[lbo-talk] Research on our ignorance in predicting our own adaptation to changes in health status

Marta Russell ap888 at lafn.org
Wed Mar 30 19:56:49 PST 2005


An article was just published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General by Jason Riis and colleagues (2005) that reviews how people are terrible predictors of their own changing health status, assuming they would have lower life satisfication in the event of disability for example when in fact this is not the case. This has some serious implications for developing advance directives based on what we *think* we might want without realizing how we will respond/adapt when (not if) our health status changes from its present state. The article is called: "Ignorance of Hedonic Adaptation to Hemodialysis: A study Using Ecological Momentary Assessment." Here's the abstract:

Heathly people generally underestimate the self-reported well-being of people with disabilities and serious illnesses. The cause of this discrepancy is in dispute, and the present study provides evidence for 2 causes. First, healthy people fail to anticipate hedonic adaptation to poor health. Using and ecological momentary assessment measure of mood, the authors failed to find evidence that hemodialysis patients are less happy than healthy nonpatients are, suggesting that they have largely, if not completely, adapted to their condition. In a forecasting task, healthy people failed to anticipate this adaptation. Second, although controls underestated their own mood in both an estimation task and a recall task, patients were quite accurate in both tasks. This relative negativity in controls' estimates of their own moods could also contribute to their underestimation of the moods and overall well-being of patients.

Michelle Nario-Redmond Reed College Portland OR --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.859 / Virus Database: 585 - Release Date: 02/14/2005

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