• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.39-55
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• 2011

People tend to overestimate their emotional reactions to events such as physical handicap and buying a new car in the future. Students overestimate their reactions to a future grade as compared to their reactions after receiving the grade. Impact bias refers to people's tendency to overestimate the intensity and the duration of emotional reactions to a future event. The present study explored whether impact bias occurs to risky objects such as nuclear energy, genetically engineered food, and mobile phone. Participants were asked to predict their emotional reactions at three time points, that is, at the present, a week after, and a year after. They predicted their reactions before and after two debiasing tasks. The present study demonstrated a different pattern of impact bias at three time points: A largest bias was observed a week after the present. A defocalism manipulation has eliminated the impact bias whereas an adaptation manipulation has not. Several points were discussed regarding the difference between the previous and the present work.