CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE MISPREDICTIONS: AN EXAMINATION OF AFFECTIVE FORECASTING BY BASKETBALL PLAYERS A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology, General-Experimental by Raffi Sarafian August 2015 The thesis of Raffi Sarafian is approved: ____________________________________________ Date:__________ Dr. Jacob Jensen ____________________________________________ Date:__________ Dr. Debra Berry Malmberg ____________________________________________ Date:__________ Dr. Mark P. Otten, Chair California State University, Northridge ii Acknowledgement I would first like to thank my graduate advisor, Dr. Mark P. Otten, for his guidance, support and mentorship over the past three and a half years. I would also like to thank Drs. Ashley Samson, Jacob Jensen and Debra Malmberg for serving on my thesis committee and providing feedback, which was crucial to the success of this project. Additionally, this idea came to me through my competing in bicycling races and constantly feeling as though I wasn’t performing to my satisfaction as I always had hoped. I would like to thank my parents for their support through every step of this project, from the conception of the hypothesis through the final draft. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page ii Acknowledgement iii Abstract v Introduction 1 Current Study 8 Method: Study 9 Participants 9 Measures 9 Procedure 10 Results: Study 12 Discussion 14 Limitations and future Direction 16 Conclusion 17 References 19 Appendix 22 iv ABSTRACT MISPREDICTIONS: AN EXAMINATION OF AFFECTIVE FORECASTING BY BASKETBALL PLAYERS by Raffi Sarafian Master of Arts in Psychology, General-Experimental Previous research on affective forecasting has investigated people’s perceptions of feelings and the way they predict their future emotional states. This is seen in every day situations by anyone and within athletes on teams. Research has revealed that for a team or group to succeed they must use team cohesion tactics. Team cohesion had not previously been studied as a covariate of affective forecasting to decrease mispredictions of feelings towards the outcome of future events. The present study hypothesized that basketball athletes would mispredict their feelings towards the outcome of a game regardless of that outcome. The present study also hypothesized that according to the forces of team cohesion, athletes playing on a team would predict future emotional states more accurately than those playing individually. Participants (n=115) with previous basketball playing experience were randomly assigned to either a one vs. one or two vs. two basketball playing condition. The participants completed a pre-game questionnaire, played a ten-minute basketball game, and completed a post-game questionnaire. Results revealed that regardless of the outcome of the game, athletes mispredicted their future emotional state toward the game's outcome. Results also showed that participants who played on teams predicted their future emotional states more accurately than those v playing individually. These findings suggest that team cohesion can lead to a better success in predicting one’s own future emotional state. vi INTRODUCTION Anyone who has visited the Las Vegas sports book, poker room, or craps table knows that predictions, whether correct or incorrect, are something that can bring about great emotion. One might experience happiness and excitement, or depending on the outcome of the prediction, anger and discomfort. Research on prediction shows that people tend to mispredict or overestimate their emotional state towards the outcome of a future event, which has been defined as affective forecasting (Wilson & Gilbert, 2005). Working in teams or a group could potentially decrease the likelihood of making this misprediction of emotional states. How closely a team or group works together has been defined as group cohesion (Festinger, 1950). To date, there is little research on group cohesion and its relationship with affective forecasting -- that is, the effect of cohesion on the accuracy of one’s prediction of future feelings toward the outcome of an event. Affective Forecasting and Impact Bias To further understand the mechanisms behind affective forecasting, one must understand the biases associated with it. Most commonly observed has been the impact bias, in which those who are forecasting mispredict the intensity of their predicted response to a future event. Kermer, Driver, Wilson, and Gilbert (2006) investigated affective forecasting and impact bias. In their study, 54 participants played a gambling computer game; participants had to guess which suit card was the top-ranked according to the computer. Participants were awarded 50 cents every time they guessed a correct top-ranked suit and 25 cents when guessing the second-ranked; if they guessed they lost 25 cents for the third-ranked and lost 50 cents if they guessed the fourth-ranked suit card. After the 25th 1 trial, the amount they won or lost so far was doubled. Both before and after the game, participants reported their level of happiness or unhappiness. The findings were that the participants who lost money experienced a greater impact on emotion than when they gained money. The researchers concluded that even if people have experienced losses throughout their lives, they still tend to mispredict the intensity of a loss compared to a gain in the same type of situation (Kermer et al., 2006). This misprediction has also been documented by other researchers. Morewedge and Buechel (2013) conducted a study in which participants were given pictures of two professors and told that they would compete against them in a simple motor skills task (i.e., pressing a two-letter sequence on the computer). Participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups. The participants in the first group were given a choice of which professor they wanted to compete against; those in the second group were told that they were competing against both professors. Prior to attempting the task, participants in both groups were asked to forecast the level of happiness they thought they would feel if they were to beat their chosen professor (for group 1) or both professors (for group 2). In both conditions, participants were told that they were the winners but were not told the exact score the professor(s) received, but the participants were always the winners. Results showed that those who were given the option to choose which professor they wanted to beat before actually attempting the task were more likely to commit the impact bias and mispredict their intensity of happiness. Morewedge, Gilbert, and Wilson (2005) investigated whether people could better forecast and predict their emotions towards the outcome of an atypical and highly 2 memorable event. The researchers’ hypotheses were: 1) when people forecast their feelings towards the outcome of a future event, they will rely on atypical instances (they are not accustomed to) and 2) when unaware that these instances are atypical, people will rely on affective forecasts. In study one, participants were male and female passengers getting off of a train. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions which were to describe a situation in which they missed a train (free recall condition), to describe their worst instance of missing the train (biased recall condition), or to describe three instances of missing their train (varied recall condition). Each participant then reported their level of happiness. Results showed that participants in the free recall condition made more negative forecasts than those in the biased and varied recall conditions. Overall, when a person is asked to freely describe a situation, there is a great deal of misprediction than when it relates to a much more specific event. In Morewedge and colleagues’ (2005) second study, the concept was kept the same as the first study but conducted during an undergraduate football game. The sample was 54 football fans randomly selected prior to the start of the football game. The participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions and were asked to describe either a football game they had seen when the team won (free recall), the best football game they had seen the team win (biased recall), or describe three football games where the team won (varied recall). The results revealed that there were more positive forecasts in the free recall condition than in the biased or varied recall conditions which were more negative. In another study exploring misprediction, Gilbert and Ebert (2002) aimed to see if people prefer changeable outcomes or unchangeable outcomes and if they can predict the 3 consequences of an outcome if changed. The researchers hypothesized that those who have been given an option to change their choice of a picture and given a few days to think about it will have greater impact bias in forecasting. In the study, participants from a photography class were randomly assigned to one of two groups (changeable or unchangeable groups) and asked to find two pictures that they really liked but could only keep one. The participants in the unchangeable condition could not go back to switch the picture after choosing one because the other picture would be thrown away. In the other condition, the participants were allowed to change their current selection of artwork with the one they did not select. The results revealed that when faced with a few days to change the picture, a participant experiences a longer period of wanting to change the picture and also mispredict their emotional levels. Affective Forecasting and Sports Researchers have also investigated affective forecasting in athletes. Research done by Dijk (2009) intended to determine whether track athletes experience the impact bias. The study investigated two hypotheses:1) according to the impact bias, track athletes would overestimate the intensity of their emotions following a race regardless of their success at the meet, and 2) according to the impact bias, track athletes would also predict that a loss impacts their emotions more than a win.