WOULD your resentment last longer if your partner cheated on you or left dirty dishes in the sink? The question might seem like a no-brainer, but according to Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert, just about everyone gets the answer wrong. The dirty dishes ultimately prove more irksome.
Gilbert thinks we have built-in psychological mechanisms that kick in when we experience intense feelings. As a result, we often get over these feelings relatively quickly, whereas less intense feelings linger. So a wife might eventually forgive a cheating husband, but bear a lifelong grudge for a minor transgression. 鈥淪mall events don鈥檛 spur us to do anything about them, and then they take on a long life of their own,鈥� says Gilbert.
His team compared how people responded to being insulted by a stranger to watching a stranger being insulted. When asked to predict how they would feel in these situations, people said they expected their dislike of a rude stranger to last longer if that person had insulted them. But the opposite was true: their dislike for the stranger lasted longer when they had witnessed them insulting someone else (Psychological Science, vol 15, p 14). 鈥淲e think we鈥檇 feel worse about someone who insulted us,鈥� says Gilbert. 鈥淏ut we trigger mechanisms to deal with it.鈥�
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This leads to bad decisions: Gilbert thinks people avoid major stresses they could get over but do nothing about petty problems that actually cause them more stress in the long run.