Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

When individuals choose future activities on the basis of their past experiences, what guides those choices? The present study compared students' predicted, on-line, and remembered spring-break experiences, as well as the influence of these factors on students' desire to take a similar vacation in the future. Predicted and remembered experiences were both more positive—and, paradoxically, more negative—than on-line experiences. Of key importance, path analyses revealed that remembered experience, but neither on-line nor anticipated experience, directly predicted the desire to repeat the experience. These results suggest that although on-line measures may be superior to retrospective measures for approximating objective experience, retrospective measures may be superior for predicting choice.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Arbuckle

J.L.

(1999). AMOS 4 [Computer software]. Chicago: SmallWaters Corp.

Aronson

Ellsworth

P.C.

Carlsmith

J.M.

Gonzales

M.H.

(1990). Methods of research in social psychology (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Barry

(1991). Dave Barry's only travel guide you'll ever need. New York: Fawcett Columbine.

Buehler

McFarland

(2001). Intensity bias in affective forecasting: The role of temporal focus. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 1480–1493.

Fredrickson

B.L.

(2000). Extracting meaning from past affective experiences: The importance of peaks, ends, and specific emotions. Cognition & Emotion, 14, 577–606.

Fredrickson

B.L.

Kahneman

(1993). Duration neglect in retrospective evaluations of affective episodes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 45–55.

Kahneman

(1999). Objective happiness. In

Kahneman

Diener

Schwarz

(Eds.), Well-being: The foundations of hedonic psychology (pp. 3–25). New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Kahneman

(2000). New challenges to the rationality assumption. In

Kahneman

Tversky

(Eds.), Choices, values, and frames (pp. 758–774). New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Kahneman

Fredrickson

B.L.

Schreiber

C.A.

Redelmeier

D.A.

(1993). When more pain is preferred to less: Adding a better end. Psychological Science, 4, 401–405.

10.

Klaaren

K.J.

Hodges

S.D.

Wilson

T.D.

(1994). The role of affective expectations in subjective experience and decision-making. Social Cognition, 12, 77–101.

11.

Loewenstein

Schkade

(1999). Wouldn't it be nice? Predicting future feelings. In

Kahneman

Diener

Schwarz

(Eds.), Well-being: The foundations of hedonic psychology (pp. 85–105). New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

12.

McFarland

Ross

DeCourville

(1989). Women's theories of menstruation and biases in recall of menstrual symptoms. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 522–531.

13.

Mitchell

T.R.

Thompson

Peterson

Cronk

(1997). Temporal adjustments in the evaluation of events: The “rosy view.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 33, 421–448.

14.

Redelmeier

D.A.

Kahneman

(1996). Patients' memories of painful medical treatments: Real-time and retrospective evaluations of two minimally invasive procedures. Pain, 66, 3–8.

15.

Ross

(1989). Relation of implicit theories to the construction of personal histories. Psychological Review, 96, 341–357.

16.

Sutton

R.I.

(1992). Feelings about a Disneyland visit: Photographs and reconstruction of bygone emotions. Journal of Management Inquiry, 1, 278–287.

17.

Thomas

D.L.

Diener

(1990). Memory accuracy in the recall of emotions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 291–297.

18.

Wilson

T.D.

Meyers

Gilbert

D.T.

(2002). “How happy was I, anyway?” A retrospective impact bias. Manuscript submitted for publication.

19.

Wilson

T.D.

Wheatley

Meyers

J.M.

Gilbert

D.T.

Axsom

(2000). Focalism: A source of durability bias in affective forecasting. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 821–836.

20.

Wirtz

Kruger

(2002). [Predicted, on-line, and remembered experience of marathoners]. Unpublished raw data.

What to Do on Spring Break?

Abstract

Get full access to this article

References