Hello.
Today, We will be talking about the Impact bias ⏬.
What is it?
Your tendency to overestimate the length or intensity of future feeling states.
Example -
Gaining a promotion, passing or not passing a college test and so on, have much less impact, intensity and much less duration, than people expects them to have.
Where does it occur?
According to the article of Wilson and Gilbert (2005) :
· Focalism: when people think about the impact of future event they tend to forget about all the other things that are going on in their lives. In reality the one event we are imagining will likely be overshadowed by all sorts of other events that happen at the same time.
Sense-making: people have a natural tendency to rationalize what happens to them. When something bad happens we initially feel unhappy but immediately start searching for the underlying reasons. Once when we’ve decided on the cause(s) of this bad event, we start to feel better.
Why do I need to know?
It is the part of affective forecasting, where you might overjudge the outcomes of a situation.
In hindsight, that can lead you to not take actions to your maximum extent.
Takeaways:-
The impact of outcomes you get might not always be par your expectations. Thus, Have a logical sense about it in your mind.
References & Studies:-
https://www.alleydog.com/glossary/definition.php?term=Impact+Bias
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2013-37998-002
Looking for previous issues? Take a look at Archives.