Collaborative Research: Dual Standards in Affective Forecasting and Experience

大多数决策都是基于对不同选择能带来多少快乐价值的预测——也就是说，不同选择能带来多少快乐、满足、效用或回报。人们在做重要的决定时，比如买什么样的房子，和什么样的人结婚，接受什么样的治疗，等等，都是通过估计这些经历所能带来的享乐价值来做出的。但在过去十年中，心理学家和行为经济学家的研究表明，这些估计往往是错误的。也就是说，人们经常错误地预测未来经历的享乐价值，从而做出不理想的决定，后来会后悔。为什么会发生这种情况？一种体验的估计和实际享乐价值都取决于与之相比较的其他体验。例如，与简单的手术相比，化疗似乎比使人衰弱的放疗更糟糕。人们做的比较有两种类型。当一个人将一种经历与他或她已经经历过的、将要经历的或可能经历的其他经历进行比较时（例如，至少这次化疗没有像放疗那样让我感觉糟糕），这种经历的价值受到差异的影响。但是，当一个人将一段经历与他或她在前一刻的经历进行比较时(例如：（我比几分钟前更恶心），体验的价值受到变化的影响。研究人员认为，一般来说，当人们估计未来体验的享乐价值时，他们倾向于计算差异，但当他们真正拥有享乐体验时，他们倾向于计算变化。因为人们在这两个时期做了不同的比较，他们经常会错误地预测未来经历的享乐价值。本提案描述了13项旨在调查这一现象的原因和后果的研究。

Most decisions are based on predictions about how much hedonic value -- that is, how much pleasure, satisfaction, utility, or reward -- different alternatives will bring. People make important decisions about which home to buy, which person to marry, which medical treatment to accept, and so on by estimating the hedonic value that each of these experiences will afford. But in the last decade, research by psychologists and behavioral economists has shown that these estimates are often wrong. That is, people often mispredict the hedonic value of future experiences and thus make suboptimal decisions that they later regret. Why does this happen?Both the estimated and actual hedonic value of an experience depends on the other experiences to which it is compared. For example, chemotherapy may seem worse when compared with simple surgery than with a debilitating course of radiation. The comparisons people make are of two types. When a person compares an experience with other experiences he or she has had, will have, or could have had (e.g., At least this chemotherapy is not making me feel as bad as the radiation would have), the value of the experience is influenced by differences. But when a person compares an experience with the experience he or she was having in the previous moment(e.g., I am more nauseous than I was a few minutes ago), the value of the experience is influenced by changes.The researchers suggest that as a general rule, when people are estimating the hedonic value of future experiences they tend to compute differences, but when they are actually having hedonic experiences they tend to compute changes. Because people make different comparisons at these two times, they often mispredict the hedonic value of future experiences. This proposal describes 13 studies that seek to investigate the causes and consequences of this phenomenon.