Reading Fictional Stories and Winning Delayed Prizes: The Surprising Emotional Impact of Distant Events
16 Pages Posted: 9 Aug 2010 Last revised: 11 Nov 2014
Date Written: 2014
Abstract
Hedonic experiences that involve real, immediate events (such as reading about a recent, real-life tragic event) naturally evoke strong affective reactions. When these events are instead fictional or removed in time, they should be perceived as more psychologically distant and evoke weaker affective reactions. The current research shows that, while consumers’ intuitions are in line with this prediction, their actual emotional experiences are surprisingly insensitive to the distancing information. For instance, readers of a sad story overestimated how much their emotional reaction would be reduced by knowing that it described a fictional event. Similarly, game participants overestimated how much their excitement about winning a prize would be dampened by knowing that the prize would only be available later. We propose that actual readers and prize winners were too absorbed by the hedonic experience to incorporate the distancing information, resulting in surprisingly strong affective reactions to fictional stories and delayed prizes.
Keywords: forecasting, affect, psychological distance, fiction
JEL Classification: M30
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?
Recommended Papers
-
Looking Forward, Looking Back: Anticipation is More Evocative than Retrospection
By Laurence Ashworth and Leaf Van Boven
-
Immediacy Bias in Emotion Perception: Current Emotions Seem More Intense than Previous Emotions
By Michaela Huber, Katherine White, ...
-
Feeling Close: Emotional Intensity Reduces Perceived Psychological Distance
By Leaf Van Boven, Joanne Kane, ...
-
A Policy Maker’s Dilemma: Preventing Terrorism or Preventing Blame
By A. Peter Mcgraw, Alexander Todorov, ...
-
What Determines Forecasters’ Forecasting Errors?
By Ingmar Nolte, Sandra Nolte (lechner), ...
-
By Tom Meyvis, Rebecca K. Ratner, ...
-
By Jeff Galak and Tom Meyvis
-
'Passing the Buck': Incongruence between Gender Role and Topic Leads to Avoidance of Negotiation
By Julia Bear
-
Predicting Premeditation: Future Behavior is Seen as More Intentional than Past Behavior
By Zachary C. Burns, Eugene M. Caruso, ...