Personality neglect: The unforeseen impact of personal dispositions on emotional life

J. Quoidbach*, Elizabeth W. Dunn

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Indexed journal article Articlepeer-review

18 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The present research provides the first evidence that people neglect their own personalities when they envision their future emotional lives. In Study 1, students ignored the impact of their dispositional happiness in predicting how they would feel 2 weeks after receiving grades. Yet dispositional happiness played an important role in shaping actual emotional experiences. Similarly, exhibiting personality neglect, participants in Study 2 overlooked their trait levels of neuroticism and optimism when forecasting their reaction to Barack Obama's election, though these personality dimensions were related to their actual emotional reactions. Because they overlooked the influence of their own dispositions, individuals incorrectly predicted their future feelings. Ironically, as a result of this personality neglect, more optimistic individuals were less likely to see their emotional future in an overly rosy light, whereas more neurotic individuals were more likely to overestimate the pleasure that the future would bring.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1783-1786
Number of pages4
JournalPsychological Science
Volume21
Issue number12
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2010
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • affective forecasting
  • happiness
  • personality
  • self-knowledge

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