Immune negligence one of the greatest errors in predicting our emotions

Affective prediction refers to the ability of individuals to make estimates and forecasts about their future emotional states. However, research has determined that people usually make extremely inaccurate predictions. Specifically, Immune negligence refers to the difficulty of an individual in determining how long it will take to recover psychologically from a traumatic event.

Content

• Affective prediction
• Immune negligence
• How to avoid incorrect affective predictions?
  • References

Affective prediction

Affective prediction is an innate process of every human being. Such mechanism is based on establishing forecasts about our own emotional feelings and reactions. These predictions would be formed by taking into account our past experiences, although our expectations, desires and beliefs also influence. Evidently, Affective prediction influences decision making, as it generates a preconceived idea about our own emotional states. So, this would lead people to anticipate situations in order to avoid negative emotions.

However, as of 1990, Kahneman and Snell conducted various investigations in which they determined that The verdicts that people perform about their future emotions are usually incorrect. These errors take place because the present feelings influence clearly the affective states of the future. For example, when asked a group of women how they would feel if they suffered from street harassment, most imagine that they will have feelings of anger and anger. However, when they really lived the situation, they experienced feelings of fear and nervousness.

Erroneous affective predictions generate cognitive prejudices and distortions that lead to perceive reality in a biased way and often make people difficult to have the lives they want. The biases in affective prediction are classified according to their content. For example, there is an impact bias, self -fulfilling prophecy, emotional evanescence or immune negligence. In this article, we will focus on explaining the last in greater detail.

Cognitive distortions: what are they and how to fight them

Immune negligence

Immune negligence refers to a mistake in affective prediction in which people are not able to predict how long they will take to overcome psychologically difficult situations. In this sense, When the possibility of a traumatic event occurs, the psychic system acts forecasting the worst. Then, people end up anticipating various actions to adapt to what they think they will feel at that time. Thus, they implement coping strategies to recover or, on the contrary, completely avoid the situation.

The way to cope with the difficulties of the future is personal, each individual has their own coping mechanisms. But, People do not usually take into account what their defense mechanisms are in the face of adversities. For this reason, they are very difficult for them to predict how long it will take to overcome a traumatic event.

Researchers Bolger and Zuckerman concluded that People with the highest coping strategies usually have greater bias between the response they expect and the real answer. This phenomenon occurs since, if the mind warns a dangerous situation, fear makes psyche start preparing to face what is coming. In this way, when the expected difficult event arrives, the mechanisms to overcome the event are already active, causing the person to recover quickly.

In an experiment conducted by Hoerger (2012), he asked the participants what they would feel after Valentine's Day. Almost the entire group of interviewees had similar answers about their emotions. However, the sensations experienced during that day were very different, because People with the highest coping strategies are not able to realize that they have greater possibilities to regain a mental state of tranquility to a difficult event.

How to avoid incorrect affective predictions?

As we have mentioned, the inability to correctly predict our future emotions is a common phenomenon in all human beings. Finally, it ends up generating cognitive distortions that, despite affecting our functionality, are present in most people. Even so, There are ways to reduce bias between reality and emotional predictions.

First, it is essential to know us in depth and practice introspection in order to connect with what happens inside us. For this, Full attention is an extremely useful practice that helps people to be more aware of their internal emotions and sensations. Full attention is also known as mindfulness, and is an excellent tool that many psychotherapists implement with their consultants.

In the mindfulness breathing is used as a means to be connected with our internal world, the premise is simply "being at the present moment". In this sense, people are encouraged to observe emotions with consciousness and compassion, instead of avoiding them. Thanks to this, many individuals report their stress, increase their quality of life and perceive their affective states more realistically. So, It is very likely that full attention can serve as a practice to avoid biased affective predictions.

References

• Bolger, n., Zuckerman, a. (nineteen ninety five). A Framework for Studying Personality in The Stress Process. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69 (5): 890-902
• Hoerger, m. (2012). Coping Strategies and Immune Neglect in Affective Forecasting: Direct Evidence and Key Moderators. Judge and Decision Making 7 (1): 86-96.
• Martínez-Taboada, c., Albza, a., Amutio, a., Nicolae, g. (2017). Positive affective prediction as a socio-emotional protection factor in transnational mothers before and after family regrouping: relationship with life satisfaction, emotional regulation, social loneliness, resilience and stress. Ter Psicol vol.35 no.2 James