My future emotions versus your future emotions: The self-other effect in affective forecasting

Previous research has demonstrated that people are not accurate in predicting affective states that result from decisions or events. Recent studies (e.g., Gilbert, Pinel, Wilson, Blumberg & Wheatley, 1998) suggest that individuals overestimate the duration of affective responses. We assume that individuals arrive at different forecasts as a function of whether they make predictions for themselves or for others. We argue that forecasters know less about the ?psychological immune system? (Gilbert et al., 1998) of others than they do about their own. As a result, they predict a longer duration of negative affective reactions in others. Consistent with our assumption, we present two studies that demonstrate this self-other-effect in affective forecasting.