The Future Is Now: Temporal Correction in Affective Forecasting

doi:10.1006/obhd.2001.2982

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes

Volume 88, Issue 1, May 2002, Pages 430-444

https://doi.org/10.1006/obhd.2001.2982 Get rights and content

Abstract

Decisions are often based on predictions of the hedonic consequences of future events. We suggest that people make such predictions by imagining the event without temporal context (atemporal representation), assuming that their reaction to the event would be similar to their reaction to the imagined event (proxy reactions), and then considering how this reaction might change were the event displaced in time (temporal correction). In a laboratory study, control participants based their predictions of future food enjoyment on the temporal location of its consumption, whereas cognitively loaded participants based their predictions on their current hunger. In a field study, shoppers based their food purchases on the temporal location of its consumption, whereas shoppers for whom this information was not salient based their purchases on their current hunger. These findings suggest that predictions of future hedonic reactions may initially be based on the hedonic reactions one experiences as one imagines the event atemporally, and that this initial prediction is then corrected with information about the time at which the event will actually occur.

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Affective forecasting – estimations of future emotional reactions – is an important aspect of future thinking that informs judgement and decision making. Biases in affective forecasting have been noted generally and with people with emotional disturbances specifically. Still, the role of affective forecasting within models of psychopathology has received little attention. Given the state of the literature, a scoping review method was adopted to summarize and synthesize the methodological approaches used in measuring affective forecasting within the context of psychopathology and the scope of the evidence on this association. Three databases were searched for research published on or before November 13th, 2023. Original quantitative research that examined affective forecasting and its association with psychopathology was reviewed. Data were charted using a form designed for this study. Overall, the review highlights the heterogeneity in operationalization of affective forecasting. The majority of the evidence supports an association between severity of psychopathology and intensity of affective forecasts, with notable exceptions, which are discussed within the scope of methodology and operationalization of affective forecasting. This remains an important process to investigate in information processing models of psychopathology to elucidate its role in the development and maintenance of psychopathology and potential as a target for intervention.
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Citation Excerpt :
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^☆: This research was supported by Research Grant RO1-MH56075 from the National Institute of Mental Health. We are grateful to the management of HEB's Central Market in Austin, Texas, for generously allowing us to conduct Study 2 on their premises and for helping us with many aspects of data collection. We also thank Lisa Hiza and Jennifer Hunter for assistance in the execution of these studies; members of our laboratory groups for various contributions to this work; and Jay Koehler, George Loewenstein, Matt Lieberman, and many anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.

^f2: Address correspondence and reprint requests to Daniel Gilbert, Department of Psychology, William James Hall, 33 Kirkland Street, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138. Fax: (617) 495-3892. E-mail: [email protected].

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Regular ArticleThe Future Is Now: Temporal Correction in Affective Forecasting☆

Abstract

Appetite

Journal of Consumer Psychology

Acta Psychologica

Appetite

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes

Appetite

Lancet

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

Behavior Research and Therapy

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes

Journal of Consumer Psychology

Picoeconomics: The strategic interaction of successive motivational states within the person

Sequential choice in group settings: Taking the road less traveled and less enjoyed

Journal of Consumer Research

Failure to respond automatically to anticipated future outcomes following damage to prefrontal cortex

Cerebral Cortex

Decision making, risk taking and psychological time: Review of empirical findings and psychological theory

Scandinavian Journal of Psychology

Future time perspective and life events across adulthood

Journal of General Psychology

The affect heuristic in judgments of risks and benefits

Journal of Behavioral Decision Making

Hedonic adaptation

Memory for the time of past events

Psychological Bulletin

The development of children's knowledge of the times of future events

Child Development

How mental systems believe

American Psychologist

The illusion of external agency

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

When comparisons arise

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

The momentary realist

Psychological Science

Immune neglect: A source of durability bias in affective forecasting

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Overhelping

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

A psychological approach to decision support systems

Management Science

Attention and effort

New challenges to the rationality assumption

Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics

Norm theory: Comparing reality to its alternatives

Psychological Review

Regular Article
The Future Is Now: Temporal Correction in Affective Forecasting☆