Affective Forecasting: Can We Predict

Our Emotions?
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We are all concerned with our future emotions and feelings. We all want to know how we
are going to be. Will it be enjoyable if we go to that restaurant? Will we live a happy
life? The term Affective Forecasting is defined as our predictions about our future
emotions.

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Definition
The term “affective forecasting” was coined by Dr. Timothy Wilson and Dr. Daniel
Gilbert. Affective Forecasting is people’s predictions about their affect (emotional state)
in the future. Early studies only focus on measuring people’s forecast, while recent work
have begun to examine the accuracy of the forecasts.

Components
Affective forecasts can be divided into four components:

1. predictions about future emotional valence

2. the specific emotions experienced
3. duration of the emotions
4. intensity of the emotions

Predicting valence
Valence in psychology is defined as the degree of attraction or aversion that an individual
feels toward a specific event or object. People make accurate predictions in general about
which side their emotional experiences will fall (positive or negative), especially if they
have previous experiences in that area.
Examples of affective forecasting

For example, people would predict that walking on the streets while it snows heavily
outside, is a bad experience, even if they have never experienced that before. A study
conducted by Wilson, Wheatley, Kurtz, Dunn, and Gilbert (2004) arranged a simulated
dating game. In this game, college students compete with a same-sex student for a
hypothetical date with an opposite-sex student. Then they rated their moods after being
randomly assigned to win or lose the date. Forecasters rated what their moods would be if
they lost or won. The results show that the forecasters were accurate about the valence of
winning versus losing. However, they did overestimate how positive or negative the
feelings would be. You can read the article here.

Predicting specific emotions

Predicting the valence correctly is not enough. People still need to correctly identify the
specific emotions that they will experience. We will be able to foretell our emotions most
of the time. We know what we are scared of and what makes us happy. However, things
are not always black and white. Emotions can also occur in a mix. For example, when we
imagine our graduation day, we focus solely on the happiness and pride and might forget
the sadness that we won’t see our friends as often. According to Woodzicka and
LaFrance, women predicted that they would mostly be angry and a little scared if the job
interviewer asked them some sexually harassing questions. The results showed that their
predominant emotion was fear and only a few people reported anger. This study shows
that the participants identified correctly their emotions. However, they mispredicted the
intensity of their emotion, which is mentioned below.

Predicting intensity and duration

The final components are the intensity of the emotions and their duration. We can
accurately predict the valence and the specific emotions we will experience (I will feel
happy if I pass the exam). However, we still have to predict the intensity (how happy I
will feel) and the duration of that emotion (how long I will feel that way). For example,
we know that after a breakup, we will feel sad, upset and painful. However, it would be
helpful to know how sad we will be and how long it would last. Research has proven that
as humans, we tend to overestimate the duration of our future emotional reactions, which
is called durability bias initially (Gilbert, Pinel, Wilson, Blumberg, & Wheatly, 1998).
This term can be confusing since “overestimating the impact of future emotional events
can involve a misprediction of several different aspects of emotional experience” (Wilson
& Gilbert, 2003). Wilson, Wheatley, Meyers, Gilbert and Axsom (2000) have proven that
college sports fan either overestimated how happy they would be after their favorite team
won the game, or were wrong about how long the feeling would last, or made both errors.
This is referred to as an impact bias, which means the tendency to overestimate the
enduring impact that future events will have on our emotional reactions. You can also
check out Dan Gilbert’s video about affective forecasting here.
Summary
We all try to make the best decisions, which we hope will lead to happiness and well-
being. Should I have a family right now? Should I pursue a career in this field or that
field? Should I do that? All these decisions will impact our future. People were proven to
be accurate in predicting the valence of their future emotions. We would know if that
action makes us happy or not. We are also able to identify the correct emotions we will
have, such as being happy after receiving a compliment. Even though these predictions
about valence and emotions are not always correct, there is a good deal of accuracy about
them. On the other hand, we are less accurate at predicting the intensity and duration of
our future emotions.