Automatic optimism: the affective basis of judgments about the likelihood of future events.

Full Abstract

People generally judge that the future will be consistent with their desires, but the reason for this desirability bias is unclear. This investigation examined whether affective reactions associated with future events are the mechanism through which desires influence likelihood judgments. In 4 studies, affective reactions were manipulated for initially neutral events. Compared with a neutral condition, events associated with positive reactions were judged as likely to occur, and events associated with negative reactions were judged as unlikely to occur. Desirability biases were reduced when participants could misattribute affective reactions to a source other than future events, and the relationship between affective reactions and judgments was influenced when approach and avoidance motivations were independently manipulated. Together, these findings demonstrate that positive and negative affective reactions to potential events cause the desirability bias in likelihood judgments and suggest that this effect occurs because of a tendency to approach positive possibilities and avoid negative possibilities. (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved.

Author information

Author/s: Lench, Heather C (HC);

Affiliation: Department of Psychology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-4235, USA. hlench(-atsign-)tamu.edu

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article

Journal: Journal of experimental psychology. General (J Exp Psychol Gen), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2009-May; vol 138 (issue 2) : pp 187-200

Dates: Created 2009/04/28; Completed 2009/06/26;

PMID: 19397379, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 6/26/2009, IMS Date: 26 Jun 2009 00:00:00)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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