title: Immediacy bias in social-emotional comparisons.
abstract: In seven studies of naturally occurring, "real-world" emotional events, people demonstrated an immediacy bias in social-emotional comparisons, perceiving their own current or recent emotional reactions as more intense compared with others' emotional reactions to the same events. The events examined include crossing a scary bridge (study 1a), a national tragedy (study 1b), terrorist attacks (studies 2a and 3b), a natural disaster (study 2b), and a presidential election (study 3b). These perceived differences between one's own and others' emotions declined over time, as relatively immediate and recent emotions subsided, a pattern that people were not intuitively aware of (study 2c). This immediacy bias in social-emotional comparisons emerged for both explicit comparisons (studies 1a, 1b, and 3b), and for absolute judgments of emotional intensity (studies 2a, 2b, and 3a). Finally, the immediacy bias in social-emotional comparisons was reduced when people were reminded that emotional display norms might lead others' appearances to understate emotional intensity (studies 3a and 3b). Implications of these findings for social-emotional phenomena are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Sauder School of Business, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver. Katherine.White@sauder.ubc.ca
authors.forename: Katherine
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: White
authors.forename: Leaf
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Van Boven
mesh_terms: D001007:Anxiety; D004644:Emotions; D005239:Fear; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D012649:Self Concept