Center for Behavioral Decision Research

CBDR : Seminar Series : Seminar by Tom Meyvis

Prospective Hedonics: How Anticipating the Future Influences Perceptions of Past and Present

	presented by Tom Meyvis (NYU Stern )


	Thursday, October 2	link to paper
	12pm
	Porter 223D	link to Speaker's Site

	Abstract:

	We often anticipate future hedonic experiences: we dread a visit to the dentist and we savor an upcoming trip to a tropical island. Yet, aside from this direct effect on our current happiness, the anticipation of future events can also change our perceived enjoyment of specific past and present events. In a first set of studies (with Leif Nelson), we demonstrate that, although people do not contrast their enjoyment of a current experience against their enjoyment of a preceding experience (Novemsky & Ratner 2003), they do contrast it against their enjoyment of an anticipated experience. A piece of classical music does not become more enjoyable after listening to an irritating noise, but does become more enjoyable when people anticipate having to listen to the noise afterwards. Similarly, an irritating noise becomes more irritating in anticipation of listening to a popular song. However, when the current experience is more ambiguous, the anticipated experience can contaminate the current experience, resulting in an assimilation effect instead: listening to mildly irritating music becomes more enjoyable in anticipation of a popular song. In a second set of studies (with Jeff Galak), we examine how the anticipation of an experience influences your perceived enjoyment of that same experience in the past. In particular, we examine how the perceived aversiveness of an unpleasant experience is influenced by the anticipated continuation of the experience. We propose that people engage in strategic pessimism and “brace for the worst” by convincing themselves that the experience is more aversive when they expect the experience to be repeated. In a first field study, we observe that runners who anticipate running up a hill or are in the middle of running up a hill perceive this experience as more aversive than runners who have just finished running up the hill, consistent with the perspective that the first two groups are bracing for the upcoming (or remaining) experience. In subsequent lab studies, we find that people who anticipate a repetition of their experience find an irritating noise more annoying and a tedious task more boring than people who know they are done with the experience. However, since strategic bracing for an upcoming unpleasant experience implies devoting current resources to reduce future displeasure, the effect should not hold when people do not have sufficient resources to allocate. Consistent with this prediction, the effect of anticipation disappears when people’s resources are depleted after engaging in a difficult choice task (whereas the effect replicates if the choice task is easy).

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