PS 233 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Hedonic Treadmill, Impact Bias, Sensemaking
Document Summary
What you think you are going to get, and what you don"t get, when you get what you want (and what you don"t want) The human mind is capable of displaced reference -- thinking about things that have occurred (in the past) or that may occur (in the future) One of, if not the, only animals that have this ability. Allows us to plan more effectively, learn from past experiences. Predicting how we will feel if something (good or bad) were to happen to us in the future. Dart board always 20 to the left. As opposed to random missing in any order. Systematic errors tell us something about ourselves. We systematically overestimate the enduring impact that an event will have on our lives if it were to happen. How long it takes to peak the emotion. Particularly bad at predicting the peak emotion. How long it takes to taper off and return to baseline.
