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Psychologists Daniel Gilbert and Timothy Wilson found that people consistently overestimate how intensely, and for how long, a future event such as a win, a job loss or a breakup will affect their mood. Both good and bad feelings tend to fade faster than we expect.

Daniel Gilbert & Timothy Wilson, affective forecasting research

MindScience

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Researchers call this overestimate the impact bias. One cause is focalism, also called the focusing illusion: when we picture a future event, we think about it alone and forget the ordinary things, work, friends, meals, that will keep pulling our mood back towards its usual level. In a 1998 study, David Schkade and Daniel Kahneman found that students in California and the Midwest were equally satisfied with their lives, yet both groups expected Californians to be happier, because they focused on the weather. Gilbert and Wilson also describe 'immune neglect': people underrate how well they cope with bad news, making sense of it and finding reasons to feel better, so they expect setbacks to hurt for longer than they do.

Türkçe oku
Psikologlar Daniel Gilbert ve Timothy Wilson, insanların gelecekteki bir olayın, örneğin bir kazancın, işini kaybetmenin ya da bir ayrılığın, ruh hâllerini ne kadar güçlü ve ne kadar uzun etkileyeceğini sürekli abarttığını buldu. İyi de olsa kötü de olsa duygular, beklediğimizden çabuk geçer.

Araştırmacılar bu abartıya “etki yanlılığı” diyor. Bunun bir nedeni “odaklanma yanılsaması”: gelecekteki bir olayı düşünürken yalnızca ona odaklanır, ruh hâlimizi her gün yeniden olağan düzeyine çeken sıradan şeyleri, yani işi, arkadaşları, sofraları unuturuz. David Schkade ile Daniel Kahneman'ın 1998'deki araştırmasında Kaliforniya'daki ve Orta Batı'daki üniversite öğrencileri hayatlarından eşit ölçüde memnundu; yine de iki grup da Kaliforniyalıların daha mutlu olduğunu sanıyordu, çünkü akıllarında yalnızca hava vardı. Gilbert ve Wilson “bağışıklığı hesaba katmama” dedikleri bir eğilimi de anlatır: insanlar kötü bir haberle ne kadar iyi başa çıktıklarını, olanı anlamlandırıp kendilerini toparlayacak nedenler bulduklarını küçümser; bu yüzden aksiliklerin olduğundan uzun süre canlarını yakacağını sanırlar.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Affective forecasting
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