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According to lecture, why do people tend to overestimate the extent to which they would feel following an emotional event? Discuss the role of the durability bias and immune neglect.

User Whalemare
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Final answer:

People overestimate their future emotional reactions due to the durability bias, an overestimation of emotional impact duration, and immune neglect, a failure to recognize their psychological immune system's coping mechanisms.

Step-by-step explanation:

People tend to overestimate the extent to which they would feel following an emotional event due to two cognitive biases: the durability bias and immune neglect. The durability bias is the tendency to overestimate the duration of the emotional impact of future events. People often think that both positive and negative events will have a longer-lasting emotional effect on them than they actually do. On the other hand, immune neglect refers to people's failure to consider the strength of their psychological immune system when predicting their emotional reactions. The psychological immune system consists of various conscious and unconscious processes that help us rationalize, minimize, and cope with life's adversities, thus lessening the emotional impact over time. As a result, we tend to overpredict the duration and intensity of our future emotions.

User France
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