Looking through the Crystal Ball : The Role of Affective Forecasting and Misforecasting in Consumer Behavior

A recent addition to the literature in psychology concerns individuals' forecasts of the affective states they predict will arise in the future. Affective forecasts are extremely relevant to marketing and consumer behavior as they impact choice as well as a set of other marketing-relevant outcomes. Interestingly, however, affective forecasts are often erroneous because they are susceptible to a variety of errors and biases that reduce their accuracy. As a result, experienced affect differs from forecasted affect, and affective misforecasting (hereafter AMF), occurs. This chapter reviews the literature on affective forecasting, indicates the importance and relevance of this area of research to consumer behavior and marketing, and identifies the factors that lead to errors in affective forecasting and hence result in affective misforecasting. Our review is designed to both illustrate the relevance of affective forecasting and misforecasting to marketing and consumer behavior and to identify novel research directions for future work in this research domain