SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY OF ORGANIZATIONS
Lisanne Callewaert 1
,SESSION 1
Peak-end rule = cognitive bias that changes the way individuals recall past events and
memories. Based on the peak-end rule, individuals judge a past experience based on the
emotional peaks felt throughout the experience and the end of the experience.
Duration neglect = the psychological observation that people's judgments of the
unpleasantness of painful experiences depend very little on the duration of those experiences.
These judgments tend to be affected by two factors: the peak (when the experience was the
most painful) and how quickly the pain diminishes. If it diminishes more slowly, the
experience is judged to be less painful.
Two measures of experienced pain:
1. The sum of experience total
Computed by an observer from an individual’s report of the experience of moments.
‘duration-weighted’ because the computation of the “area under the curve” assigns
equal weights to all moments: two minutes of pain at level 9 is twice as bad as one
minute at the same level of pain
2. The retrospective total (assessments)
Insensitive to duration, weight two singular moments, the peak and the end much more
than others
Systematically differ
TWO SELVES (EXPERIENCING AND REMEMBERING)
The experiencing self The remembering self
Does not have a voice Makes the decisions (sometimes wrong)
= the one that is experiencing the emotional = the memory of the experienced moment
state in the moment
People choose to repeat the experience for which they had the least aversive memory
A discrepancy between the remembering self and the experiencing self
Our minds tend to represent sets by averages, norms, and prototypes, not by sums.
We cannot fully trust our preferences to reflect our interests even if they are based on personal
experience and even if the memory of that experience was built within the last 15 mins.
Lisanne Callewaert 2
,SESSION 2: WELL-BEING AND LIFE SATISFACTION; POWER
Happiness
Life satisfaction Subjective well-being
All things considered, how satisfied are you How do you feel right now?
with your life as a whole these days?
Remembering self Experiencing self
Memories are not always reliable (remembering self)
GOALS, ACHIEVEMENT, AND LIFE SATISFACTION…
Negative effect of financial aspirations on life satisfaction
Frustration when you don’t achieve the goal
Positive effect of achievement on life satisfaction
When you achieve more goals, you become more satisfied
Income matters more for those who had high financial aspirations
More ambition leads to higher or lower life satisfaction
Risk-averse or willing to take the risk?
THE DUAL EFFECT OF GOALS
Goals matter for achievement, but if you do not achieve that for which you had a clear goal, it
can create dissatisfaction
THE FOCUSING ILLUSION
= when people make a global assessment (answer a life satisfaction question) they give more
weight to a particular aspect of it (e.g. marriage) because at that moment they think of this
aspect more than the other aspects
The concept of happiness is not suddenly changed by finding a dime, but readily substitutes a
small part of it for the whole of it.
Lisanne Callewaert 3
, Their responses are affected by what they pay attention to at that time. This is an example of
the WYSIATI (What You See Is All There Is) heuristic that will play a central role in this
course.
Life satisfaction is about the remembering self… but the remembering self and the
experiencing self are different.
If we care about the quality of our experience, we need to know what makes for a positive
well-being or a negative well-being.
Net affect = average of three positive adjectives (happy, warm/friendly, enjoying myself) –
average of six negative adjectives (frustrated/annoyed, depressed, angry, anxious)
Adjectives are reported on a 0-6 scale
Emotional fluctuations: situational factors matter
Other factors that affect well-being:
- Opportunity to socialize with coworker (positive affect)
- Exposure to loud noise, time pressure (negative effect)
- The immediate presence of a boss
- Happy people tend to engage in hedonic (gevoelsmatige) activities when they feel bad
– unhappy people engage in hedonic activity at more random times
Possible to improve well-being by changing how we spend our time
➔ Easier to change than life satisfaction
Lisanne Callewaert 4
Lisanne Callewaert 1
,SESSION 1
Peak-end rule = cognitive bias that changes the way individuals recall past events and
memories. Based on the peak-end rule, individuals judge a past experience based on the
emotional peaks felt throughout the experience and the end of the experience.
Duration neglect = the psychological observation that people's judgments of the
unpleasantness of painful experiences depend very little on the duration of those experiences.
These judgments tend to be affected by two factors: the peak (when the experience was the
most painful) and how quickly the pain diminishes. If it diminishes more slowly, the
experience is judged to be less painful.
Two measures of experienced pain:
1. The sum of experience total
Computed by an observer from an individual’s report of the experience of moments.
‘duration-weighted’ because the computation of the “area under the curve” assigns
equal weights to all moments: two minutes of pain at level 9 is twice as bad as one
minute at the same level of pain
2. The retrospective total (assessments)
Insensitive to duration, weight two singular moments, the peak and the end much more
than others
Systematically differ
TWO SELVES (EXPERIENCING AND REMEMBERING)
The experiencing self The remembering self
Does not have a voice Makes the decisions (sometimes wrong)
= the one that is experiencing the emotional = the memory of the experienced moment
state in the moment
People choose to repeat the experience for which they had the least aversive memory
A discrepancy between the remembering self and the experiencing self
Our minds tend to represent sets by averages, norms, and prototypes, not by sums.
We cannot fully trust our preferences to reflect our interests even if they are based on personal
experience and even if the memory of that experience was built within the last 15 mins.
Lisanne Callewaert 2
,SESSION 2: WELL-BEING AND LIFE SATISFACTION; POWER
Happiness
Life satisfaction Subjective well-being
All things considered, how satisfied are you How do you feel right now?
with your life as a whole these days?
Remembering self Experiencing self
Memories are not always reliable (remembering self)
GOALS, ACHIEVEMENT, AND LIFE SATISFACTION…
Negative effect of financial aspirations on life satisfaction
Frustration when you don’t achieve the goal
Positive effect of achievement on life satisfaction
When you achieve more goals, you become more satisfied
Income matters more for those who had high financial aspirations
More ambition leads to higher or lower life satisfaction
Risk-averse or willing to take the risk?
THE DUAL EFFECT OF GOALS
Goals matter for achievement, but if you do not achieve that for which you had a clear goal, it
can create dissatisfaction
THE FOCUSING ILLUSION
= when people make a global assessment (answer a life satisfaction question) they give more
weight to a particular aspect of it (e.g. marriage) because at that moment they think of this
aspect more than the other aspects
The concept of happiness is not suddenly changed by finding a dime, but readily substitutes a
small part of it for the whole of it.
Lisanne Callewaert 3
, Their responses are affected by what they pay attention to at that time. This is an example of
the WYSIATI (What You See Is All There Is) heuristic that will play a central role in this
course.
Life satisfaction is about the remembering self… but the remembering self and the
experiencing self are different.
If we care about the quality of our experience, we need to know what makes for a positive
well-being or a negative well-being.
Net affect = average of three positive adjectives (happy, warm/friendly, enjoying myself) –
average of six negative adjectives (frustrated/annoyed, depressed, angry, anxious)
Adjectives are reported on a 0-6 scale
Emotional fluctuations: situational factors matter
Other factors that affect well-being:
- Opportunity to socialize with coworker (positive affect)
- Exposure to loud noise, time pressure (negative effect)
- The immediate presence of a boss
- Happy people tend to engage in hedonic (gevoelsmatige) activities when they feel bad
– unhappy people engage in hedonic activity at more random times
Possible to improve well-being by changing how we spend our time
➔ Easier to change than life satisfaction
Lisanne Callewaert 4
