Focalism: A Source of Durability Bias in Affective Forecasting

Wilson, Timothy D.; Wheatley, Thalia; Meyers, Jonathan M.; Gilbert, Daniel T.; Axsom, Danny

doi:10.4324/9780203496398-38

Cited by 116 publications

(206 citation statements)

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“…The other main explanation that has been offered is a "focusing illusion"that people exaggerate the impact of anything their attention is focused on, including disabilities [Schkade and Kahneman 1998;Wilson et al 2000]. However, Ubel, Loewenstein, and Jepson [2003] also found that a wide range of "defocusing" interventions actually decreased rather than increased nonpatients' estimates of patients' quality of life.…”

Section: Evidence Of Projection Biasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Projection Bias in Predicting Future Utility

Loewenstein

O’Donoghue

Rabin

2003

The Quarterly Journal of Economics

804

181

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People exaggerate the degree to which their future tastes will resemble their current tastes. We present evidence from a variety of domains which demonstrates the prevalence of such projection bias, develop a formal model of it, and use this model to demonstrate its importance in economic environments. We show that, when people exhibit habit formation, projection bias leads people to consume too much early in life, and to decide, as time passes, to consume more-and save less-than originally planned. Projection bias can also lead to misguided purchases of durable goods. We discuss a number of additional applications and implications.

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Section: Evidence Of Projection Biasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Projection Bias in Predicting Future Utility

Loewenstein

O’Donoghue

Rabin

2003

The Quarterly Journal of Economics

804

181

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“…17 Most ominously, Norenzayan and Kim also found that Americans were more likely to increase the probability of a desirable event, a trend influenced by Americans' generally optimistic belief that they can somehow influence events. This 'durability bias', 18 the tendency to over-predict the effect of personal actions on future events is particularly troublesome for brigade and division operations centers, which have a strongly vested interest in the success of their planned operations. Logical planning, combined with a strong commitment to the 'offensive' and taking the 'initiative', produces an illusion of some control over events.…”

Section: Cognition and Culturementioning

confidence: 98%

Past failures and future problems: the psychology of irregular war

Reynolds

2015

Small Wars & Insurgencies

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Personal cognitive processes inform how individuals understand their environment. Cultural variation, fundamental attribution error, causal attribution, and durability bias create obstacles to Western understanding of irregular war and have created a significant institutional bias in how the US military perceives its enemies-a perception only somewhat softened after a decade of irregular war. United Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) is in a better position to overcome these problems through persistent engagement. In the event of major conflict, environmentally sensitized military planners will be better able to achieve military and policy objectives.

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“…In yet another study, Wilson et al (2000, study 3) asked American football fans to predict what their emotional reactions would be when they found out if their favourite football team had lost or had won a game that was taking place two months later. Wilson et al (2000) asked the fans how they felt after the game was played and found that fans whose team had won were less happy than they had anticipated and that those whose team had lost were less unhappy than they had anticipated. Why do people find it so hard to predict accurately how they will feel in the future?…”

Section: Part Ii: Inaccuracies In Regret Forecastingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This has been termed focusing illusion or focalism (Schkade and Kahneman, 1998;Wilson et al, 2000). Because of the focusing illusion, people typically fail to take into account other future occurrences that will coincide with the focal one and that are likely to distract people's attention from it.…”

Section: Part Ii: Inaccuracies In Regret Forecastingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anticipating a regrettable purchase

Sevdalis

Kokkinaki²,

Harvey³

2008

Marketing Intelligence &Amp; Planning

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If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The purpose of this paper is to present the concept of consumers' erroneous affective self-forecasts, and discuss the implications of such forecasts for consumer purchasing behaviour and marketing planning. Design/methodology/approach -First, the literature on inaction inertia -the lowering of the likelihood that a bargain will be taken once a better bargain has been missed -is reviewed. Second, the literature on affective self-forecasting is reviewed. Finally, the implications that the authors synthesis of the behavioural evidence carries for marketing are discussed. Findings -The inaction inertia literature implicates the regret that consumers associate with purchasing a discounted item once they have missed a much larger discount on it as a major contributing factor to consumers' unwillingness to purchase the item on the second occasion. The literature on affective self-prediction suggests that regret (and other emotions) is systematically mispredicted.Research limitations/implications -The likely effect of erroneously anticipated regret in inaction inertia situations is depressed purchasing behaviour. The paper argues that because affective anticipations are typically erroneous, their impact on consumer decision-making processes cannot be deemed rational. It is proposed that marketing should intervene to either increase the accuracy of such anticipations, or to lead consumers to discount them. Practical implications -Price promotions can have negative side effects, such as those observed in inaction inertia circumstances. To some extent, these are driven by consumers anticipated regret (and possibly other relevant emotions). Marketing techniques can counteract the disproportionate impact of such emotions. Originality/value -The paper offers a synthesis of behavioural evidence on inaction inertia and affective self-forecasting -two quite separate literatures that have yet to be brought together in the present context. In addition, the paper outlines implications for marketing and suggests possible strategies to moderate the discussed effects.

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Focalism: A Source of Durability Bias in Affective Forecasting

Cited by 116 publications

References 0 publications

Projection Bias in Predicting Future Utility

Projection Bias in Predicting Future Utility

Past failures and future problems: the psychology of irregular war

Anticipating a regrettable purchase

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