Highly accurate prediction of emotions surrounding the attacks of September 11, 2001 over 1-, 2-, and 7-year prediction intervals.

ABSTRACT: In the aftermath of a national tragedy, important decisions are predicated on judgments of the emotional significance of the tragedy in the present and future. Research in affective forecasting has largely focused on ways in which people fail to make accurate predictions about the nature and duration of feelings experienced in the aftermath of an event. Here we ask a related but understudied question: can people forecast how they will feel in the future about a tragic event that has already occurred? We found that people were strikingly accurate when predicting how they would feel about the September 11 attacks over 1-, 2-, and 7-year prediction intervals. Although people slightly under- or overestimated their future feelings at times, they nonetheless showed high accuracy in forecasting (

SUBMITTER: Dore BP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4873355 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature