Department of Economics and Management, University of Padova, Padova, Italy.
Department of Economic Sciences, University of Venice "Cà Foscari", Venice, Italy.
PLoS One. 2018 Mar 7;13(3):e0192941. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0192941. eCollection 2018.
Social scientists have postulated that the discrepancy between achievements and expectations affects individuals' subjective well-being. Still, little has been done to qualify and quantify such a psychological effect. Our empirical analysis assesses the consequences of positive and negative affective forecasting errors-the difference between realized and expected subjective well-being-on the subsequent level of subjective well-being.
We use longitudinal data on a representative sample of 13,431 individuals from the German Socio-Economic Panel. In our sample, 52% of individuals are females, average age is 43 years, average years of education is 11.4 and 27% of our sample lives in East Germany. Subjective well-being (measured by self-reported life satisfaction) is assessed on a 0-10 discrete scale and its sample average is equal to 6.75 points.
We develop a simple theoretical framework to assess the consequences of positive and negative affective forecasting errors-the difference between realized and expected subjective well-being-on the subsequent level of subjective well-being, properly accounting for the endogenous adjustment of expectations to positive and negative affective forecasting errors, and use it to derive testable predictions. Given the theoretical framework, we estimate two panel-data equations, the first depicting the association between positive and negative affective forecasting errors and the successive level of subjective well-being and the second describing the correlation between subjective well-being expectations for the future and hedonic failures and successes. Our models control for individual fixed effects and a large battery of time-varying demographic characteristics, health and socio-economic status.
While surpassing expectations is uncorrelated with subjective well-being, failing to match expectations is negatively associated with subsequent realizations of subjective well-being. Expectations are positively (negatively) correlated to positive (negative) forecasting errors. We speculate that in the first case the positive adjustment in expectations is strong enough to cancel out the potential positive effects on subjective well-being of beaten expectations, while in the second case it is not, and individuals persistently bear the negative emotional consequences of not achieving expectations.
社会科学家假设，成就与期望之间的差距会影响个体的主观幸福感。尽管如此，人们几乎没有对这种心理效应进行限定和量化。我们的实证分析评估了积极和消极情感预测误差（即实际和预期的主观幸福感之间的差异）对随后主观幸福感水平的影响。
我们使用德国社会经济面板（SOEP）上一个代表性的 13431 个人的纵向数据。在我们的样本中，52%的个体为女性，平均年龄为 43 岁，平均受教育年限为 11.4 年，27%的样本居住在东德。主观幸福感（通过自我报告的生活满意度衡量）在 0-10 的离散量表上进行评估，其样本平均值为 6.75 分。
我们制定了一个简单的理论框架，以评估积极和消极情感预测误差（即实际和预期的主观幸福感之间的差异）对随后主观幸福感水平的影响，适当考虑了期望对积极和消极情感预测误差的内生调整，并利用它来推导出可检验的预测。基于理论框架，我们估计了两个面板数据方程，第一个描述了积极和消极情感预测误差与随后主观幸福感水平之间的关系，第二个描述了未来主观幸福感期望与享乐失败和成功之间的相关性。我们的模型控制了个体固定效应和大量随时间变化的人口统计学特征、健康和社会经济地位。
虽然超出预期与主观幸福感无关，但未能达到预期与随后的主观幸福感实现呈负相关。期望与积极（消极）预测误差呈正（负）相关。我们推测，在第一种情况下，期望的积极调整足以抵消低于预期对主观幸福感的潜在积极影响，而在第二种情况下，情况并非如此，个体持续承受着未能实现期望的负面情绪后果。
