Four studies document underestimations of the prevalence of others’ negative emotions and suggest causes and correlates of these erroneous perceptions. In Study 1a, participants reported that their negative emotions were more private or hidden than were their positive emotions; in Study 1b, participants underestimated the peer prevalence of common negative, but not positive, experiences described in Study 1a. In Study 2, people underestimated negative emotions and overestimated positive emotions even for well-known peers, and this effect was partially mediated by the degree to which those peers reported suppression of negative (vs. positive) emotions. Study 3 showed that lower estimations of the prevalence of negative emotional experiences predicted greater loneliness and rumination and lower life satisfaction and that higher estimations for positive emotional experiences predicted lower life satisfaction. Taken together, these studies suggest that people may think they are more alone in their emotional difficulties than they really are.
Allport, F.H. ( 1924). Social psychology. Cambridge, MA: Riverside Press.
2.
Bower, G.H. ( 1981). Mood and memory. American Psychologist , 36, 129-148.
3.
Bower, G.H. ( 1991). Mood congruity of social judgments. In J. P. Forgas (Ed.), Emotion and social judgments (pp. 31-53). Elmsford, NY: Pergamon .
4.
Chambers, J.R., & Suls, J. ( 2007). The role of egocentrism and focalism in the emotion intensity bias. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43, 618-625.
5.
Chekhov, A. ( 1979). Gooseberries. In R. E. Matlaw (Ed.), Anton Chekhov’s short stories (pp. 185-193). New York, NY: Norton. (Original work published 1898)
6.
Coates, D., & Peterson, B.A. (1982). Depression and deviance . In G. Weary & H. L. Mirels (Eds.), Integrations of clinical and social psychology (pp. 154-170). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
7.
Cohen, J. ( 1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
8.
Cole, J.C., Rabin, A.S., Smith, T.L., & Kaufman, A.S. ( 2004). Development and validation of a Rasch-derived CES-D short form. Psychological Assessment, 16, 360-372.
9.
Diener, E., Emmons, R.A., Larsen, R.J., & Griffin, S. ( 1985). The Satisfaction with Life Scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49, 71-75.
10.
Diener, E., Larsen, R.J., & Emmons, R.A. ( 1984). Person × situation interactions: Choice of situations and congruence response models. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47, 580-592.
11.
Dunning, D., Heath, C., & Suls, J.M. ( 2004). Flawed self-assessment: Implications for health, education, and the workplace. Psychological Science in the Public Interest , 5, 69-106.
12.
Ekman, P., & Friesen, W.V. ( 1969). The repertoire of nonverbal behavior: Categories, origins, usage, and coding. Semiotica, 1, 49-98.
13.
Faraci, D. ( 2008, October 21). Exclusive interview: Charlie Kaufman ( Synecdoche, New York). CHUD.com. Retrieved from http://www.chud.com/articles/articles/16738/1/exclusive-interview-charlie-kaufman-synecdoche-new-york/page1.html
14.
Forgas, J.P., Bower, G.H., & Krantz, S. ( 1984). The influence of mood on perceptions of social interactions . Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 20, 497-513.
15.
Forgas, J.P., Bower, G.H., & Moylan, S.J. ( 1990). Praise or blame? Affective influences on attributions for achievement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 59, 809-819.
16.
Franich, D. ( 2007, April 3). Ire and vice: My depression is so embarrassing . Stanford Daily. Retrieved from http://www.stanforddaily.com/2007/04/02/ire-and-vice-my-depression-is-so-embarrassing/
17.
Gibbons, F.X. ( 1986). Social comparison and depression: Company’s effect on misery. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 140-148.
18.
Giordano, C., Wood, J.V., & Michela, J.L. ( 2000). Depressive personality styles, dysphoria, and social comparisons in everyday life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 438-451.
19.
Gross, J.J. ( 2001). Emotion regulation in adulthood: Timing is everything . Current Directions in Psychological Science, 10, 214-219.
20.
Gross, J.J., & John, O.P. ( 2003). Individual differences in two emotion regulation processes: Implications for affect, relationships, and well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 348-362.
21.
Gross, J.J., Richards, J.M., & John, O.P. ( 2006). Emotion regulation in everyday life. In D. K. Snyder, J. Simpson , & J. N. Hughes (Eds.), Emotion regulation in couples and families: Pathways to dysfunction and health (pp. 13-35). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association .
22.
Hayes, R.D., & DiMatteo, M.R. (1987). A short-form measure of loneliness. Journal of Personality Assessment, 51, 69-81.
23.
Jones, E.E., & Nisbett, R.E. ( 1971). The actor and the observer: Divergent perceptions of the causes of behavior. Morristown, NJ: General Learning Press.
24.
Judd, C.M., Kenny, D.A., & McClelland, G.H. (2001). Estimating and testing mediation and moderation in within-subject designs. Psychological Methods, 6, 115-134.
25.
Larson, R., Csikszentmihalyi, M., & Graef, R. ( 1982). Time alone in daily experience: Loneliness or renewal? In L. A. Peplau & D. Perlman (Eds.), Loneliness: A sourcebook of current theory, research and therapy (pp. 40-53). New York, NY : Wiley.
26.
Lyubomirsky, S. ( 2001). Why are some people happier than others? The role of cognitive and motivational processes in well-being. American Psychologist, 56, 239-249.
27.
Lyubomirsky, S., & Lepper, H.S. ( 1999). A measure of subjective happiness: Preliminary reliability and construct validation. Social Indicators Research, 46, 137-155.
28.
Lyubomirsky, S., & Ross, L. ( 1997). Hedonic consequences of social comparison: A contrast of happy and unhappy people. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 1141-1157.
29.
Lyubomirsky, S., Sheldon, K.M., & Schkade, D. ( 2005). Pursuing happiness: The architecture of sustainable change . Review of General Psychology, 9, 111-131.
30.
McFarland, C., & Miller, D.T. ( 1990). Judgments of self-other similarity: Just like other people, only more so. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 16, 475-484.
31.
McPherson, M., Brashears, M.E., & Smith-Lovin, L. (2006). Social isolation in America: Changes in core discussion networks over two decades. American Sociological Review, 71, 353-375.
32.
Miller, D.T., & McFarland, C. ( 1987). Pluralistic ignorance: When similarity is interpreted as dissimilarity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 53, 298-305.
33.
Montesquieu. (1991). Pensées-le spicilège [Thoughts-the spicilège] ( L. Desgraves, Ed.). Paris, France: Éditions Robert Laffont. (Original work published 1670)
34.
Nolen-Hoeksema, S. ( 1991). Responses to Depression Questionnaire. Unpublished manuscript, Department of Psychology, Stanford University.
35.
Oishi, S., Diener, E., Scollon, C.N., & Biswas-Diener, R. (2004). Cross-situational consistency of affective experiences across cultures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 86, 460-472.
36.
Olson, B.D., & Evans, D.L. ( 1999). The role of the Big Five personality dimensions in the direction and affective consequences of everyday social comparisons. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25, 1498-1508.
37.
Pavot, W., & Diener, E. ( 1993). Review of the Satisfaction with Life Scale. Psychological Assessment, 5, 164-172.
38.
Prentice, D.A., & Miller, D.T. ( 1993). Pluralistic ignorance and alcohol use on campus: Some consequences of misperceiving the social norm. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 243-256.
39.
Pyszczynski, T., & Greenberg, J. ( 1987). Toward an integration of cognitive and motivational perspectives on social inference: A biased hypothesis-testing model. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (vol. 20, pp. 297-340). New York, NY: Academic Press.
40.
Radloff, L.S. ( 1977). The CES-D scale: A self-report depression scale for research in the general population. Applied Psychological Measurement , 1, 385-401.
41.
Rich, A.R., & Scovel, M. ( 1987). Causes of depression in college students: A cross-lagged panel correlational analysis. Psychological Reports, 60, 27-30.
42.
Ross, L. ( 1977). The intuitive psychologist and his shortcomings: Distortions in the attribution process. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 10, pp. 173-220). New York, NY: Academic Press.
43.
Ross, L., Greene, D., & House, P. ( 1977). The false consensus effect: An egocentric bias in social perception and attribution processes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 13, 279-301.
44.
Russell, D., Peplau, L.A., & Cutrona, C.E. ( 1980). The revised UCLA Loneliness Scale: Concurrent and discriminant validity evidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 39, 472-480.
45.
Sabini, J., Cosmas, K., Siepmann, M., & Stein, J. ( 1999). Underestimates and truly false consensus effects in estimates of embarrassment and other emotions. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 21, 223-241.
46.
Schanck, R.L. ( 1932). A study of a community and its groups and institutions conceived of as behaviors of individuals. Psychological Monographs , 43(2, Serial No. 195), 1-133.
47.
Sheldon, K.M., & Houser-Marko, L. (2001). Self concordance, goal-attainment, and the pursuit of happiness: Can there be an upward spiral?Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 152-165.
48.
Srivastava, S., Tamir, M., McGonigal, K.M., John, O.P., & Gross, J.J. ( 2009). The social costs of emotional suppression: A prospective study of the transition to college. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96, 883-897.
49.
Taylor, S.E., & Brown, J.D. ( 1988). Illusion and well-being: A social psychological perspective on mental health. Psychological Bulletin, 103, 193-210.
50.
Treynor, W., Gonzalez, R., & Nolen-Hoeksema, S. (2003). Rumination reconsidered: A psychometric analysis. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 27, 247-259.
51.
Watson, D., Clark, L.A., & Tellegen, A. ( 1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 1063-1070.
52.
Weary, G., Elbin, S., & Hill, M.G. ( 1987). Attributional and social comparison processes in depression . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 605-610.
53.
Wheeler, L., & Miyake, K. ( 1992). Social comparison in everyday life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62, 760-773.
54.
Wood, J.V., Michela, J.L., & Giordano, C. ( 2000). Downward comparison in everyday life: Reconciling self-enhancement models with the mood-cognition priming model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 563-579.
