What to Do on Spring Break? The Role of Predicted, On-line, and Remembered Experience in Future Choice

• Main Authors: Wirtz, Derrick, Kruger, Justin, SCOLLON, Christie N., DIENER, Ed
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2003
• Subjects: activity choices; experiences; choice prediction; Personality and Social Contexts; Social Psychology
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/929; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/1928/viewcontent/auto_convert.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

When individuals choose future activities on the basis of their past experiences, what guides those choices? The present study compared students' predicted, on-line, and remembered spring-break experiences, as well as the influence of these factors on students' desire to take a similar vacation in the future. Predicted and remembered experiences were both more positive—and, paradoxically, more negative—than on-line experiences. Of key importance, path analyses revealed that remembered experience, but neither on-line nor anticipated experience, directly predicted the desire to repeat the experience. These results suggest that although on-line measures may be superior to retrospective measures for approximating objective experience, retrospective measures may be superior for predicting choice.