83. People Feel More Positive Before and After an Event than During It
Imagine you’re planning a trip with your sister to the Cayman Islands several months from now. The two of you talk on the phone at least once a week, discuss the snorkeling you plan to do, and talk about restaurants that are close to the place you are staying. You look forward to the trip for a long time.
Contrast that with the actual experience of the trip and you may find that the anticipation was better than the trip. In fact, Terence Mitchell (1997) and his team conducted research on just such a situation. They studied people who were taking a trip to Europe, a short trip over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, or a three-week bicycle tour of California.
Before the event ...
Get 100 Things: Every Designer Needs to Know About People now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
