Why we misjudge how we will feel: the research of Daniel Gilbert and Timothy Wilson

The professors who expected to be miserable without tenure, the "psychological immune system" and how to make better decisions about your future

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Translated from the Albanian original by the editors. Shqip

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Many important decisions rest on a prediction: how we will feel if something happens. Will I be happy if I get this job? How bad will I feel if I fail this exam? Psychologists call this affective forecasting, and they have found that we are less accurate than we think.

The professors and tenure

In 1998 the psychologists Daniel Gilbert, Timothy Wilson and colleagues studied young lecturers at American universities who were awaiting the decision on tenure, a permanent post. Those still waiting predicted that, if they were turned down, they would be much less happy for several years. But when the researchers asked lecturers who had actually been turned down years earlier, they were not noticeably less happy than those who had received tenure.

Similar results were found in other situations: among people awaiting election results, those whose relationship ended, those rejected in a job interview. People correctly predicted whether they would feel good or bad, but overestimated how strongly and for how long. The authors called this the durability bias.

The psychological immune system

Why does this happen? Gilbert and Wilson suggested that we have a "psychological immune system": many ways, often unconscious, of making sense of bad events, finding a positive side and moving on. When we forecast, we forget that we will have these tools. This error was called "immune neglect".

Another reason is focalism: when we think about an event, we imagine it on its own, and forget that life will go on being full of other things, friends, work and small joys.

We are stronger than we predict. But we are also made less happy by our wins than we expect.

How to make better decisions

  1. Do not decide only out of fear of a strong feeling. You are likely to cope better than you think.
  2. Imagine an ordinary day after the event, not only its moment. What else will that day contain?
  3. Ask people who have been through the situation. Their experience often predicts better than our imagination.
  4. Do not overrate material wins. Their effect on happiness is often shorter than we hope.

Sources and further reading

  1. Gilbert, D. T., Pinel, E. C., Wilson, T. D., Blumberg, S. J. & Wheatley, T. P. (1998). Immune neglect: A source of durability bias in affective forecasting. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75(3), 617–638. PubMed
  2. Wilson, T. D. & Gilbert, D. T. (2005). Affective forecasting: Knowing what to want. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14(3), 131–134. WorldCat
  3. Gilbert, D. (2006). Stumbling on Happiness. Knopf. WorldCat

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