Article

Future anhedonia and time discounting

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Abstract

The temporal location of an event influences the way people mentally represent that event. We suggest (a) that such representational differences can produce an affective forecasting error that we call future anhedonia, which is the belief that hedonic states will be less intense in the future than in the present, and (b) that future anhedonia plays a role in time discounting (i.e., the tendency to place a smaller present value on present events than on future events). Experiments 1a and 1b demonstrated that people are prone to future anhedonia, Experiments 2a and 2b ruled out artifactual alternatives, and Experiments 3a and 3b demonstrated that future anhedonia plays a role in time discounting. These studies suggest that one reason why people prefer to enjoy benefits in the present and pay costs in the future is that they do not realize how they will feel when those costs and benefits are actually experienced.

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... According to "future anhedonia", people predict less intense feelings for distant-future events than for near-future events. Kassam et al. (2008) base the theory on the findings that participants predicted greater happiness for receiving a monetary gain in the near future (e.g. in one/seven days), than for receiving the same gain in the distant future (e.g. in 180/365 days). ...
... The current research differs to the study by Kassam et al. (2008) in several aspect (i.e. the current study investigates the impact bias, whereas Kassam et al. investigate the intensity of reactions; the current study uses a considerably smaller time frame). Nevertheless, it is of relevance to future anhedonia, as it also investigates the role of temporal distance on affective forecasting. ...
... According to newer models on time-dependent changes of preference, temporal distance affects evaluation of events differently, depending on the characteristics of the event in question. This may be a potential approach to integrate the current findings with those by Kassam et al. (2008;Trope & Liberman, 2003;Frederick, Loewenstein, O'Donoghue, 2001). ...
Article
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People tend to overestimate their affective reactions to emotional events, exhibiting the so-called impact bias. One factor underlying this bias is a cognitive mechanism known as focalism, the tendency to focus too narrowly on the event in question. The current study investigates two exercises designed to reduce focalism: A prospective diary, and a similar-past experiences exercise. Neither of these exercises led to the expected results. Furthermore, the data suggest that the impact bias may be affected by the temporal distance of focal events. These results are discussed in the context of other relevant research.
... Furthermore, people's valuations for future rewards on a motivation-based measure are likely to be lower than their conventional money-based valuations for two reasons. First, future events are perceived as qualitatively different from present events: future events appear more abstract (Liberman & Trope, 1998), are less emotionally involving (Ekman & Bratfisch, 1965; Kassam, Gilbert, Boston, & Wilson, 2008) and less arousing (Mischel, Ayduk, & Mendoza-Denton, 2003) than present events. If an affect-based approach to valuation better reflects the low emotional involvement and arousal characteristic of future rewards relative to present rewards, this could result in lower valuations of future rewards for a motivation-based measure. ...
... A related difference between measures in presentation is that the PVs of present and future rewards are assessed separately in the motivation-based measure, while present and future rewards are directly compared to each other in the conventional moneybased measure. This separation means each reward should be assessed more independently (Hsee, 1999 ) such that the motivation-based measure better captures any qualitative difference between present and future rewards (Ekman & Bratfisch, 1965; Kassam et al., 2008; Liberman & Trope, 1998; Mischel et al., 2003), potentially explaining the smaller PV obtained with the motivation-based measure relative to the conventional moneybased measures. Therefore Studies 3–5 use a version of the conventional money-based PV measure that allows separate assessment of present and future rewards, just as on the motivation-based measure, with identical calculation of the PVs for the moneyand motivation-based measures using these separate assessments. ...
... In contrast, the motivation-based measure may rely on a more affective approach, e.g., a person might instead simply assess his feelings about receiving the future reward, resulting in different valuations of future rewards for the conventional money-based and the motivation-bases measures. If an affective approach to valuation better captures any qualitative difference between present and future rewards, such as the lower emotional involvement (Ekman & Bratfisch, 1965; Kassam et al., 2008) and arousal (Mischel et al., 2003) of future rewards, this could lead to lower valuations for future rewards and a larger difference in valuation for present and future rewards for the motivation-based measure, and so explain the difference in PV between the conventional money-based and the motivation-based measures. Alternatively (or in addition) if people rely more on an anchorand-adjustment heuristic for the conventional money-based measure relative to the motivation-based measure, their valuations of future rewards may be relatively higher for the conventional money-based measure because such adjustment tends to be insufficient (Gilbert, 2002; Tversky & Kahneman, 1974 ). ...
Article
Temporal discount rates are often poor predictors of behaviors that we expect will be motivated by the future. The current research suggests this may be because conventional discounting measures are poor measures of the motivational value of future rewards. In six studies, I develop motivation-based measures of the present value (PV) of future rewards and compare the PVs obtained with those obtained using conventional money-based discounting measures. Conventional money-based PVs consistently overestimate motivation-based PVs and are discriminable from them. I explore explanations for this mismatch, including timing of effort exertion (Study 2) and loss aversion (Study 3), both features of the motivation-based measures. In Study 5, I use self-reports of valuation strategies and a time pressure manipulation to demonstrate that participants use different valuation strategies in the conventional money-based and the motivation-based measures that, in part, determine the difference in PVs obtained and the relatively low correspondence between them.
... From an economic perspective, such decisions are 'irrational' because the objective value of the delayed option is larger than the immediate option. However, from a psychological perspective, immediate rewards elicit more tangible positive emotions in the present compared to imagining how one might feel in the future (Kassam et al., 2008;McClure et al., 2004). Representations of future rewards also tend to be more abstract, while immediate rewards are more concrete and vivid (Trope & Liberman, 2003;Vaidya & Fellows, 2017). ...
... While people may still believe that COVID-19 is a serious risk, the value of long-term health and engaging in COVID-19 preventative behaviors declines as the time duration of the pandemic increases. Because immediate rewards are more concrete, vivid, and evoke stronger positive emotional responses than future rewards (Kassam et al., 2008;McClure et al., 2004;Trope & Liberman, 2003;Vaidya & Fellows, 2017), it may be easier or more appealing to engage in social distancing for a couple weeks. As the weeks drag into many months, the gratification of short-term pleasure from engaging in mask-less social interactions or non-essential activities may seem worthwhile. ...
Preprint
To reduce the spread of COVID-19 transmission, government agencies in the United States (US) have recommended COVID prevention guidelines, including wearing masks and social distancing. However, compliance with these guidelines have been inconsistent. This study examined whether individual differences in decision-making and motivational propensities predicted compliance with COVID-19 preventative behaviors in a representative sample of US adults (N=225). Participants completed an online study in September 2020 that included a risky choice decision-making task, temporal discounting task, and measures of appropriate mask wearing, social distancing, and perceived risk of engaging in public activities. Linear regression results indicated that greater risky decision-making behavior and temporal discounting were associated with less appropriate mask-wearing behavior and social distancing. Additionally, demographic factors, including political affiliation and income level, were also associated with differences in COVID-19 preventative behaviors. Path analysis results showed that risky decision-making behavior, temporal discounting, and risk perception collectively predicted 61% of the variance in appropriate mask-wearing behavior. Individual differences in general decision-making patterns are therefore highly predictive of who complies with COVID-19 prevention guidelines.
... Second, given that time perceptions often include inferences about how the self may change over time, we employed measures that examine conceptualizations of the self over time. Here, we examined how emotionally connected people believed their current selves were to their future selves (Future Self-Continuity scale [FSC]; Ersner-Hershfield, Garton, Ballard, Samanez-Larkin, & Knutson, 2009) and how emotionally reactive they thought their future selves would be to rewards (Future Anhedonia scale; Kassam, Gilbert, Boston, & Wilson, 2008). Third, in an effort to ensure that perceptions of when the present ends were not just a smaller instantiation of a larger, more established personality difference, we also measured the general tendency to think in more concrete or abstract terms (Behavioral Identification Form [BIF]; Vallacher & Wegner, 1989) as well as the Big 5 personality traits of openness, extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and emotional stability (Ten-Item Personality Inventory [TIPI]; Gosling, Rentfrow, & Swann, 2003). ...
... They were free to report any amount (from $0 to $1,000) for each, provided that the sum across the two options totaled $1,000. Next, participants completed the Ten-Item Personality Inventory (Gosling et al., 2003), the Behavior Identification Form (Vallacher & Wegner, 1989) to assess the tendency toward more abstract or concrete thinking, the FSC scale (Ersner- Hershfield et al., 2009) to assess the felt relationship with one's future self, the FTP scale (Carstensen & Lang, 1996) to assess the length of one's time perspective, the temporal duration estimate (Zauberman et al., 2009) to assess estimates of temporal duration, the Future Anhedonia scale (Kassam et al., 2008) to assess attitudes toward future emotions, and the SZTPI (Zhang et al., 2013) to assess different temporal orientations, presented in a random order. ...
Article
Full-text available
Through the process of prospection, people can mentally travel in time to summon in their mind's eye events that have yet to occur. Such depictions of the future often differ than those of the present, as do choices made for these 2 time periods. Conceptually and semantically, this research tradition presupposes a division between the 2: At some point in the progression of time, the present must yield to the future. Still, the field to date has offered little insight by way of defining the division that separates the present from the future. The basic scientific appeal and practical implications of prospection beg 2 related questions: When do people believe that the present ends and the future begins, and do such perceptions affect decision-making? To the first question, perceptions of when the present ends vary across people (Study 1) and are reliable over time (Study 2). To the second, when people believe that the present ends sooner, they are more likely to make future-oriented choices in correlational and experimental contexts, even when controlling for potentially related constructs (Studies 3-5). Finally, we identify a psychological mechanism underlying this relationship: A shorter present is associated with a sharper division from the future (Study 6a), and this sharp division accounts for future-oriented behavior toward both hypothetical (Study 6b) and incentive-compatible (Study 6c) outcomes. This research sheds light on a foundational but unexplored prerequisite for thinking and acting across time. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
... In this study, we distinguished the single-system and multisystem explanations of the loss aversion by investigating whether making decisions for future selves reduces loss aversion. When people make decisions for their future selves, the outcome-related and action-related emotions associated with decision-making are less intense compared when they make decisions for their current selves (Kassam et al., 2008;Lerner et al., 2015). In this decision situation, a single-system theory predicts that the degree of loss aversion when deciding for their future selves should be no different from when they decide for their current selves. ...
... We compared the degree of loss aversion when they make decisions for current and future selves. Because one's emotional response to reward in the future treatment is less intense than that in the current treatment (Kassam et al., 2008;Lerner et al., 2015), the difference of the loss aversion degree between the current and future treatment reflects the impact of emotion on the degree of loss aversion. In this setting, the multi-system theory predicts that making decisions for future selves reduces loss aversion. ...
Article
Full-text available
In this paper, we present an incentivized experiment to investigate the degree of loss aversion when people make decisions for their current selves and future selves under risk. We find that when participants make decisions for their future selves, they are less loss averse compared to when they make decisions for their current selves. This finding is consistent with the interpretation of loss aversion as a bias in decision-making driven by emotions, which are reduced when making decisions for future selves. Our findings endorsed the external validity of previous studies on the impact of emotion on loss aversion in a real world decision-making environment.
... For example, people predict that receiving a given amount of money would make them less happy in a month than receiving the same amount of money today. Importantly, this forecasting bias has been shown to lead to present-biased financial choices (Kassam et al., 2008). However, it remains an open question whether future anhedonia also applies to predictions of others' emotions, instead of just one's own. ...
Article
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The present actions of individuals and society at large can cause outsized consequences on future generations’ quality of life. Moral philosophers have explored how people should value the well-being of future generations. Yet, the question of how people actually feel when considering the plight of others in the future compared to the present remains understudied. In four experiments (N = 4,698), we demonstrate evidence of an intertemporal empathy decline such that people feel less empathy toward another person’s suffering in the future compared to the present (Studies 1–4) despite predicting that the same amount of pain would be felt (Studies 1–2). Despite this, imagining another person’s suffering in the future leads to placing greater value on future generations’ welfare (Study 2). We also show that this intertemporal empathy decline reduces the amount people donate to a future-oriented versus present-oriented charity of the same type (Study 3). Finally, we find that prompting people to more vividly imagine another person’s future suffering attenuates the decline in intertemporal empathy (Study 4). Together, this research identifies empathy as a present-biased psychological obstacle impeding future-oriented prosocial behavior.
... We were interested in assessing the conditions under which people would feel more or less upset. For example, the temporal distance of the cancellation seemed important because cancellations that were more temporally distant might be less emotionally charged than more proximal cancellations (Christensen-Szalanski, 1984;Kassam et al., 2008;Loewenstein, 1996). We asked for both an objective (i.e., timebased) measure of the time at which it would be most annoying to cancel and a more subjective measure of how much notice people feel they should receive. ...
Article
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Being cancelled on is inevitable. However, maintaining friendships is important and cancelled plans may evoke feelings of disappointment. To prevent this, we examined ways to go about cancelling plans that would not negatively impact friendships. Our study examined what people consider appropriate and inappropriate reasons and the best methods to cancel plans. A variety of close-ended and open-ended questions regarding what participants believed was a reasonable excuse for cancelling and the worst excuse for cancelling was asked. Participants were also asked about how cancelled plans made them feel. Among 1,192 people (72.5% women; 71.8% White), the majority of the participants wanted advanced notice and/or a quick call/text when plans are being cancelled. Health or family reasons were among the most reasonable excuses. Conversely, excuses regarding a better offer, such as finding something better to do, were among the most unacceptable reasons to cancel plans. Over 80% of the sample reported feeling annoyed when they found out that an excuse to cancel was a lie. Honoring commitments is essential to maintaining friendships, which is associated with better health and well-being. When breaking commitments, the best way to go about it is to cancel in advance and have honest and reasonable excuses which serve to maintain friendships that are a fundamental part of life and satisfy the need to belong.
... People underestimate how strong hedonic states will be in the future (Kassam et al., 2008), and when they are in a state of satiation (or a cold state) they may erroneously believe they can resist subsequent temptations (Nordgren et al., 2009). Optimism about personal performance increases with temporal distance (Gilovich et al., 1993). ...
Article
The current research examined individuals’ perceptions of difficulty regarding goal striving in the near and distant future. Study 1 tested the hypothesis that predictions decrease over increasing temporal distance. Participants forecasted how difficult several goal-related tasks would be at varying points in the future. Our hypothesis was mostly supported. Results from hierarchical linear modeling showed many statistically significant linear and quadratic effects of temporal distance on predictions within and across goal tasks. Moreover, all future time points were rated as easier compared to now, with medium to large differences in difficulty. In Study 2, participants forecasted the difficulty of pursuing a goal-related task two days away, and we followed up to assess actual difficulty. Participants’ predictions were generally accurate. Goal commitment moderated accuracy, as individuals low (vs. high) in goal commitment underestimated (overestimated) difficulty. Overall, our results suggest that cognitions about future goal striving may affect momentary motivation and self-regulation.
... Interestingly, individuals with major depression have been shown to prefer more immediate monetary rewards relative to healthy controls (Pulcu et al., 2013), similar to findings for the "empty life" in the present study. Major depression as well as the "empty life" may be linked to forecasting errors characterized by a belief that desirable emotional states will be less intense in the future than in the present (i.e., "future anhedonia") leading to preferences for more immediate rewards (Kassam et al., 2008). Evidence that motivation may be compromised in individuals living with depression (Grahek et al., 2019) similar to the "empty life" may explain observed steeper temporal discounting. ...
Article
Full-text available
Executive functioning and happiness are each associated with successful learning and other desirable individual and societal outcomes; however, it is unclear whether a relation exists between them. Executive regulation of happiness pursuits in daily life, operationalized as hedonic (e.g., pursuing pleasure) and eudaimonic (e.g., pursuing personal growth) motives for action, may be a way the constructs relate to each other. In this initial investigation, we aimed to explore whether objectively measured executive functioning skills relate to happiness motives. A sample of 119 college students completed six objective neuropsychological measures of executive functioning and self-reported levels of hedonic and eudaimonic motives for action in daily life. Correlation and regression analyses examined the relations among temporal discounting and two latent executive functioning factors (inhibitory control and working memory) with hedonic and eudaimonic motives, as well as their interaction. Results suggested a possible association between higher levels of eudaimonic motives and preference for higher delayed rewards, as well as poorer working memory. Further analyses suggested that endorsing high levels of eudaimonic and hedonic motives simultaneously (i.e., the “full life”) was associated with poorer inhibitory control and working memory performance, whereas endorsing low levels of both simultaneously (i.e., the “empty life”) was associated with a preference for more immediate monetary rewards. Findings are discussed in the context of goal conflict and risk assessment among individuals who endorse the “full life”. Overall, these findings suggest that complex relations may exist between executive functioning and trait-level happiness pursuits, and have implications for possible interventions aimed at enhancing happiness-related motives and cognitive processes to facilitate learning. Given the exploratory nature of the present study, further investigations are necessary.
... From an economic perspective, such decisions are 'irrational' because the objective value of the delayed option is larger than the immediate option. However, from a psychological perspective, immediate rewards elicit more tangible positive emotions in the present compared to imagining how one might feel in the future [28,29]. Representations of future rewards also tend to be more abstract, while immediate rewards are more concrete and vivid [30,31]. ...
Article
Full-text available
To reduce the spread of COVID-19 transmission, government agencies in the United States (US) recommended precautionary guidelines, including wearing masks and social distancing to encourage the prevention of the disease. However, compliance with these guidelines has been inconsistent. This correlational study examined whether individual differences in risky decision-making and motivational propensities predicted compliance with COVID-19 preventative behaviors in a sample of US adults (N = 404). Participants completed an online study from September through December 2020 that included a risky choice decision-making task, temporal discounting task, and measures of appropriate mask-wearing, social distancing, and perceived risk of engaging in public activities. Linear regression results indicated that greater temporal discounting and risky decision-making were associated with less appropriate mask-wearing behavior and social distancing. Additionally, demographic factors, including personal experience with COVID-19 and financial difficulties due to COVID-19, were also associated with differences in COVID-19 preventative behaviors. Path analysis results showed that risky decision-making behavior, temporal discounting, and risk perception collectively predicted 55% of the variance in appropriate mask-wearing behavior. Individual differences in general decision-making patterns are therefore highly predictive of who complies with COVID-19 prevention guidelines.
... We tend to overestimate future emotional consequences of decisions that delay pleasure, and thus the price to pay for present choices may seem too high Gilbert 2005, Kahneman andTahler 2006). Kassam et al. suggest that people prefer to pay costs in the future and enjoy benefits in the present mainly because they are not able to determine what they will feel when benefits and costs are actually experienced (Kassam et al. 2008). ...
Thesis
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This thesis seeks to analyse how we relate to the future in a complex and uncertain world, our attempts to predict it and what cognitive strategies may influence our judgment and decision. It will also try to develop a better understanding of what elements can help us to improve our prospection, both as individuals, in personal choices, and as a society, to plan and address our actions. The first chapter will describe how the relationship between humans and the future has evolved in history. The second chapter will introduce some of the main concepts of futures studies, and the attempts to give a structure to the discipline. The third chapter gathers psychology contributions to future thinking, the proposed paradigm shift from the classic past perspective to a new approach that considers the future, and some of the mechanisms that deceive our perception of the future. The fourth chapter discusses how we deal with complexity and uncertainty, and examines the concept of Black Swan and the strategies to predict the future. Finally, the fifth chapter reflects on the previously mentioned aspects and underlines the role of present attitudes to improve prospection.
... We tend to overestimate future emotional consequences of decisions that delay pleasure, and thus the price to pay for present choices may seem too high (Wilson and Gilbert 2005, Kahneman andTahler 2006). Kassam et al. suggest that people prefer to pay costs in the future and enjoy benefits in the present mainly because they are not able to determine what they will feel when benefits and costs are actually experienced (Kassam et al. 2008). For Adam and Groves (2007), the unrestrained pervasiveness of information and communication technology (ICTs) has compressed duration to zero and made present spatially ubiquitous all over the globe. ...
Chapter
The way we perceive time has changed across the centuries. Some authors suggest that the dynamic complexity of the current world and its intrinsic uncertainty have loosened and modified the bonds among past, present and future. The present has extended and has become ‘thick’ (Poli 2015), while we seem to lack the necessary social skills to face the future from non-deterministic perspectives. Analysing the relationship between future and present, I claim that an active attitude toward the present can help us to foresight the future. Three domains may offer useful hints to evade from our short-sighted view: mindfulness, aesthetic and spontaneity. Moreover, several studies show that we can improve our forecasting ability by applying specific precautions and changing our mindset. The paper will then discuss further strategies that can enhance future awareness and influence the ’living futures’ (Adam and Groves 2007, p.198) embedded in the present.
... (a) The article did not include empirical data: Ariely, Huber, and Wertenbroch (2005); Elwyn and Miron-Shatz (2010); Johnson, Steffel, and Goldstein (2005); Loewenstein (1996Loewenstein ( , 2001Loewenstein ( , 2005Loewenstein ( , 2007; Loewenstein and Schkade (1999); MacInnis and Patrick (2006); Rachman and Bichard (1988); E. R. Smith and Mackie (2009) ;Zeelenberg, van Dijk, Manstead, and van der Pligt (2000). (b) The article did not report both forecasted and experienced emotion: Ariely and Loewenstein (2000); Bacova and Juskova (2009); Baron (1992); Bosson, Pinel, and Vandello (2010) ;Buehler, McFarland, Spyropoulos, and Lam (2007);DeWall and Baumeister (2006) ;Dillard, Fagerlin, Dal Cin, Zikmund-Fisher, and Ubel (2010);Falk, Dunn, and Norenzayan (2010); Gaunt, Sindic, and Leyens (2005); Geers and Lassiter (1999); Gilbert, Gill, and Wilson (2002); Golub, Gilbert, and Wilson (2009) ;Griffin, Dunning, and Ross (1990); Hartnett and Skowronski (2008); Igou (2004Igou ( , 2008; Kassam, Gilbert, Boston, and Wilson (2008); Keller and Bless (2009);Loewenstein and Prelec (1993); Marshal and Brown (2006); Osberg and Shrauger (1986) ;Patrick, Chun, and MacInnis (2009);Samanez-Larkin et al. (2007); Schkade and Kahneman (1998) ;Seta, Haire, and Seta (2008); Sheldon, Gunz, Nichols, and Ferguson (2010); Ubel et al. (2001); Van Boven and Ashworth (2007); Van Boven, Loewenstein, and Dunning (2005); Walsh and Ayton (2009); Welsch and Kühling (2010); Wesp, Sandry, Prisco, and Sarte (2009) ;Wilson, Meyers, and Gilbert (2003); Winter, Moss, and Hoffman (2009);Wood and Bettman (2007). (c) The article lacked information that would allow effect-size computation: Dohke & Murata (2009, in Japanese) ;Dunn, Brackett, Ashton-James, Schneiderman, and Salovey (2007); Sheldon, Gunz, Nichols, and Ferguson (2010); Sweeny and Shepperd (2010) ;Totterdell, Parkinson, Briner, and Reynolds (1997); Wilson, Wheatley, Kurtz, Dunn, and Gilbert (2004). ...
Article
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Research on affective forecasting shows that people have a robust tendency to overestimate the intensity of future emotion. We hypothesized that (a) people can accurately predict the intensity of their feelings about events and (b) a procedural artifact contributes to people's tendency to overestimate the intensity of their feelings in general. People may misinterpret the forecasting question as asking how they will feel about a focal event, but they are later asked to report their feelings in general without reference to that event. In the current investigation, participants predicted and reported both their feelings in general and their feelings about an election outcome (Study 1) and an exam grade (Study 3). We also assessed how participants interpreted forecasting questions (Studies 2 and 4) and conducted a meta-analysis of affective forecasting research (Study 5). The results showed that participants accurately predicted the intensity of their feelings about events. They overestimated only when asked to predict how they would feel in general and later report their feelings without reference to the focal event. Most participants, however, misinterpreted requests to predict their feelings in general as asking how they would feel when they were thinking about the focal event. Clarifying the meaning of the forecasting question significantly reduced overestimation. These findings reveal that people have more sophisticated self-knowledge than is commonly portrayed in the affective forecasting literature. Overestimation of future emotion is partly due to a procedure in which people predict one thing but are later asked to report another.
... This is because, "while the future may be more emotionally compelling than the past, nothing is as powerful as the present" (Dunn et al., 2011, p. 120). Often, people fall prey to what is called future anhedonia; "the belief that hedonic states will be less intense in the future than in the present" (Kassam, Gilbert, Boston, & Wilson, 2008, p. 1533. For example, when people estimate how much they will enjoy getting a gift on the day they receive it, they expect more pleasure if that day is today than if it is three months in the future. ...
Chapter
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Introduction: What Is Happiness? The relationship among wealth, consumption, and happiness is an ancient question, addressed in the early writings of major religions and philosophers. Many religious and philosophical thinkers have argued that money and the things it can buy do not generate happiness, whereas general public has seen things quite differently. Recent empirical work has allowed us to bring data to bear on this question, with fascinating results. Most of this research on happiness (i.e., subjective well-being) is based on surveys that ask people about how “happy” they are as well as of things such as their income, what they buy, and what their most important life goals are. The term “happiness” is very broad, and in these studies can refer to several different things: life satisfaction, emotions, mental health/development, and life meaning. Many surveys assess a person's overall life satisfaction (Diener, Inglehart, and Tay, 2012) by asking questions such as “looking at your life as a whole these days, how satisfied with your life would you say you are?” Studies also sometimes assess satisfaction with various domains of life, such as people's satisfaction with their finances, health, and family life. Life satisfaction is cognitive, that is to say it is a judgment, a conscious thought, about how well one is doing. Other measures focus on emotions, that is, how people feel, rather than what they think about their lives. In one common measure, the Gallup World Poll asks people about whether they had various positive feelings (e.g., enjoyment and smiling or laughing) and negative feelings (e.g., worry, sadness, depression, and anger) the day before (Kahneman and Deaton, 2010). Some studies ask about mental health and/or psychological development. These studies may ask people about the level of stress they feel or they may look for symptoms of neurosis. These studies sometimes assess people's “self-actualization” on the premise that persons are mentally healthier and more mature the closer they are to being self-actualized. Although most of these measures are survey questions, researchers sometimes also use physiological measures such as testing for stress hormones in the blood (Ryff, 1989).
... For example, a 10-day delay is perceived as significantly longer if it occurs in the present than if it occurs in 5 years [68]. Research in younger adults has shown that delayed rewards become more attractive when the future event is framed as close in time [67,69]. In light of evidence that older adults experience time as more compressed [70] and fast-paced [71] than younger adults, it may be the case that older adults exhibit less discounting of future rewards because they perceive these rewards as more proximal. ...
Article
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Purpose of Review In light of global population trends, the decision-making capacity of older adults is a pressing societal concern. This review focuses on age differences in four key dimensions: valuation, risk taking, temporal discounting, and decision strategies. Recent Findings Aging is associated with structural, functional, and neurochemical changes in neural networks implicated in decision making. However, these changes do not lead to universal deficits. Older adults are not always risk-averse, and their ability to postpone gratification tends to exceed that of younger adults. Age-related changes in motivation influence predecisional information search, valuation of decision outcomes, and selection of decision strategies. Furthermore, age differences are most pronounced when decision tasks tap fluid, rather than crystallized, cognitive abilities. Summary The effects of aging on decision making are heterogeneous and reflect an interplay of cognitive, motivational, and social factors. Seniors’ decisions in health care and finance present critical translational targets for this research.
... On a more specific note, these findings help explain the phenomenon of future anhedonia, in which people predict that identical hedonic states will be less satisfying in the future than in the present (Kassam, Gilbert, Boston, & Wilson, 2008). This insight may also account for why people so often struggle to empathize with their future selves (Hershfield, 2011); it might be difficult to feel empathy for someone who we think has relatively weak emotional capacities. ...
Article
Thinking about past and future experiences is a fundamental component of mental and social life. My goal is to explore asymmetries in how people???s perceptions of the future uniquely differ from perceptions of similar experiences in the past and present. A large literature suggests that people are pervasively optimistic about the future, believing their lives are headed in an increasingly positive direction. I seek to examine how such beliefs come to be maintained and reinforced. Two particular ???strategies??? are highlighted, the evidence for which is drawn from 11 studies across 2 empirical papers. First, I show that people simply discount cues that forewarn of negative events in their futures, stubbornly believing that those events will not actually occur (???Easy to Retrieve but Hard to Believe: Metacognitive Discounting of the Unpleasantly Possible: O???Brien, 2013). Second, I show that people perceive their future selves as possessing superior mental capacities compared to their past and present selves; hence, even if bad events were to happen, people believe their future selves will be better equipped to handle them (???Emotional Pasts and Rational Futures: The Mind Perception of Self Over Time???: O???Brien, 2014). Taken together, these findings reveal that people are persistently optimistic by reinforcing their perceptions of a positive future across two routes: in how they perceive the likelihood of external events, and in how they perceive changes in their own internal abilities. This observation helps integrate the existing literature on optimism by making predictions about when a positive future should signify an advantageous boon versus a problematic bias. And more broadly, my dissertation seeks to highlight time as a central construct of social psychology study.
... Balancing imagined with actual, perceptible outcomes is a difficult process, especially considering that mental representations become progressively more abstract and less detailed as they move temporally further into the future (D'Argembeau & Van der Linden, 2004;Trope & Liberman, 2010). Indeed, people are consistently unable (or unwilling) to weight future indulgences as highly as those in the present moment (Irving, 2009), often expressed as beliefs that later pleasures will be less intense than those of today (Kassam, Gilbert, Boston, & Wilson, 2008). This is particularly the case in some highly substance-dependent individuals, who have been shown to heavily underweight potential future consequences (Bechara, 2005;Bechara & Damasio, 2002;Petry, Bickel, & Arnett, 1998). ...
Article
Humans are capable of imagining future rewards and the contexts in which they may be obtained. Functionally, intertemporal choices between smaller but immediate and larger but delayed rewards may be made without such episodic foresight. However, we propose that explicit simulations of this sort enable more flexible and adaptive intertemporal decision-making. Emotions triggered through the simulation of future situations can motivate people to forego immediate pleasures in the pursuit of long-term rewards. However, we stress that the most adaptive option need not always be a larger later reward. When the future is anticipated to be uncertain, for instance, it may make sense for preferences to shift toward more immediate rewards, instead. Imagining potential future scenarios and assessment of their likelihood and affective consequences allows humans to determine when it is more adaptive to delay gratification in pursuit of a larger later reward, and when the better strategy is to indulge in a present temptation. We discuss clinical studies that highlight when and how the effect of episodic foresight on intertemporal decision-making can be altered, and consider the relevance of this perspective to under- standing the nature of self-control. Keywords: episodic foresight, prospection, intertemporal choice, delay discounting, evolution
... However, the exchange need not be simultaneous, and by temporally decoupling the gain and loss, one can reduce the chances that pain experienced from the loss of money will negatively impact the pleasure experienced from the new purchase (Prelec & Loewenstein, 1998 ). One way to do this is to consume fi rst and delay the pain of payment for as long as possible, hoping that it will be less painful in the future than it would be right now (Kassam, Gilbert, Boston, & Wilson, 2008 ). To an extent, this has its intended effect: the immediate pleasures are unspoiled by an immediate loss. ...
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This chapter discusses the psychological research related to the act of spending money, with the aim of understanding the underlying psychological processes involved. To that end, the emotions involved in spending money before, during, and after the money changes hands are explored, including the role of anticipated and anticipatory emotions, different orientations to the gains and losses inherent in an act of spending, and the process of hedonic adaptation. Additionally, given how fundamental choice is to the act of spending money, factors that influence the decision-making process are discussed, including the role that comparative processes and expectations play in the process of making decisions and evaluating their outcomes. In each case, particular attention is paid to the psychological forces that influence the ultimate goal underlying any act of spending: happiness. Finally, several concrete strategies for making purchases most likely to lead to success on this goal are identified, including purchasing experiences over possessions, spending pro-socially, and making meaningful purchases. © 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York. All rights reserved.
... There is a concept, referred to as future anhedonia, in which delayed gains are perceived as fundamentally less emotionally salient than immediate gains. Among younger adults, Kassam, Gilbert, Boston, and Wilson (2008) asked participants to rate their affective reactions to positive present events, as well as positive future events. From these ratings, a future anhedonia index was calculated. ...
Chapter
The chapter begins with a review of several guiding observations, theoretical frameworks, and empirical tests important to the neuroscientific study of decision making. Next, behavioral, psychophysiological, and neuroimaging studies are presented to support the contention that some seemingly normal older persons have deficits in reasoning and decision making secondary to dysfunction in a neural system that includes the ventromedial prefrontal cortices. We propose that this brain region is critical for bringing emotion-related signals to bear on decision making. Dysfunction in this neural system has real-world implications, such as making older adults vulnerable to victimization by fraudulent sales tactics. We conclude by discussing the need for a formal term for age-associated changes in decision making, and propose age-associated executive dysfunction to designate older adults who demonstrate disproportionate decline in executive functions referable to the prefrontal cortex. Having such a term would help to facilitate research and funding, identify at-risk individuals, and influence public policy.
... Take, for instance, the classic discounting dilemma between smaller rewards now versus larger rewards at a later date, whereby many people exhibit present bias. An impressive body of work explores various facets of this tendency, in particular how the process is affected by features of the future date itself (e.g., if the date is described concretely, people exhibit less present bias; Peters & Büchel, 2010;Trope & Liberman, 2000), features of the reward (e.g., future rewards seem less vivid and are assigned less subjective value; Kable & Glimcher, 2007;Kassam, Gilbert, Boston, & Wilson, 2008), and features of the judgment context (e.g., visceral drives; Loewenstein, 1996). But this dense literature has mostly overlooked the fact that part of our vision of a future event includes the self who actually experiences it. ...
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Who do we see when envisioning our "past self" and "future self"? Extant research finds a motivation to perceive improvement over time, such that past selves are seen as worse versions, and future selves as better versions, of current selves. However, the broader components comprising "worse" or "better" beyond domain-specific achievement (e.g., "Last year I failed at dieting, but next year I'll succeed") are less well understood. Are there more general qualities ascribed to the person we recall versus imagine being? Six studies suggest so, extending the 2-dimensional mind perception framework to the self: Past selves seem to possess highly emotional but not very rational minds, whereas future selves seem to possess highly rational but not very emotional minds (Studies 1a, 1b, 1c). Consistent with motivated improvement, this asymmetry does not emerge in evaluating others and applies uniquely to self-judgment (Study 2). Thus, our pervasive belief in changing for the "better" specifically means becoming more rational types of people. This observation has asymmetric consequences. Participants who brought to mind future selves sought intellectual enrichment (Study 3) and performed better on a self-control task (Study 4); however, participants who brought to mind past selves sought emotional enrichment and performed better on the same task when allegedly measuring enjoyment. These findings build a bridge between mind perception and intertemporal dynamics, raising novel implications for the present. Thinking about the future may not uniformly "improve" decisions and behaviors; rather, it mostly facilitates rational-related pursuits, whereas thinking about the past may enhance feeling-related experiences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).
... Indeed, research has shown that POSITIVE INTERVENTIONS 19 ! affective forecasting errors underlie suboptimal decisions in social (e.g., Wilson, Centerbar, Kermer, & Gilbert, 2005), economic (e.g., Kassam, Gilbert, Boston, & Wilson, 2008), legal (e.g., Blumenthal, 2005), and medical domains (e.g., Ubel, Loewenstein, Schwarz, & Smith, 2005). Although it is widely accepted that incorrectly predicting future emotions could drive people to seek out things that will not increase their happiness (Gilbert & Wilson, 2000), there is less evidence that reducing affective forecasting biases increases positive emotions. ...
Article
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The rapid growth of the literature on positive interventions to increase “happiness” suggests the need for an overarching conceptual framework to integrate the many and apparently disparate findings. In this review, we use the process model of emotion regulation (Gross, 1998) to organize the existing literature on positive interventions and to advance theory by clarifying the mechanisms underlying their effectiveness. We propose that positive emotions can be increased both in the short- and longer-term through five families of emotion regulation strategies (i.e., situation selection, situation modification, attentional deployment, cognitive change, and response modulation), and we show how these emotion regulation strategies can be applied before, during, and after positive emotional events. Regarding short-term increases in positive emotions, our review indicates that attentional deployment, cognitive change, and response modulation strategies have received the most empirical support, whereas more work is needed to establish the effectiveness of situation selection and situation modification strategies. Regarding longer-term increases in positive emotions, strategies such as situation selection during an event and attentional deployment before, during, and after an event have received strong empirical support and are at the center of many positive interventions. However, more work is needed to establish the specific benefits of the other strategies, especially situation modification. We argue that our emotion regulation framework clarifies existing interventions and points the way for new interventions that might be used to increase positive emotions in both non-clinical and clinical populations.
... The manipulation did not affect people's beliefs that their preferences would be different in the future, or that they would derive less enjoyment from future consumption (e.g. future anhedonia,Kassam et al 2008). So, this pretest provides evidence that the fluency manipulation primarily impacts people's sense of connectedness to their future selves rather than other beliefs about the future that might affect financial decision making.APPENDIX E: STIMULI USED IN STUDY 7 ...
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Reducing spending in the present requires the combination of being both motivated to provide for one's future self (valuing the future) and actively considering long-term implications of one's choices (awareness of the future). Feeling more connected to the future self—thinking that the important psychological properties that define your current self are preserved in the person you will be in the future helps motivate consumers to make far-sighted choices by changing their valuation of future outcomes (e.g., discount factors). However, this change only reduces spending when opportunity costs are considered. Correspondingly, cues that highlight opportunity costs reduce spending primarily when people discount the future less or are more connected to their future selves. Implications for the efficacy of behavioral interventions and for research on time discounting are discussed., for helpful comments on this research and thank Jarrett Fowler, Emily Hsee, and Rob St. Louis for research assistance. Particular thanks to Shane Frederick for substantial feedback and advice throughout the project.
... "Future anhedonia" refers to an affective forecasting phenomenon where people view both positive and negative outcomes as less extreme the farther into the future these outcomes occur. Viewing both positive outcomes as less extreme when delayed to the farther future may cause people to consume benefits sooner, when their positive qualities are more intense (Kassam et al., 2008). Time perception has been implicated by Zauberman et al. (2009) as a partial explanation for hyperbolic discounting and for high discount rates in the near future. ...
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We build on a philosophical account of personal identity (Parfit, 1984) which argues that the degree of concern one has for one's future self may be scaled by the degree of "psychological connectedness"—overlap in properties such as beliefs, values, and ideals—held between one's current and future self. We pose participants with tradeoffs between consuming a benefit in the near future versus consuming more of that benefit in the distant future. When people's sense of connectedness with their future self is reduced, they make impatient choices.
... d = -.82. Though not hypothesized, such findings are consistent with future anhedonia(Kassam, Gilbert, Boston & Wilson, 2008) which refers to the diminishing intensity in positive emotional forecasts as temporal distance extends further into the future. As participants made predictions regarding both holidays in mid-January, they were forecasting affect approximately two months in the future for St. Patrick's Day. ...
Article
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Social anxiety is theorised to arise from sustained over-activation of a mammalian evolved system for detecting and responding to social threat with corresponding diminished opportunities for attaining the pleasure of safe attachments. Emotional forecasting data from two holidays were used to test the hypothesis that greater social anxiety would be associated with decreased expectations of positive affect (PA) and greater anticipated negative affect (NA) on a holiday marked by group celebration (St. Patrick's Day) while being associated with greater predicted PA for daters on a romantic holiday (Valentine's Day). Participants completed symptom reports, made affective forecasts and provided multiple affect reports throughout each holiday. Higher levels of social anxiety were associated with greater anticipated PA for Valentine's Day daters, but lower experienced PA on the holiday; this was not found for trait anxiety and depression. Alternatively, trait anxiety, depression and social anxiety were associated with less predicted PA for St. Patrick's Day, greater anticipated NA and diminished experienced PA/greater NA during the holiday. Results are discussed in light of perceived hope for rewarding safe emotional contact for those daters in contrast to the greater possibility for social threat associated with group celebration typical of St. Patrick's Day.
... We suggest that while the future may be more emotionally compelling than the past, nothing is as powerful as the present. Indeed, people exhibit future anhedonia, believing that their emotional responses will be less intense in the future than in the present (Kassam, Gilbert, Boston, & Wilson, 2008). For example, participants believed that they would experience more pleasure on the day they received a gift if it were delivered today rather than 3 months later. ...
Article
The relationship between money and happiness is surprisingly weak, which may stem in part from the way people spend it. Drawing on empirical research, we propose eight principles designed to help consumers get more happiness for their money. Specifically, we suggest that consumers should (1) buy more experiences and fewer material goods; (2) use their money to benefit others rather than themselves; (3) buy many small pleasures rather than fewer large ones; (4) eschew extended warranties and other forms of overpriced insurance; (5) delay consumption; (6) consider how peripheral features of their purchases may affect their day-to-day lives; (7) beware of comparison shopping; and (8) pay close attention to the happiness of others.
... Specifically, we emphasize the action-based nature of prospection and give credence to a methodology (i.e., drawings) that can capture core components of the internally simulated world. As Kassam, Gilbert, Boston, and Wilson (2008) surmised, previous research (Caruso et al., 2008;McClure et al., 2004;Schacter et al., 2007;Trope & Liberman, 2003;Van Boven & Ashworth, 2007) suggests that ''Representations of present and future events are not like two photographs with different time stamps, but rather, they are like two photographs taken from different angles with different lenses and different settings' ' (p. 1553). ...
... (a) The article did not include empirical data: Ariely, Huber, and Wertenbroch (2005); Elwyn and Miron-Shatz (2010); Johnson, Steffel, and Goldstein (2005); Loewenstein (1996Loewenstein ( , 2001Loewenstein ( , 2005Loewenstein ( , 2007; Loewenstein and Schkade (1999); MacInnis and Patrick (2006); Rachman and Bichard (1988); E. R. Smith and Mackie (2009) ;Zeelenberg, van Dijk, Manstead, and van der Pligt (2000). (b) The article did not report both forecasted and experienced emotion: Ariely and Loewenstein (2000); Bacova and Juskova (2009); Baron (1992); Bosson, Pinel, and Vandello (2010) ;Buehler, McFarland, Spyropoulos, and Lam (2007);DeWall and Baumeister (2006) ;Dillard, Fagerlin, Dal Cin, Zikmund-Fisher, and Ubel (2010);Falk, Dunn, and Norenzayan (2010); Gaunt, Sindic, and Leyens (2005); Geers and Lassiter (1999); Gilbert, Gill, and Wilson (2002); Golub, Gilbert, and Wilson (2009) ;Griffin, Dunning, and Ross (1990); Hartnett and Skowronski (2008); Igou (2004Igou ( , 2008; Kassam, Gilbert, Boston, and Wilson (2008); Keller and Bless (2009);Loewenstein and Prelec (1993); Marshal and Brown (2006); Osberg and Shrauger (1986) ;Patrick, Chun, and MacInnis (2009);Samanez-Larkin et al. (2007); Schkade and Kahneman (1998) ;Seta, Haire, and Seta (2008); Sheldon, Gunz, Nichols, and Ferguson (2010); Ubel et al. (2001); Van Boven and Ashworth (2007); Van Boven, Loewenstein, and Dunning (2005); Walsh and Ayton (2009); Welsch and Kühling (2010); Wesp, Sandry, Prisco, and Sarte (2009) ;Wilson, Meyers, and Gilbert (2003); Winter, Moss, and Hoffman (2009);Wood and Bettman (2007). (c) The article lacked information that would allow effect-size computation: Dohke & Murata (2009, in Japanese) ;Dunn, Brackett, Ashton-James, Schneiderman, and Salovey (2007); Sheldon, Gunz, Nichols, and Ferguson (2010); Sweeny and Shepperd (2010) ;Totterdell, Parkinson, Briner, and Reynolds (1997); Wilson, Wheatley, Kurtz, Dunn, and Gilbert (2004). ...
Article
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Reports an error in "Accuracy and artifact: Reexamining the intensity bias in affective forecasting" by Linda J. Levine, Heather C. Lench, Robin L. Kaplan and Martin A. Safer (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2012[Oct], Vol 103[4], 584-605). The effect size in Table 4 for Sevdalis, Harvey, & Bell (2009) Study 1 should be 0.32 and the effect size for Study 2 should be 0.36. These two effect sizes were misreported in Table 4 but entered correctly in the meta-analysis. In online supplemental materials for this article, the Table entry for Wilson et al. (2001) should be: "Wilson et al. (2003), Study 1, Election outcome, General, Delayed (a), pp. 429-430." (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2012-21633-001.) Research on affective forecasting shows that people have a robust tendency to overestimate the intensity of future emotion. We hypothesized that (a) people can accurately predict the intensity of their feelings about events and (b) a procedural artifact contributes to people's tendency to overestimate the intensity of their feelings in general. People may misinterpret the forecasting question as asking how they will feel about a focal event, but they are later asked to report their feelings in general without reference to that event. In the current investigation, participants predicted and reported both their feelings in general and their feelings about an election outcome (Study 1) and an exam grade (Study 3). We also assessed how participants interpreted forecasting questions (Studies 2 and 4) and conducted a meta-analysis of affective forecasting research (Study 5). The results showed that participants accurately predicted the intensity of their feelings about events. They overestimated only when asked to predict how they would feel in general and later report their feelings without reference to the focal event. Most participants, however, misinterpreted requests to predict their feelings in general as asking how they would feel when they were thinking about the focal event. Clarifying the meaning of the forecasting question significantly reduced overestimation. These findings reveal that people have more sophisticated self-knowledge than is commonly portrayed in the affective forecasting literature. Overestimation of future emotion is partly due to a procedure in which people predict one thing but are later asked to report another. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).
... (a) The article did not include empirical data: Ariely, Huber, and Wertenbroch (2005); Elwyn and Miron-Shatz (2010); Johnson, Steffel, and Goldstein (2005); Loewenstein (1996Loewenstein ( , 2001Loewenstein ( , 2005Loewenstein ( , 2007; Loewenstein and Schkade (1999); MacInnis and Patrick (2006); Rachman and Bichard (1988); E. R. Smith and Mackie (2009) ;Zeelenberg, van Dijk, Manstead, and van der Pligt (2000). (b) The article did not report both forecasted and experienced emotion: Ariely and Loewenstein (2000); Bacova and Juskova (2009); Baron (1992); Bosson, Pinel, and Vandello (2010) ;Buehler, McFarland, Spyropoulos, and Lam (2007);DeWall and Baumeister (2006) ;Dillard, Fagerlin, Dal Cin, Zikmund-Fisher, and Ubel (2010);Falk, Dunn, and Norenzayan (2010); Gaunt, Sindic, and Leyens (2005); Geers and Lassiter (1999); Gilbert, Gill, and Wilson (2002); Golub, Gilbert, and Wilson (2009) ;Griffin, Dunning, and Ross (1990); Hartnett and Skowronski (2008); Igou (2004Igou ( , 2008; Kassam, Gilbert, Boston, and Wilson (2008); Keller and Bless (2009);Loewenstein and Prelec (1993); Marshal and Brown (2006); Osberg and Shrauger (1986) ;Patrick, Chun, and MacInnis (2009);Samanez-Larkin et al. (2007); Schkade and Kahneman (1998) ;Seta, Haire, and Seta (2008); Sheldon, Gunz, Nichols, and Ferguson (2010); Ubel et al. (2001); Van Boven and Ashworth (2007); Van Boven, Loewenstein, and Dunning (2005); Walsh and Ayton (2009); Welsch and Kühling (2010); Wesp, Sandry, Prisco, and Sarte (2009) ;Wilson, Meyers, and Gilbert (2003); Winter, Moss, and Hoffman (2009);Wood and Bettman (2007). (c) The article lacked information that would allow effect-size computation: Dohke & Murata (2009, in Japanese) ;Dunn, Brackett, Ashton-James, Schneiderman, and Salovey (2007); Sheldon, Gunz, Nichols, and Ferguson (2010); Sweeny and Shepperd (2010) ;Totterdell, Parkinson, Briner, and Reynolds (1997); Wilson, Wheatley, Kurtz, Dunn, and Gilbert (2004). ...
Article
Full-text available
Research on affective forecasting shows that people have a robust tendency to overestimate the intensity of future emotion. We hypothesized that (a) people can accurately predict the intensity of their feelings about events and (b) a procedural artifact contributes to people's tendency to overestimate the intensity of their feelings in general. People may misinterpret the forecasting question as asking how they will feel about a focal event, but they are later asked to report their feelings in general without reference to that event. In the current investigation, participants predicted and reported both their feelings in general and their feelings about an election outcome (Study 1) and an exam grade (Study 3). We also assessed how participants interpreted forecasting questions (Studies 2 and 4) and conducted a meta-analysis of affective forecasting research (Study 5). The results showed that participants accurately predicted the intensity of their feelings about events. They overestimated only when asked to predict how they would feel in general and later report their feelings without reference to the focal event. Most participants, however, misinterpreted requests to predict their feelings in general as asking how they would feel when they were thinking about the focal event. Clarifying the meaning of the forecasting question significantly reduced overestimation. These findings reveal that people have more sophisticated self-knowledge than is commonly portrayed in the affective forecasting literature. Overestimation of future emotion is partly due to a procedure in which people predict one thing but are later asked to report another. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).
... t when an episode is considered 'ex post,' people evaluate a future state by evaluating the transition to this state. demonstrated that errors in predicted utility resulting from the heuristic of evaluating states by moments are amplified by a systematic overweighting of certain aspects of the new state; a phenomenon known as the focusing illusion. Kassam et al. (2008) found that people may mistakenly expect to experience less intense affect when an event transpires in the future than when the same event happened in the present. Gilbert et al. (1998) showed that individuals often do not realize the extent to which they will reconstruct an event when predicting how they will feel about it. Gilbert et a ...
Article
Empirical research focusing on the field of subjective well-being has resulted in a range of theories, components, and measures, yet only a modicum of work leans towards the establishment of a general theory of subjective well-being. I propose that a temporal model of subjective well-being, called the 3P Model, is a parsimonious, unifying theory, which accounts for, as well as unites, disparate theories and measurements. The 3P Model categorizes the components of subjective well-being under the temporal states of the Present, the Past, and the Prospect (Future). The model indicates how each state is important to a global evaluation of subjective well-being and how each state is distinct yet connected to the other states. Additionally, the model explains how measures of subjective well-being are affected by cognitive biases (e.g., peak-end rule, impact bias, retrospective bias), which factor into evaluations of the temporal states, and meta-biases (e.g., temporal perspectives), which factor into global evaluations of life satisfaction. Finally, future research is recommended to further support the model as well as create interventions that can be chosen based on an individual’s temporal preference or that can be designed to counteract certain biases. KeywordsSubjective well-being–Happiness–Emotion–Mood–Cognitive biases–Time perspective
... Researchers interested in time perception, interhemispheric communication, or decision making are therefore encouraged to consider strength of handedness as a valuable individual differences variable to employ when designing time or time-related experiments and interpreting the results. Researchers should also definitely explore whether these differences generalize to the real passage of time by using tasks such as finger-tapping or button-pressing, and various asymmetries like those found between judgments of the past versus the future (Kassam, Gilbert, Boston, & Wilson, 2008). 1 We have recently conducted another study in an attempt to replicate these findings. In this second study, we again find the same interaction between handedness and time frame, wherein mixed-handers perceive ''longer" periods as closer and ''shorter" periods as further away. ...
Article
Research has established that objective measures of time rarely have a perfect correlation with subjective judgments of time. Given that proper time perception appears to depend upon access to right-hemisphere processing (e.g., Harrington, Haaland, & Knight, 1998), the present paper investigates the link between strength of handedness and subjective time judgments. In two distinctive time- associated decision-making tasks, results indicated that mixed-handers (individuals who use their non-dominant hand for at least a few activities), perceived time differently than strong-handers (individuals who use one hand predominantly). These findings signify a link between strength of handedness and different levels of interhemispheric communication, consistent with previous handedness literature, and suggest that researchers studying time perception or problems involving the perception of time should incorporate measures of handedness strength.
... Deciding to use credit implies favoring consuming now and paying back later over saving now and consuming later. Research on intertemporal choice has consistently shown that future benefits and costs are discounted compared to their valuation in the present (Kassam, Gilbert, Boston, & Wilson, 2008;Soman et al., 2005). Present rewards loom larger than future rewards, whereas future costs are discounted compared to present costs (Loewenstein & Thaler, 1989;Webley & Nyhus, 2008). ...
Article
Full-text available
Consumer borrowing is a highly topical and multifaceted phenomenon as well as a popular subject for study. We focus on consumer credit use and review the existing literature. To categorize what is known we identify four main psychological perspectives on the phenomenon: credit use as (1) a reflection of the situation, (2) a reflection of the person, (3) a cognitive process, and (4) a social process. On top of these perspectives we view credit use as a process that entails three distinct phases: (1) processes before credit acquisition, (2) processes at credit acquisition, and (3) processes after credit acquisition. We review the international literature along a two-tier structure that aligns the psychological perspectives with a process view of credit. This structure allows us to identify systematic concentrations as well as gaps in the existing research. We consolidate what is known within each perspective and identify what seems to be most urgently missing. Some of the most important gaps relate to research studying credit acquisition from the perspective of credit use as a reflection of the person or as a social process. In particular, research on credit use as a reflection of the person appears to focus exclusively on the first stage of the credit process. We conclude with a discussion that reaches across perspectives and identifies overarching gaps, trends, and open questions. We highlight a series of implicit linkages between perspectives and the geographical regions in which studies related to the perspectives were conducted. Beyond diagnosing a geographical imbalance of research, we argue for future research that systematically addresses interrelations between perspectives. We conclude with a set of global implications and research recommendations.
... Metonyms are important to everyday life as their concepts structure thoughts, attitudes and actions, as well as language [43]. Using a metonym to present future risk of a disease could be a way of improving affective forecasting, as people are not good at predicting the future [44] . It is a striking symbolisation what the disease encompasses, rather than an abstract numerical value. ...
Article
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The future risk of heart disease can be predicted with increasing precision. However, more research is needed into how this risk is conveyed and presented. The aim of this study is to compare the effects of presenting cardiovascular risk in different formats on individuals' intention to change behaviour to reduce risk, understanding of risk information and emotional affect. A randomised controlled trial comprising four arms, with a between subjects design will be performed. There will be two intervention groups and two control groups. The first control comprises a pre-intervention questionnaire and presents risk in a bar graph format. The second control presents risk in a bar graph format without pre-intervention questionnaire. These two control groups are to account for the potential Hawthorne effect of thinking about cardiovascular risk before viewing actual risk. The two intervention groups comprise presenting risk in either a pictogram or metonym format (image depicting seriousness of having a myocardial infarction). 800 individuals' aged between 45 and 64 years, who have not been previously diagnosed with heart disease and have access to a computer with internet, will be given a link to a website comprising a risk calculator and electronic questionnaires. 10-year risk of having a coronary heart disease event will be assessed and presented in one of the three formats. A post-intervention questionnaire will be completed after viewing the risk format. Main outcome measures are (i) intention to change behaviour, (ii) understanding of risk information, (iii) emotional affect and (iv) worry about future heart disease. Secondary outcomes are the sub-components of the theory of planned behaviour: attitudes, perceived behavioural control and subjective norms. Having reviewed the literature, we are not aware of any other studies which have used the assessment of actual risk, in a trial to compare different graphical cardiovascular risk presentation formats. This trial will provide data about which graphical cardiovascular risk presentation format is most effective in encouraging behaviour change to reduce cardiovascular risk. Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN91319318.
... An effect on the reduction of risk factors was found, especially when cardiovascular age was high; but this was only compared against not providing risk information to patients, not against alternative formats. The inconsistency found in this review regarding the effect of longer timeframes (such as 15, 20 and 30 years), could be attributed to the fact that individuals are poorly attuned to how risk accumulates over time, are not good at forecasting the future, fail to take account of the timeframes used to represent risk and do not adjust their risk perceptions to account for the longer time spans [10,565758. The few studies that measured understanding did so by recall immediately after presentation, self reported confidence or perceived difficulty in understanding [40,43,51,52]. ...
Article
To compare different interventions used to communicate cardiovascular risk and assess their impact on patient related outcomes. A systematic search of six electronic data sources from January 1980 to November 2008. Data was extracted from the included studies and a narrative synthesis of the results was conducted. Fifteen studies were included. Only four studies assessed individuals' actual cardiovascular risk; the rest were analogue studies using hypothetical risk profiles. Heterogeneity in study design and outcomes was found. The results from individual studies suggest that presenting patients with their cardiovascular risk in percentages or frequencies, using graphical representation and short timeframes, is best for achieving risk reduction through behaviour change. However, this summary is tentative and needs further exploration. Better quality trials are needed that compare different risk presentation formats, before conclusions can be drawn as to the most effective ways to communicate cardiovascular risk to patients. Instead of directing attention to the accuracy of cardiovascular risk prediction, more should be paid to the effective presentation of risk, to help patients reduce risk by lifestyle change or active treatment.
Article
The purpose of this study is twofold. It describes two different temporal distance, which is temporal distance in construal level theory and temporal consequences. Also, the research examine matching effects of self-construal, regulatory focus, temporal distance using advertisement message and how it influences temporal consequences. Temporal consequences can be seen as a different type of time perception, which explains how long future events can affect. The result shows that compared to independent self-construal, individuals with an interdependent self-construal consider temporal consequences to be longer. Furthermore, there are matching effect of self-construal, regulatory focus and temporal distance, which seems to amplify the perception of temporal consequences, especially for people with interdependent self-construal. Key words : self-construal, regulatory focus, temporal distance, temporal consequence
Chapter
The way we perceive time has changed across the centuries. Some authors suggest that the dynamic complexity of the current world and its intrinsic uncertainty have loosened and modified the bonds among past, present and future. The present has extended and has become “thick” (Poli, On the Horizon 23(2): 85–99, 2015), while we seem to lack the necessary social skills to face the future from nondeterministic perspectives. Analysing the relationship between future and present, I claim that an active attitude towards the present can help us to foresight the future. Three domains may offer useful hints to evade from our short-sighted view: mindfulness, aesthetic and spontaneity. Moreover, several studies show that we can improve our forecasting ability applying specific precautions and changing our mindset. The paper will then discuss further strategies that can enhance future awareness and influence the “living futures” (Adam B, Groves C, Future matters. Action, knowledge, ethics. Brill: Leiden, 2007, p. 198) embedded in the present.
Article
Life-span development is inherently linked to the perception of time and associated temporal construals. Such concepts are multi-faceted in nature and have important practical implications in areas such as time management, financial planning, or medical choices. A large body of research has documented age-related limitations in global time horizons, but age differences in other aspects of temporal construal are comparatively poorly understood. The present article draws attention to developmental trajectories of self-continuity, defined as perceived associations of one’s present self with past and future selves. After considering historical roots and contemporary views on self-continuity, we turn to the life-span developmental literature and review several convergent streams of research that provide indirect evidence for age-related increases in self-continuity. We then consider a small body of recent studies which have directly assessed age differences in self-continuity and summarize our current understanding of this phenomenon including associations between explicit and implicit measures, symmetry between past and future self-continuity, and differentiation from other aspects of time perception. We conclude by highlighting open theoretical questions and considering the practical implications of an increased sense of self-continuity with advancing age. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. All rights reserved.
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The premise that emotions influence decisions is widely accepted, but relatively few studies have directly measured or manipulated emotional variables during decision making. This chapter surveys the current literature on this topic. Emotion modulates choices through two main routes. The first is through incidental affect, in which a baseline affective state can shift choices, although it is unrelated to the decision. This can be assessed through techniques such as stress or mood induction, and affective priming. The second way emotion can influence decisions is by being directly incorporated into the value computation during choice. For example, it has been shown that physiological arousal responses to the choice options or outcomes are linked to decisions. If we can characterize how emotion modulates choices, then we should also be able to alter choices by changing emotional states. We discuss how techniques such as emotion regulation and targeting memory reconsolidation might flexibly modulate choice.
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Background: In all countries of the world, fewer than half of people with mental disorders receive treatment. This treatment gap is commonly attributed to factors such as consumers' limited knowledge, negative attitudes, and financial constraints. In the context of other health behaviors, such as diet and exercise, behavioral economists have emphasized time preferences and procrastination as additional barriers. These factors might also be relevant to mental health. Aims: We examine conceptually and empirically how lack of help-seeking for mental health conditions might be related to time preferences and procrastination. Methods: Our conceptual discussion explores how the interrelationships between time preferences and mental health treatment utilization could fit into basic microeconomic theory. The empirical analysis uses survey data of student populations from 12 colleges and universities in 2011 (the Healthy Minds Study, N = 8,806). Using standard brief measures of discounting, procrastination, and mental health (depression and anxiety symptoms), we examine the conditional correlations between indicators of present-orientation (discount rate and procrastination) and mental health symptoms. Results: The conceptual discussion reveals a number of potential relationships that would be useful to examine empirically. In the empirical analysis depression is significantly associated with procrastination and discounting. Treatment utilization is significantly associated with procrastination but not discounting. Discussion: The empirical results are generally consistent with the idea that depression increases present orientation (reduces future orientation), as measured by discounting and procrastination. These analyses have notable limitations that will require further examination in future research: the measures are simple and brief, and the estimates may be biased from true causal effects because of omitted variables and reverse causality. There are several possibilities for future research, including: (i) observational, longitudinal studies with detailed data on mental health, time preferences, and help-seeking; (ii) experimental studies that examine immediate or short-term responses and connections between these variables; (iii) randomized trials of mental health therapies that include outcome measures of time preferences and procrastination; and, (iv) intervention studies that test strategies to influence help-seeking by addressing time preferences and present orientation.
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[3] experiments showed that an adjusting procedure can provide useful information about choice between reinforcers, especially when delayed reinforcers are involved pigeon (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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This paper discusses the discounted utility (DU) model: its historical development, underlying assumptions, and "anomalies"--the empirical regularities that are inconsistent with its theoretical predictions. We then summarize the alternate theoretical formulations that have been advanced to address these anomalies. We also review three decades of empirical research on intertemporal choice, and discuss reasons for the spectacular variation in implicit discount rates across studies. Throughout the paper, we stress the importance of distinguishing time preference, per se, from many other considerations that also influence intertemporal choices.
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