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Psychological Phenomena

Projection Bias

Decision-Making and Judgment Biases

Projection bias is the tendency to falsely project a person's current preferences onto how they will feel in the future. When people try to estimate their own emotional state at a later time, they attempt to make an unbiased forecast, but that estimate ends up contaminated by whatever they happen to be feeling right now.

Facts
Core ClaimSourced to the subject's own account
Projection bias is the tendency to falsely project a person's current preferences and emotional state onto how they will feel about a future event, contaminating what should be an unbiased forecast. 1
First Described YearSourced to the subject's own account
2003 1
Classification
Type of PhenomenonSourced to the subject's own account
Emotional Phenomenon 1
Sources
1. Projection Bias (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia
  • Wikipedia Affective forecasting article, Projection bias section, Overview, first sentence
    Projection bias is the tendency to falsely project current preferences onto a future event.
  • Wikipedia Affective forecasting article, Projection bias section, Overview, last sentence
    The term "projection bias" was first introduced in the 2003 paper "Projection Bias in Predicting Future Utility" by Loewenstein, O'Donoghue and Rabin.
  • lead section, phenomenon-kind classification
    When people try to estimate their own emotional state at a later time, they attempt to make an unbiased forecast, but that estimate ends up contaminated by whatever they happen to be feeling right now.
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