Lench Heather C
Department of Psychology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-4235, USA.
J Exp Psychol Gen. 2009 May;138(2):187-200. doi: 10.1037/a0015380.
People generally judge that the future will be consistent with their desires, but the reason for this desirability bias is unclear. This investigation examined whether affective reactions associated with future events are the mechanism through which desires influence likelihood judgments. In 4 studies, affective reactions were manipulated for initially neutral events. Compared with a neutral condition, events associated with positive reactions were judged as likely to occur, and events associated with negative reactions were judged as unlikely to occur. Desirability biases were reduced when participants could misattribute affective reactions to a source other than future events, and the relationship between affective reactions and judgments was influenced when approach and avoidance motivations were independently manipulated. Together, these findings demonstrate that positive and negative affective reactions to potential events cause the desirability bias in likelihood judgments and suggest that this effect occurs because of a tendency to approach positive possibilities and avoid negative possibilities.
人们通常认为未来会与他们的愿望相符，但这种愿望偏差的原因尚不清楚。本研究调查了与未来事件相关的情感反应是否是愿望影响可能性判断的机制。在4项研究中，对最初中性的事件进行了情感反应的操纵。与中性条件相比，与积极反应相关的事件被判断为可能发生，而与消极反应相关的事件被判断为不太可能发生。当参与者能够将情感反应错误归因于未来事件以外的来源时，愿望偏差会降低，并且当接近和回避动机被独立操纵时，情感反应与判断之间的关系会受到影响。这些发现共同表明，对潜在事件的积极和消极情感反应会导致可能性判断中的愿望偏差，并表明这种效应的发生是由于倾向于接近积极可能性和避免消极可能性。
