It's a wonderful life

Mentally subtracting positive events improves people's affective states, contrary to their affective forecasts

Bibliographic Data

ID10154865
AuthorsMinkyung Koo (0000-0001-8775-7556, University of Virginia, corresponding author), Sara B Algoe (0000-0002-1273-2968, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), Timothy D Wilson (0000-0003-3106-1212, University of Virginia), Daniel T Gilbert (0000-0002-9865-4445, Harvard University)
Year2008
Volume95
Issue5
Pages1217-1224
Publication date2008-10-27
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Personality and Social Psychology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-3514 • E-ISSN: 1939-1315
PublisherAmerican Psychological Association (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1037/a0013316
PMID18954203
PMCIDPMC2746912
OpenAlexW2028881754
LanguageEN
Citations received22
References cited30

The authors hypothesized that thinking about the absence of a positive event from one's life would improve affective states more than thinking about the presence of a positive event but that people would not predict this when making affective forecasts. In Studies 1 and 2, college students wrote about the ways in which a positive event might never have happened and was surprising or how it became part of their life and was unsurprising. As predicted, people in the former condition reported more positive affective states. In Study 3, college student forecasters failed to anticipate this effect. In Study 4, Internet respondents and university staff members who wrote about how they might never have met their romantic partner were more satisfied with their relationship than were those who wrote about how they did meet their partner. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for the literatures on gratitude induction and counterfactual reasoning

Counterfactual thinking · Developmental psychology · Event (particle physics · Gratitude · Optimism · Psychoanalysis · Romance · Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion · Optimism, Hope, and Well-being · Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction · Psychology · Social Psychology

Tools

Open DOISci-HubOpen Access