SHOULD you get a divorce? Buy a new car? Have an HIV test? No matter what the
question, people reach their decision by considering what will make them happy,
both now and over the long term. After all, according to just about every
psychologist since Freud, the pursuit of pleasure drives everything we do.
That would be just fine if we were forecasting our emotions correctly. The
trouble is, a new line of research suggests we鈥檙e no better at predicting our
future feelings than we are at guessing tomorrow鈥檚 weather. Our forecasts, it
turns out, are blurred by at least one major emotional miscalculation: the
鈥渄urability bias鈥�, or the tendency to exaggerate how long a feeling will
last.
In a series of studies reported last year in theJournal of Personality
and Social Psychology (vol 75, page 617), psychologists Daniel Gilbert of
Harvard University in Boston and Timothy Wilson of the University of Virginia in
Charlottesville and their colleagues showed just how pervasive the durability
bias is. In one experiment, university academics predicted that winning tenure
would make them gleeful for several years to come, while not getting tenure
would leave them depressed for a similar time. But a comparison group of
academics who had actually won or lost tenure claimed that they were, in
retrospect, just run-of-the-mill content in the five years after the
verdict.
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Knotty problem
In a second experiment, people greatly overestimated how long a new love or a
broken relationship would twist their emotions into knots, when compared with
reports from people in love or recently jilted. Other experiments found that
people miscalculate the duration of their emotional responses to a favoured
candidate鈥檚 election defeat, personal criticism, or a lousy job interview.
To be sure, life鈥檚 disappointments can be hard to swallow鈥攁nd some
people do spiral downwards into clinical depression. But on average, researchers
say, we imagine a heavy blow or a piece of good fortune will devastate or thrill
us for far longer than it actually does. 鈥淧eople recover very quickly from
emotional events, good and bad,鈥� says Wilson. 鈥淲e just don鈥檛 expect to.鈥�
It may sound as if your brain is playing roulette with your feelings. But on
the contrary, says Gilbert, your mind is a great protector, patrolling against
emotional disaster by exaggerating the pleasures of positive future events and
the pains of negative ones, so upping the likelihood that most of the time
you鈥檒l make the right decisions. As a fail-safe, the brain also has at its
disposal what Gilbert calls a 鈥減sychological immune system鈥濃�攁n army of
rationalisations, justifications and self-serving logic that soothes our psyche
during bad times.
鈥淧eople are famous for making the best of bad situations and rationalising
away their failures鈥攚hich allows them to remain relatively pleased with
themselves despite all good evidence to the contrary,鈥� says Gilbert. Still, that
doesn鈥檛 mean that fuzzy emotional forecasting is always in your best
interests.
Take medical decision making. According to a study due to appear in the
American Journal of Psychology later this year, people dramatically
overestimate the duration of their emotional response to an HIV test. Five weeks
after receiving their test results, people who got bad news were far happier
than they had expected to be, and those who had got good news had long since got
over their initial glee, says George Loewenstein, a psychologist at Carnegie
Mellon University in Pittsburgh, who led the research.
In another study, more than 10 per cent of people at risk of developing
Huntington鈥檚 disease鈥攁n incurable, degenerative brain disorder鈥攕aid
they would decline a new diagnostic test for the gene that causes Huntington鈥檚,
largely because they feared that knowing they carried the gene would leave them
devastated. Some 15 per cent of those who said they would take the test said
they might consider suicide if their results were unfavourable. But a separate
study suggests that although some people clearly are devastated by a positive
result, most people who have Huntington鈥檚 disease in their family are more
distressed by their uncertain fate before testing than by a positive
diagnosis.
If these results are borne out by further studies, Loewenstein says, health
campaigns that encourage people to be tested for HIV or other diseases should
start educating people about their likely reaction to test results. Rather than
something to be feared, it seems that diagnostic tests can not only give doctors
a headstart against treatable diseases, they can also improve patients鈥� quality
of life by improving their psychological wellbeing.
Do not resuscitate
Perhaps the most graphic example of how decision making based on poor
emotional forecasting can adversely affect a person鈥檚 health involves living
wills. Healthy people often stipulate in living wills that doctors should not
resuscitate them if they are in an accident that threatens to leave them
severely disabled, nor treat them if they are terminally ill with a debilitating
or painful disease. But studies of seriously ill patients suggest that when
disease or disability becomes a reality, people enjoy life far more than they
expect to. In one study, about 60 per cent of seriously ill patients said they
would definitely want treatment up to the end, even if it only prolonged their
life for a week (Critical Care Medicine, vol 24, p 1811, 1996).
Many people look into the future and assume that if they couldn鈥檛 walk or
talk, they wouldn鈥檛 want to live, says Gilbert. 鈥淏ut when you actually go and
measure the emotional states of seriously ill patients, they are reasonably
happy.鈥� That leaves doctors in an ethical quandary when it comes to patients who
are incapable of communicating their wishes. Should they accept patients鈥�
earlier decisions, which were probably based on a wrong assessment of how
unhappy they thought a disease or disability would make them? Or should they
ignore living wills that were written specifically to ensure patients鈥� views are
taken into account in such circumstances?
Your health isn鈥檛 the only thing affected by emotional miscalculation. Your
pocketbook is another. When we are not trying to side-step sadness, we are often
chasing happiness: with a new car, a new house, a new wardrobe. But the bliss of
a big purchase soon fades, says Loewenstein, your happiness reverts to
normal鈥攁nd you鈥檙e stuck with the bill. He argues for more 鈥渃ooling-off
periods鈥濃�攁 contractual period in which buyers of big-ticket items, such as
cars, can return their purchase and retrieve their money.
This sort of prediction bias鈥攖he conviction that you鈥檒l be happier with
more money or 鈥渢hings鈥濃�攃an take on an life of its own, warns Loewenstein.
It鈥檚 the dreaded 鈥測uppie syndrome鈥�. People assume that wealth brings happiness,
so they work harder to earn more money. But at the same time, they spend more
money to keep up with their financial classmates, assume more debt, and end up
as鈥攐r even more鈥攕tressed as before. As Loewenstein puts it: 鈥淟ife
gets ratcheted up a notch.鈥�
No matter how you forecast the future, some people may be programmed by their
genes to be happier than others. In fact, David Lykken at the University of
Minnesota in Minneapolis suggests that up to 80 per cent of a person鈥檚 happiness
is determined by a jumble of emotion-related genes.
But whatever your genetic makeup, preliminary studies hint that it may be
possible to improve your decision making based on forecasts of future feelings
(and hence your chances of happiness), by keeping careful tabs on your predicted
and actual reactions to emotionally charged events, says Wilson.
And that鈥檚 a hunch that definitely warrants more research. After all, 鈥渋f
people were better emotional forecasters,鈥� says Gilbert, 鈥渢hey would realise
that fears of unhappiness tend to be overblown, and they could act more on their
丑辞辫别蝉.鈥�