be broadly representative and people were shown either 4, 6, 8 or 10 of these traits at random. The results showed that, contrary to their expectations, the more information people had about others the less they liked them.
The more information people had about others the less they liked them.Norton and colleagues hypothesised that the reason for this finding was that the more people find out about others, the more likely it is a trait will be uncovered to which they take a dislike. The researchers tested this with participants from the online dating site. This time, though, instead of using a pre-generated list of traits, each participant was asked to create a list of traits that described themselves - these were then pooled. Predictably most people chose relatively positive traits.
These traits were then mixed up and randomly allocated in varying numbers and varying orders to participants as though they described a real person. Effectively, then, people were looking at a random list of relatively positive traits that the group itself had generated. Again, even with a list of mostly positive traits, people tended to like the 'person' described by the shorter lists of traits, further supporting the idea that we like people more who we know less about.
Once we perceive a dissimilarity, it's all downhill from there. Even traits we might have liked, or been neutral about before, now get the thumbs down.But what the researchers were interested in this time was the effect of similarity on whether we like others. This is because much previous research has shown that we tend to like other people who are similar to ourselves. The results showed that what was driving the connection between knowledge and dislike was a lack of similarity. Effectively the more traits participants knew about another 'person', the more likely they were to find dissimilarities with themselves, and so the more likely they were to dislike them.
It gets worse. In a fourth study using a similar approach to those above the researchers found that our dislike for others cascades. This means that if we see a dissimilar (and therefore unlikeable) trait early on in our relationship with another, this tends to negatively affect the way we perceive the rest of their traits. So, once we perceive a dissimilarity, it's all downhill from there. Even traits we might have liked, or been neutral about before, now get the thumbs down.
Real-world test
Finally, in a fifth study researchers decided to test the evidence from their controlled studies in the real world. This time members of a dating site were asked either about a potential partner they had met online or someone they were about to meet.
After getting participants to complete a survey they found that, as expected, people knew more about their dates after having met them than before. For the vast majority of people, though, liking for their dates decreased substantially after they had met them. On average, knowledge of their date increased from 5 out of 10 pre-date to 6 out of 10 post-date, while liking dropped from 7/10 to 5/10 and perceived similarity dropped from 6/10 to 5/10.
Of course this wasn't true for everyone - some met other people who they liked more afterwards - but for the majority more knowledge led to apparent dissimilarity which led to less liking.
Hope springs eternal
Considering the results of this study it's a wonder we bother trying to make friends after the first few disappointments. The fact that we do is probably a result of an unrealistic level of optimism about how much we will expect to like others. This is confirmed by the study's finding that the vast majority of people expect that more knowledge about others will lead to liking.
Jean-Paul Sartre was right - on average - other people really are hell.And occasionally we do actually meet people who turn out to be similar to us, who end up as our close friends or even partners. It's these relationship hits that we tend to remember when meeting someone new rather than all the times we were disappointed.
As this study shows, on the vast majority of occasions the less we know about someone the more we are inclined to like them. It's like the fake student in Moreland and Beach's study, ambiguity allows us to imagine that other people share our world-view, our personality traits or our sense of humour. Unfortunately as soon as we start to find out more about them, we're likely to find out how different they are to ourselves and, as a result, to dislike them.
Jean-Paul Sartre was right, on average: other people really are hell. That is, most other people are hell. There are, of course, a few people we each hold dear, people who do not begin to smell after three days; but these people are the glorious exceptions, so hold on to them tight.
[Image credit: roboppy]
References
Moreland, R. L., & Beach, S. (1992). Exposure effects in the classroom: The development of affinity among students. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 28, 255-276.
Norton, M. I., Frost, J. H., & Ariely, D. (2007). Less Is More: The Lure of Ambiguity, or Why Familiarity Breeds Contempt. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(1), 97-105.
Labels: Social Psychology
Infant Memory Works From Very Early
What psychologists have done, though, is examine the emergence of memory in our first few years with a series of now classic experiments. If memories really can be laid down early in life then it is certainly possible in theory for adults to remember very early experiences.
Getting a kick out of kicking
One classic experiment, devised by Professor Carolyn Rovee-Collier (now at Rutgers University) and colleagues in the 1960s, provides us an insight into what infants can remember. This method has produced some great evidence about how and when infants' memories develops.
In their experiment, Rovee and Rovee (1969) had infants of between 9 and 12 weeks lay comfortably in their cribs at home looking up at a mobile covered with brightly coloured wooden figures.
The more the little kids kick, the more of a kick they get from the mobile.A cord was then attached to their foot connecting it to the mobile. This meant that if the infants kicked out the mobile would move. And, if they kicked out hard, the wooden figures would bump into each other and make a pleasant knocking sound. The more the little kids kick, the more of a kick they get from the mobile.
If you're starting to get a whiff of Pavlov and his salivating dog then you're on the right lines. This experiment is all about seeing if an infant can be conditioned to kick their foot to make the mobile move. Researchers first measure infants' baseline levels of kicking (with mobile unattached), then compare this to kicking that produces an exciting response (wow, the mobile is moving!).
What Rovee and Rovee (1969) found was that even infants as young as 8 weeks old could learn the association between kicking and the mobile movement. This learning was still evident over a 45-55 minutes period.
Early memories
While this initial finding is fairly modest, the use of this procedure has led to all sorts of new findings about infants' memories. For example, subsequent studies have later substituted a different mobile for the original to see if the infants can spot the difference, thereby testing whether or not they really remember.
In one experiment infants only 8-weeks-old were trained with the mobile over a period of 3 days for 9 minutes each day. Twenty-four hours later the infants only kicked at above their baseline levels when the same mobile was above their heads. This showed they remembered the particular mobile they had been trained with and not just any old mobile. It was an especially exciting finding because it had previously been thought that long-term memory (and 24 hours is long-term for psychologists) didn't emerge until as late as 8 or 9 months.
Our memory systems actually work quite well from very early on.Because of this experiment and others like it, we now know much more about infant memory. Our memory systems actually work quite well from very early on. Infants' memories also seems to work in much the same way as adult memories - it's just that infant memories are much more fragile.
Carolyn Rovee-Collier argues it is doubtful whether infantile amnesia really exists (Rovee-Collier, 1999). It certainly appears our brains can lay down long-term memories even in the first year of life. The reason it is unusual to retain memories from that time into adulthood is probably because of the limited capacity of our early memory systems and the intervening years during which we inevitably forget.
[Image credit: dolanh]
References
Rovee, C. K., & Rovee, D. T. (1969). Conjugate Reinforcement of Infant Exploratory Behavior. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 8, 33-39.
Rovee-Collier, C. (1999). The Development of Infant Memory. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 8(3), 80-85.
Labels: Child Psychology
Why Your Future Self is an Emotional Mystery: The Projection Bias
Why should this be? After all, I know very well what sort of food I should buy; I've been hungry in the supermarket before and bought junk food and regretted it later. The reason is that in the moment, when I'm hungry at the supermarket, I'm out of touch with my future emotional self - something that psychologists have confirmed experimentally.
Empathy failure
Research has shown that we can have considerable difficulty predicting our future requirements because our current emotional states override them. This is called the projection bias and it occurs despite the fact that we have plenty of experience of the problem and its undesirable consequences.
So, what is it about the projection bias that means I choose junk food in the supermarket when I'm hungry? Well, what studies have shown is that when we are in a 'hot' emotional state - in this case hungry - we tend to start ignoring the long-term in favour of short-term self-gratification. We think that because we are desperate for a quick fix of calories right now, we'll always be desperate for a quick fix. This means that when I'm hungry I forget my commitment to eat healthily and concentrate on what will give me an immediate rush of calories and pleasure: junk food.
But this still doesn't fully explain why I'm not able to override my preference for buying junk food when I'm hungry. Why can't I just imagine my future self - after lunch - looking at the junk food I've bought and empathise?
...our present desires can suddenly override our long-term goals...Well, I can, but only a little. What studies have shown is that not only do we have this projection bias but we have what researchers have a called an 'empathy gap' - this gap is effectively a failure to empathise with our future selves. In the moment, driven by our emotions, our present desires can suddenly override our long-term goals and we no longer care about healthy eating or any other promises we have made ourselves.
Healthy or unhealthy snack?
This effect is neatly demonstrated in a study conducted by Read and van Leeuwen (1998). Office workers were told they could have a free snack in a week's time and were asked to choose between a healthy snack (e.g. an apple) or an unhealthy snack (a Mars bar). The trick is that they were either asked just after lunch or in the late afternoon. This meant they were either satiated or hungry. Before deciding they were also told at what time of day they would receive their free snack: either after lunch or late afternoon.
A week later experimenters returned at the time they stated, depending on which experimental condition each person was in. But this time participants were given the option to change their choice from a week ago. Again they were either asked after lunch when they were satiated or at the end of the day when they were hungry. This created four different experimental conditions.
Give me chocolate right now!
Predictably they found that people were much more likely to choose the healthy snack for consumption in a week's time, than a week later when the snack could be eaten right now. Overall people predicted that they would be considerable more health-conscious than they actually were.
But what the researchers were interested in was how big the empathy gap was depending on whether people were hungry or not at the two initial time-points. Exactly how much empathy did people have with their future selves, depending on whether they were hungry or satiated, and whether they imagined their future selves as hungry or satiated?
Results
To understand the results, let's compare two pairs of conditions. In the first pair of conditions participants were asked after lunch, when they were not hungry, which snack they would like in a week. But in one they were told they would be given their snack after lunch and in the other condition late afternoon. So people who were not hungry now were trying to predict their preference for firstly when they are satiated in the future and secondly when they are hungry in the future. 56% predicted their future self would choose an unhealthy snack while hungry, but when they were actually presented with the choice (when hungry), 88% chose the unhealthy snack.
In comparison, when they thought their futures self would NOT be hungry only 26% predicted they would choose the unhealthy snack, but at the actual time of choosing 70% chose the unhealthy snack.
People found it difficult to predict their future desires for food.There are two interesting things about this result. The first is that people found it difficult to predict their future desires for food, even when they weren't currently hungry. This suggests that the projection bias works both ways. It isn't just in our hot, emotional moments that we're poor at predicting our future desires, it's also when we're in a relaxed, neutral state as well.
The second interesting thing is that our empathy gap with our future selves seems to be about 30% (56% minus 26%). Here the empathy gap refers to the difference between the judgement we make when in the same state as our future selves and when in a different state. It's important to note that in defining the empathy gap the authors are comparing two different advance choices and not the advance choice with the actual choice. This means the results can't be explained by saying that people were just trying to make themselves choose the healthy option by predicting that's what they would have.
Similar results were seen when hungry participants tried to make predictions about their future selves, either when hungry or satiated. Of those who were hungry 78% predicted they'd go for the unhealthy snack, while 92% actually chose it. Of those who were satiated, 42% thought they'd go for the unhealthy snack while 82% actually chose it when hungry. The empathy gap for those who were hungry while making their prediction was about the same as the previous pair of conditions at 36% (78% minus 42%).
Our predictions, inaccurate as they may be, do have some control over our future behaviour.One positive to emerge from the results, however, is that our predictions, inaccurate as they may be, do have some control over our future behaviour. The researchers found that people whose intention was to eat healthily were less likely to change their mind than those whose intention was to eat unhealthily. So it's still better to promise yourself you will eat healthily because it gives you a better chance of resisting temptation when it comes along.
Summary and explanation
Overall this study demonstrates that people directly project their current emotional state (of hunger or satiety) into the future, forgetting they will probably feel differently when the future becomes the present. This is the projection bias. On top of this we seem to project both neutral or 'cold' emotional states into the future as well as 'hot' ones.
The exact nature of the projection bias depends on whether our current state is compatible with the future state we are imagining. If it is incompatible (actually hungry versus predicting satiety), we are consistently less accurate.
Despite this study's focus on hunger, these findings probably do extend to other domains, some of which, such as happiness, have already been documented.
We are each anchored in our current emotional and cognitive states.A useful way to think about how the projection bias works - and, actually, many other common biases such as the false consensus bias, the hindsight bias and the knowledge bias - is suggested by Loewenstein, O'Donoghue and Rabin (2003). They argue that these phenomena have an 'anchoring and adjustment' characteristic. We are each anchored in our current emotional and cognitive state and the only adjustments we can make are with respect to this anchor.
Consequently people tend to assume that others have the same knowledge as them, that other people tend to generally hold the same opinions as them and, that, broadly speaking, they will be in the same emotional state in the future as they are right now. And that is the projection bias and just one of the reasons why we tend to have trouble predicting exactly what it is that will make us happy in the future.
[Image credit: funadium]
References
Loewenstein, G., O'Donoghue, T., & Rabin, M. (2003). Projection Bias In Predicting Future Utility. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 118(4), 1209-1248.
Read, D., & van Leeuwen, B. (1998). Predicting Hunger: The Effects of Appetite and Delay on Choice. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 76(2), 189-205.
Labels: Affective Forecasting
Voters Choose Politicians by Similarity to Their Own Personality
Research examining people's perceptions of politicians suggests voters go for candidates with similar personalities to their own.
The evidence comes from studies of both American and Italian voters in recent presidential and prime ministerial elections. Perceived personality might even influence voters more than a politician's programs or policies.
The research, conducted by Professor Gian Vittorio Caprara and colleagues from the University of Rome and R. Chris Fraley at the University of Illinois, was published in the Journal of Political Psychology. It examined both American and Italian voters in Presidential and Prime Ministerial elections respectively:
- John F. Kerry versus George W. Bush in 2004: 6,094 American voters completed questionnaires on their own perceived personalities and those of the presidential candidates. The results showed that people perceived themselves as having more similar personalities to their preferred candidate.
Kerry was perceived by voters as more open-minded than Bush, and voters who voted for Kerry felt the same way about themselves. Bush was seen as particularly agreeable and conscientious although the results were less clear-cut than those for Kerry. The authors suggest Bush benefited from a 'positivity bias' because he was the incumbent. - Romano Prodi (centre-left) versus Silvio Berlusconi (centre-right) in 2006: The same personality survey of 1,675 Italian voters showed they perceived themselves as more similar to their preferred candidate.
Burlusconi was seen as more energetic and outgoing (extraverted), which is how those voting for him saw themselves. Prodi, however, was seen as more friendly and, similarly, his supporters saw themselves as more agreeable.
These findings are in line with previous studies that have found voters are, on average, less influenced by policies and programs than they are by their personal similarity to the candidates. Similarities in attitudes are particularly important in promoting liking, so that people vote for those who share similar attitudes to their own. This study extends these finding to personalities.
To social psychologists this makes perfect sense as there is a long history of research into how similarities promote liking. People are more inclined to like those who have similar values, beliefs and even share demographic variables with themselves.
How can candidates appear to be all things to all people?Of course politicians and their campaign advisors know very well that voters often choose on the basis of personality. The question for them is: how can the candidate appear to be all things to all people?
From their study the authors suggest that the most important personality characteristic for candidates to exude is agreeableness. This is because it is agreeableness that people are most likely to rate highly in themselves. If people's voting choices are really heavily swayed by perceived similarities in personality then it is agreeableness that should win out at the polls.
[Image credit: Barack Obama]
Reference
Caprara, G. V., Vecchione, M., Barbaranelli, C., & Fraley, R. C. (2007). When Likeness Goes with Liking: The Case of Political Preference. Political Psychology, 28(5), 609-632.
Labels: Political Psychology
When the Self Emerges: Is That Me in the Mirror?
To this day the 'mirror test' remains the best experiment yet developed for examining the emergence of self-concept in infants.
Top 10 child psychology study: Most people look out for number one, themselves, which makes it strange to think that there was ever a time when we had no concept of 'me'. A simple study dating from the early 70s suggests that before the age of around two years old we can't recognise ourselves in the mirror. Because of this study, and the many variations that have followed, some claim that it isn't until our second birthday that our self-concept emerges.
A smudge of rouge on the nose
In 1972 Beulah Amsterdam from the University of North Carolina published a study that has kicked-off decades of research on self-recognition (Amsterdam, 1972). The study's procedure was simple. Infants between the ages of 6 and 24 months were placed in front of a mirror after a spot of rouge had been surreptitiously put on their noses. Then their mothers pointed to the reflection in the mirror and asked the child: "Who's that?". Researchers than watched infants' behaviour.
After testing 88 infants Amsterdam could only obtain reliable data on 16 of them - infants will be infants and many didn't want to play. From these 16 infants Amsterdam found three categories of response:
- 6-12 months: it's another baby! The child behaves as though the infant in the mirror is someone else - someone they'd like to be friendly with. They display approach behaviours such as smiling and making noises.
- 13-24 months: withdrawal. The infants no longer seem particularly happy at catching their own image in the mirror. Some look a little wary while others will smile occasionally and make some noises. One interpretation of this behaviour is that the infants are acting self-consciously here (perhaps demonstrating self-concept), but it could also be a reaction to another child.
- 20-24 months onwards: it's me! From around this age infants start to clearly recognise themselves by pointing to the spot of rouge on their own noses. This strongly suggest they have realised the image is themselves and the spot of rouge is on their own nose.
Although Amsterdam's results were from a small sample size, they have subsequently been repeated with many more participants. Also, later studies with control conditions have found infants in this age-range don't touch their nose if it isn't marked with rouge. This showed that touching the nose isn't somehow a natural reaction for infants to seeing own reflection.
Self-concept or just self-recognition?
Of course this study simplifies a mass of psychological complexity. Psychologists have raised all sorts of questions about what the mirror test reveals. It could be, for example, that infants just don't understand faces particularly well until they are around two years old. Perhaps, then, they develop a self-concept at a much earlier stage.
Alternatively it could be that at around two years old infants develop a solid physical or visual self-concept, but still have little mental self-concept. In this case all the test is showing is that we know what we look like; perhaps we don't develop our self-concept until much later in life.
Results are especially ambiguous because only limited tests can be carried out on children.These are just two common explanations, I'm sure you can think of more alternatives. This multitude of possibilities illustrates one of the major hurdles in child psychology: results are especially ambiguous because only limited tests can be carried out on children. Still, despite these alternatives, the mirror test has proved remarkably hardy over the years and is still used today while other tests have fallen by the wayside.
The social child
One of the reasons for its resilience is that it seems likely that self-concept might well emerge at this age from all the other things we know about children. It is from around 2 to 4 years of age that children start to display a rapid increase in their social behaviour. Being able to distinguish yourself from other people is fundamental to successful social relationships rather than simple interactions. It seems unlikely that infants would be able to build relationships with others without some limited concept of themselves.
Being able to distinguish yourself from other people is fundamental to successful social relationships.The mirror test has also been used on other animals to test their self-concept, indeed the test was originally carried out on chimpanzees by Professor Gordon Gallup a few years before Amsterdam. All the great apes 'pass' the test, along with dolphins, whales and elephants. In one recent study an 8ft mirror was placed in the elephant enclosure at New York's Bronx Zoo and the elephants had marks painted on their heads. Researchers who kept watch on the elephants' reactions saw them touch the paint marks on their own heads.
It's no coincidence that elephants, like the other animals that pass the test, have complex social systems. Basic self-recognition is key to being able to relate to others; with this knowledge infants take their first faltering steps into the social world.
[Image credit: slimninja]
Reference
Amsterdam, B. (1972). Mirror image reactions before age two. Developmental Psychobiology, 5, 297-305.
Labels: Child Psychology
Why You're a Sucker for the Impact Bias
The impact bias is our tendency to overestimate our emotional reaction to future events. Research shows that most of the time we don't feel as bad as we expect to when things go wrong. Similarly we usually don't get quite the high we expect when things go right for us. There are exceptions - such as being in a bad mood will tend to make us more realistic about future positive events - but these are far from the norm.
Studies have found that:
- Two months after a relationship finishes people are generally not as unhappy as they expect.
- Sports fans are generally not as happy as they expect when their team wins.
- Academics overestimate how happy they will be when given tenure, and also overestimate their unhappiness at being denied tenure.
This research also show that people overestimate both the initial intensity of their emotional reaction, and also how long it will go on for.
Causes of the impact bias
The impact bias is a pretty reliable finding, so why does it happen? Wilson and Gilbert (2005) find two main reasons:
- Focalism: when people think about the impact of future events they tend to forget about all the other things that are going on in their lives. In reality the one event we are imagining will likely be overshadowed by all sorts of other events that happen at the same time. We conveniently forget that the future will always contain many other events we can't predict, some positive and some negative.
- Sense-making: people have a natural tendency to rationalise what happens to them. When something bad happens we initially feel unhappy but immediately start searching for the underlying reasons. Once when we've decided on the cause(s) of this bad event, we start to feel better. For us bad events that are predictable and which submit to rational explanation are not as scary as random unexplained bad events.
Unfortunately the same process also works for positive events - when we rationalise them we reduce their impact on us (read more on this in my post on how to feel more pleasure).
Both making sense of an event as well as our tendency for focalism probably happen either completely unconsciously or at least partially unconsciously. Consequently we often don't realise we're doing it.
How can you correct for the impact bias?
Considering that these processes are probably unconscious it may be difficult. But evidence does suggest two options. When considering how a future event will affect you:
- Think about all the other events that will happen in the future; consciously widen your future focus.
- Remember that you will usually quickly rationalise any event, thereby reducing its emotional impact on you. This is good news for negative events, but less good for positive events. To feel more pleasure, do all you can to hold on to the mystery.
» This post is the first in a series on biases in our affective forecasting.
» Read more on the science of happiness.
[Image credit: only alice]
Reference
Wilson, T. D., & Gilbert, D. T. (2005). Affective Forecasting: Knowing What to Want. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14(3), 131-134.
Labels: Affective Forecasting