Affective forecasting, intentions and why we procrastinate | Psychology Today Blogs

Affective forecasting, intentions and why we procrastinate Psychology Today Blogs

By Timothy A. Pychyl, Ph.D. on March 28, 2009 - 4:22am in Don't Delay

Excerpts:

We take action or make intentions for action believing that the action will make us feel better. This is the perceived hedonic consequence of future events. The trouble is, the research on affective forecasting shows that we're terrible at predicting how we will feel in the future. I think this is a key issue in understanding procrastination.


Affective forecasting is a hot topic in psychology. You'll find that it's been written about just about everywhere over the past decade (see for example Psychology Today or The New York Times). At the heart of this research are a number of people, but most notably psychologists Dan Gilbert (Harvard University) and Tim Wilson (University of Virginia).

The main idea behind the studies in this area is that we have a bias when we predict future affective states in relation to positive or negative events. For example, assistant professors when asked to imagine that they don't receive tenure will predict that this will strongly undermine their happiness even 5 years later, however a comparison of those who had and hadn't received tenure show similar levels of happiness. Similarly, a couple of years after winning a lottery, lottery winners were about as a happy as they were before their win, despite the general affective forecast that we would be much happier if only we could win the lottery.

Read full article: http://blogs.psychologytoday.com/blog/dont-delay/200903/affective-forecasting-intentions-and-why-we-procrastinate
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This posting was made my Jim Jacobs, President & CEO of Jacobs Executive Advisors. Jim also serves as Leader of Jacobs Advisors' Insurance Practice.