Gilbert D T, Pinel E C, Wilson T D, Blumberg S J, Wheatley T P
Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA.
J Pers Soc Psychol. 1998 Sep;75(3):617-38. doi: 10.1037//0022-3514.75.3.617.
People are generally unaware of the operation of the system of cognitive mechanisms that ameliorate their experience of negative affect (the psychological immune system), and thus they tend to overestimate the duration of their affective reactions to negative events. This tendency was demonstrated in 6 studies in which participants overestimated the duration of their affective reactions to the dissolution of a romantic relationship, the failure to achieve tenure, an electoral defeat, negative personality feedback, an account of a child's death, and rejection by a prospective employer. Participants failed to distinguish between situations in which their psychological immune systems would and would not be likely to operate and mistakenly predicted overly and equally enduring affective reactions in both instances. The present experiments suggest that people neglect the psychological immune system when making affective forecasts.
人们通常并未意识到改善其负面情绪体验的认知机制系统（心理免疫系统）的运作，因此他们往往会高估自己对负面事件的情感反应持续时间。在6项研究中证实了这种倾向，其中参与者高估了他们对恋爱关系破裂、未能获得终身教职、选举失败、负面性格反馈、儿童死亡描述以及被潜在雇主拒绝等情况的情感反应持续时间。参与者未能区分其心理免疫系统可能起作用和不太可能起作用的情况，并错误地预测在这两种情况下情感反应都会过度且同样持久。目前的实验表明，人们在进行情感预测时忽略了心理免疫系统。
