The Illusion of Courage in Self-Predictions: Mispredicting One's Own Behavior in Embarrassing Situations

Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, Vol. 25, No. 1, pp. 1-12, January 2012

Posted: 31 Jan 2012

See all articles by Leaf Van Boven

Leaf Van Boven

University of Colorado Boulder

George Loewenstein

Carnegie Mellon University - Department of Social and Decision Sciences

Edward Welch

affiliation not provided to SSRN

David Dunning

Cornell University

Date Written: January 30, 2012

Abstract

People exhibit an "illusion of courage" when predicting their own behavior in embarrassing situations. In three experiments, participants overestimated their own willingness to engage in embarrassing public performances in exchange for money when those performances were psychologically distant: Hypothetical or in the relatively distant future. This illusion of courage occurs partly because of cold/hot empathy gaps. That is, people in a relatively "cold" unemotional state underestimate the influence on their own preferences and behaviors of being in a relative "hot" emotional state such as social anxiety evoked by an embarrassing situation. Consistent with this cold/hot empathy gap explanation, putting people "in touch" with negative emotional states by arousing fear (Experiments 1 and 2) and anger (Experiment 2) decreased people's willingness to engage in psychologically distant embarrassing public performances. Conversely, putting people "out of touch" with social anxiety through aerobic exercise, which reduces state anxiety and increases confidence, increased people's willingness to engage in psychologically distance embarrassing public performances (Experiment 3). Implications for self-predictions, self-evaluation, and affective forecasting are discussed.

Keywords: affective forecasting, decision making, choice, embarrassment, empathy gaps, emotion, intuition, judgment, prediction

Suggested Citation

Van Boven, Leaf and Loewenstein, George F. and Welch, Edward and Dunning, David, The Illusion of Courage in Self-Predictions: Mispredicting One's Own Behavior in Embarrassing Situations (January 30, 2012). Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, Vol. 25, No. 1, pp. 1-12, January 2012 , Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1995609

Leaf Van Boven (Contact Author)

University of Colorado Boulder ( email )

University of Colorado Boulder
Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, 345 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309
United States
303.735.5238 (Phone)
303.492.2967 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://psych.colorado.edu/~vanboven/

George F. Loewenstein

Carnegie Mellon University - Department of Social and Decision Sciences ( email )

Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890
United States
412-268-8787 (Phone)
412-268-6938 (Fax)

Edward Welch

affiliation not provided to SSRN

David Dunning

Cornell University ( email )

Department of Psychology
Ithaca, NY 14853
United States

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