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Temporal Adjustments in the Evaluation of Events: The “Rosy View”

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Abstract

In a series of three investigations we examined people's anticipation of, actual experiences in, and subsequent recollection of meaningful life events: a trip to Europe, a Thanksgiving vacation, and a 3-week bicycle trip in California. The results of all three studies supported the hypothesis that people's expectations of personal events are more positive than their actual experience during the event itself, and their subsequent recollection of that event is more positive than the actual experience. The “rosy view” phenomenon is associated with an increase in the number of negative thoughts during the event which seem to be caused by distractions, disappointment, and a less positive view of the self. However, these effects are short-lived; within days after the event, people have much more positive evaluations of the event. We discuss alternative interpretations for our findings and implications for group and organizational settings.

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    This paper was prepared while the second author was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences with grant support from the National Science Foundation, SBR-9022192. The second author also acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation, PYI-9157447. We thank Jonathon Brown, George Loewenstein, and Robert Sutton for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper. We especially thank Dr. David Howell for his help in gathering the data for Study 1.

    Address correspondence and reprint requests to Terence Mitchell, Department of Management and Organization, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195.

    R. S. Wyer, Jr.T. K. Srull, Eds.

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