Age differences in the effects of task difficulty and outcome on affective forecasting bias

• Published in: Personality and individual differences Vol. 246; p. 113331
• Main Authors: Liu, Yan, Hong, Yingmiao, Wang, Na, Zhang, Xiaojing, Xu, Guoqing
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.11.2025
• Subjects: Aging; Emotion intensity; Emotion prediction; Emotion valence; Task difficulty; Task difficulty; Aging; Emotion valence; Emotion prediction; Emotion intensity
• ISSN: 0191-8869
• DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2025.113331

Affective forecasting refers to people's prediction of future emotional experiences. This study aims to investigate (a) the impact of task completion outcomes (success vs. failure) on affective forecasting bias in young and older adults and (b) the difference in sensitivity to task difficulty between forecasters and experiencers in the context of success or failure. Two experiments were conducted. Experiment 1 used a 2 × 2 × 2 between-subjects design with role (forecaster vs. experiencer), task difficulty (easy vs. difficult), and age (young vs. older) as factors. Experiment 2 added task completion outcomes (success vs. failure) to Experiment 1's design. The results showed that negative events caused affective forecasting bias in both young and older adults, while positive events did not. Young forecasters were more sensitive to task difficulty than experiencers, regardless of task success or failure. For older adults, forecasters and experiencers had similar sensitivity to task difficulty in successful tasks, but forecasters were more sensitive in unsuccessful tasks. These findings indicate that the influence of task difficulty on affective forecasting bias differs between older and young adults, and this age difference is partially related to their sensitivity to task difficulty. •Older adults forecast positive emotions more accurately but overestimated negative affect.•Young adults showed stronger sensitivity to task difficulty in emotion prediction.•Older adults ignored difficulty in success but considered it in failure contexts.•Task difficulty held cultural significance, shaping forecasting in Chinese participants.