“Our neighbor’s experience can provide greater insight than our own best guess.” (Gilbert, Killingsworth, Eyre, & Wilson, 2009, p. 1619) In other words, another person sharing their first hand experiences (surrogation), helps us to make better predictions than our own best guess (simulation) of how we will feel when experiencing the same event. At the same time,  all participants believed that simulation would be superior to surrogation, even after it had failed them. Read the full story

Our emotional well-being benefits when we have positive expectations and suffers when we have negative expectations. This holds true irregardless of the actual out come of the anticipated turn out of events. Prior to knowing how things will turn out, positive expectations generate a pleasant state of savoring while negative expectations generate an unpleasant state of dreading what is to come. Read the full story

Timothy D. Wilson, PhD
Sherrell J. Aston Professor of Psychology
Department of Psychology (Social)
University of Virginia

e-mail: tdw[at]virginia.edu

RESEARCH INTERESTS: affective forecasting, positive psychology, Read the full story

Daniel T. Gilbert, PhD
Professor of Psychology
Department of Psychology (Social)
Harvard University

e-mail: gilbert[at]wjh.harvard.edu

RESEARCH INTERESTS: affective forecasting, positive psychology, Read the full story