School of Computer Science, University College Dublin, Ireland.
School of Computer Science, University College Dublin, Ireland; Insight Centre for Data Analytics, University College Dublin, Ireland.
Cognition. 2022 Aug;225:105142. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105142. Epub 2022 Apr 28.
Do people have specific "expectations about the unexpected" when they think about the future? Recent work supports a "negativity bias", that people expect future events to be disrupted by unexpected negative outcomes. However, when the current situation is negative, they report more positive unexpected outcomes (e.g., negative experiences lead many to imagine a future of unexpected positive outcomes). The present study (N = 219 Prolific.co participants; with a pre-test of N = 64) explored whether people also show an "uncontrollability bias"; best-laid plans are often disrupted by uncontrollable events. People thought of unexpected outcomes for 8 everyday scenarios, matched on valence and controllability, generating a total of 1752 distinct responses. Participants mainly report negative-uncontrollable unexpected events (34%). However, in contrast to prior work (i) negatively-valenced scenarios elicit more controllable unexpected outcomes, and (ii) uncontrollable scenarios elicit more positive unexpected outcomes. The implications of these results for everyday cognition and decision making are discussed.
当人们思考未来时，他们是否对意外有特定的“预期”？最近的研究支持“负面偏差”，即人们预计未来的事件会被意外的负面结果所打乱。然而，当当前的情况是负面的时，他们会报告更多积极的意外结果（例如，负面经历会让许多人想象未来会有意外的积极结果）。本研究（N=219 名 Prolific.co 参与者；预先测试 N=64）探讨了人们是否也表现出“不可控性偏差”；精心策划的计划往往会被不可控的事件打乱。参与者思考了 8 个日常场景的意外结果，这些场景在效价和可控性上相匹配，共产生了 1752 个不同的反应。参与者主要报告了负面不可控的意外事件（34%）。然而，与之前的研究相比，（i）负面效价的场景引发了更多可控的意外结果，（ii）不可控的场景引发了更多积极的意外结果。这些结果对日常认知和决策的影响将在讨论中进行探讨。
