The Role of Affective Expectations in Subjective Experience and

Decision-Making

Klaaren, Hodges, and Wilson (1994)

I. Article Intro

A. Researchers' questions

1. Are our affective reactions shaped in part by prior expectations about feelings?

2. Does this assimilation process influence the decisions we make about repeating an activity?
      1. After an even is over, to what extent do our original affective expectations color our memories of how pleasant the event was?

        2. B. Hypothesis: Affective expectations can influence both actual experiences and decisions to repeat these experiences.

        II. Three important hypotheses

        A. Point of study was not to find evidence that one of these hypotheses was correct, only to use them in order to illustrate that there are different views concerning why affective expectations influence peoples' memories of affective experiences and their willingness to repeat those experiences.

        1. Initial effects hypothesis: affective expectations do not have any additional effect as time passes. They influence people's INITIAL enjoyment, which then influences later decisions about whether to repeat the event.

      2. Reinterpretation hypothesis: AS TIME PASSES people reinterpret aspects of the experience that conflicted with their affective expectations to be more in line with their expectations, such that they are more likely to behave consistently with their expectations.

3. Selective memory hypothesis: Expectations act as a filter on people's memories for past events, such that they are less likely to remember aspects of the event that conflicted with their expectations or more likely to remember consistent events.

III. Study 1

A. Students' affective expectations regarding their upcoming winter vacation were assessed in order to study, upon returning to class, their actual experiences as well as their overall evaluation of the vacation.

I. Hypothesis: People's original affective expectations would have a substantial effect on their overall evaluations of the vacation.

B. Procedure

1. Affective expectations

a. Two weeks before school got out, participants were asked to rate their upcoming vacations on four different crheria on a scale of 1-10, where 1=bad and 10=good.
      1. how good it would be
      2. how relaxing h would be

iii.how enjoyable it would be

iv. how excited they were

b. control: some participants answered all questions except the ones asking for their affective expectation, but no difference was found between this group and those that did make predictions of their vacation.

2. Post vacation ratings

a. Upon returning to school, participants were called and asked two sets of questions.

i. Assessed global satisfaction with vacation (in reference to the four previous criteria, again on a 10 point scale).

ii. Nine yes-or-no questions asking about specific aspects of people's vacation (e.g. did they get to do everything they wanted to do? was it stressful being with family?) Also asked if there were any other positive or negative aspects of their vacation that were not mentioned.

C. Results and discussion

1. Main hypotheses were tested by regressing subjects' overall rating of their vacation at Time 2 on their Time l expectations about their vacation and the specific experiences they encountered during their vacation.

a. Correlation between expectations about the vacation and specific experiences was not significant. It appears that expectations affected the global enjoyment of the vacation, without changing the evaluations of the specific experiences.

2. In summary, knowing people's affective expectations about vacation AND knowing people's accounts of specific experiences during vacation were significant predictors of their overall evaluation of the vacation.

D. Criticisms

1. Third variable

2. Specific aspects of people's vacations that were measured were not the crucial ones that are influential of the vacation quality.

3. Affective expectations and overall enjoyment were measured on similar scales, is possible that results could be partially attributable to shared method variance.

 

Affective expectations were reliable determinants of repeating study. Objective pleasantness was not

Positive expectation more willing.

Selective Memory Hypothesis: (NO)

People in positive expectation/negative experience condition didn't distort memory in Expectation-consistent manor. Remembered things that were inconsistent with their expectations.

* Positive experience remembered positive aspects fewer negative than did negative experience.

Expectations to Increase over time; no increase.

Discussion:

* People’s recollections of enjoyable movie watching were affected by manipulating how pleasant the experiment was.

Study 2 added willingness to repeat study

Choice influenced by affective expectations not by objectivity of experiment

* If expectations were consistent with actual experience/likely to use initial enjoyment in deciding to repeat experience.

difference between expectation and actual experience/reinterpreted initial enjoyment/rely more on affective expectation to make decision whether to repeat the experience

"In the real world"

People shouldn't let affective expectations overpower actual experience when deciding to repeat activity.

Study 2

Does affective expectations influence peoples decisions about whether to repeat an activity.

Procedure:

Manipulated peoples affective expectation in objective pleasantness of experiment

(watching 20 minute movie)

* Positive expectation- Told good experience/neat movie/easy experiment/fun

* Neutral expectation- Told nothing

* Positive experience- Pleasant conditions/adjust lighting/volume/chair

Positive Neutral

Expectations Expectations

1.) Positive experience 1.) Positive experience

2.) Negative experience 2.) Negative experience

Rated experience-

How much enjoyed study?

How pleasant experience was?

How much enjoyed the movie?

How much like to participate in study like this again?

Follow up phone call:

How willing people would be to do study again? Range from 1-10.

Noted whether listed positive or negative attributes and the order

memories were mentioned.

Results:

* People with the positive expectations indicated expected to enjoy the study more than did people with neutral expectation.

WHEN MORE PAIN IS PREFERRED TO LESS:

Adding a Better End

D. Kahneman et al

Duration plays a small role in retrospective evaluations of aversive experiences; such evaluations are often dominated by the discomfort at the worst and at the final moments of episodes. -D. Kahneman et al.

Definitions-

hedonic prediction: prediction usually relies on memories of previous experiences: we expect to like what we remember as pleasant and to dislike what we remember as unpleasant.

 

temporal monotonicity: adding moments of pain to the end of an episode can only make the episode worse, and adding moments of pleasure must make it better.

Two additional studies that support the findings-

1) Fredrickson & Kahneman, 1993 (short films viewed)

2) Redelmeier & Kahneman, 1993 (painful medical procedures)

The common finding of these studies is the relative neglect of duration in retrospective evaluations and the successful prediction of the global disutility of an extended aversive episode by the disutility of two singular moments -- the peak and the end of the experience. --D. Kahneman et al.

Definition-

Peak-and-end rule: suggests that the memory of a painful medical

treatment is likely to be less aversive if relief from the pain is gradual than if relief is abrupt.

 

General Discussion-

-duration was neglected

Deciding Advantageously Before Knowing the

Advantageous Strategy

Antoine Bechara et al.

Study conducted:

Participants:

-Normal (control group)

-Patients (prefrontal damage and decision-making

defects)

Procedure:

-Four decks of cards (decks A and B are disadvantageous, decks C and D are advantageous).

-$2000 each player

Objective:

-win the most amount of money

-lose the least amount of money

-determine which deck(s) have the best advantage to completing the above two objectives.

Four Periods:

-pre-punishment

-pre-hunch

-hunch

-conceptual

Results:

- The other 3 normal participants who did not reach the conceptual period still made advantageous choices.

-The 3 patients who did reach the conceptual period and correctly described which were the bad and good decks continued to chose the bad decks.

-None of the patients generated anticipatory SCRs.