Think you know how you’ll feel after a career change, break-up or other life transition? You probably don't.

Why predicting our future feelings is so difficult

Have you ever really wanted something to happen, only to feel completely different than expected when it actually transpired?

• After dreaming for years about quitting a job and taking a sabbatical, you might envision feeling liberated and happy – only to instead feel wistful or lonely.
• After developing a relationship with a person you’d admired or felt attracted to, the feelings transform into an absence of interest.
• After begrudgingly attending a party, expecting it to be boring and poorly attended – you arrive and find it to be an energising, fun celebration.?

How do we so often misjudge our emotional predictions?

Even the most glorified fortune tellers (including economists) aren’t able to accurately predict the future. Yet we ‘non-professionals’ feel confident estimating our reactions to completely new future experiences and events.

We believe we can make predictions better than we actually can. In reality, our decision-making processes are skewed by a variety of cognitive biases.

Somehow, even though we know the future is uncertain, we still believe we can predict our destinies. We fail to recognise that our projections are subjective interpretations. When envisioning the future, we often mistakenly imagine the wrong event occurring. In behavioural science, we call this the Misconstrual Problem.

Here are 3 Biases to be aware of when you’re trying to predict your future emotional state after undergoing a big change:

1)??? Distinction Bias

During periods of change, the tendency is to focus more on the expected future differences, rather than on the similarities with present or past situations. When a transition is desired, this can be misleadingly motivating: we think about all the ways we’ll be better off post-change. And when the transition is forced upon us or unwanted, we more commonly focus on the negatives and downsides. This is called the Distinction Bias or Isolation Effect.

Our emotional predictions are even more skewed because the factors we focus on often have limited impact on our future happiness and well-being; we pay attention to the wrong criteria.

2)??? Projection Bias

When predicting our future emotional state, we do so from our current vantage point, whether consciously or unconsciously. We falsely project what we need and want from today’s perspective, causing a Projection Bias. Yet – our preferences change significantly over time, and sometimes waver in just a few minutes or hours (think about food cravings)! We under-appreciate future changes in our condition and preferences; and even if we’re aware of this bias, it’s really hard to fix or account for it.?

“It is well known that it is difficult to decontaminate one's own biased judgments. In order to do so people would have to be aware that their judgment is biased, be motivated to correct the bias, be aware of the precise direction and magnitude of the bias, and be able to correct their responses accordingly” (Affective Forecasting, Wilson & Gilbert).

3)??? Durability Bias

People have a tendency to overestimate the duration of impact that future events will have on emotional well-being. In the context of major life transitions, this can lead to anticipation that altered emotional states will persist longer than they actually will do.

Imagine a big move to a new city, and the mixed feelings of excitement and nervousness. The Durability Bias might cause an expectation that the initial stress and disorientation will endure far beyond the actual adjustment period. In reality, as we settle into a new environment, the emotional intensity tends to decrease quickly.

Do we get any emotional predictions right?

In light of these 3 biases, we can expect to make unreliable prophecies and distorted forecasts of future feelings. The only emotional prediction we tend to make accurately is about valence: whether we will feel positively or negatively after an event has occurred. To some degree, we are also able to forecast specific feelings (e.g. fear or joy). But emotions are complex, intricate and often interconnected. Forecasting can become overly simplistic when dealing with the complexity of long-term scenarios, leading to unrealistic and inaccurate expectations about our own emotional responses.

Should I bother thinking about how I’ll feel in the future?

When making major life decisions, as is the case during transitions, we often rely on predictions of how different options will make us feel in the future. While we are likely able to predict whether we’ll feel positively or negatively, we tend to overestimate the intensity and duration of our future emotional responses. Also, the events might materialise in a completely different way to how we expected.

So try to avoid spending a lot of time imagining how you’ll feel after a change that you desire – or one that’s been imposed. Because you’re probably envisioning it wrong. But if you’re trying to guess your future emotional state anyway, it helps to be aware of the Distinction, Projection and Durability Biases. An appreciation of their impact can help you make more informed emotional forecasts.?

Reflection

Think about a time that one of your dreams has come true, but you don’t feel the way you expected. Were any of the 3 decision-making biases part of your emotional prediction?

Is there any decision that you’re finding challenging because you’re afraid of how you’ll feel afterwards? If you imagine that your future emotional state will remain fairly consistent regardless of which option you choose, how would that affect your decision-making?

Further reading:

Affective Forecasting, Wilson & Gilbert, 2013

Why are we so bad at predicting what will happen to us in the future?? Neil Pasricha, 2019

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