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projection_bias
Projection bias is the tendency to assume that one's current preferences, desires, and emotional states will remain stable in the future. People project their present feelings onto their future selves, failing to account for how their tastes, circumstances, and emotional states will change over time. This leads to systematically poor predictions about future satisfaction.
A shopper who is extremely hungry at the grocery store buys far more food than they will actually eat, because they project their current hunger onto their future self and cannot imagine not being hungry.
A runner signs up for a 6 a.m. training group every Monday while feeling motivated after a strong weekend workout, consistently forgetting that his weekday exhausted self will hit snooze and skip the session — a pattern that has repeated for three consecutive months.
A couple plans an ambitious two-week backpacking itinerary while excitedly researching their trip at home, packing the schedule with long daily hikes. On day three, tired and footsore, they realize their vacation-planning selves wildly overestimated how much activity their actual selves would enjoy.
Binary (yes/no) questions an LLM must answer to identify this aspect:
Are future preferences assumed to be identical to current ones?
Type: binaryDoes the reasoning fail to account for how feelings and priorities might change over time?
Type: binaryAre decisions for the future based primarily on the current emotional state?
Type: binaryProjection bias is the tendency to assume that one's current preferences, desires, and emotional states will remain stable in the future. People project their present feelings onto their future selves, failing to account for how their tastes, circumstances, and emotional states will change over time. This leads to systematically poor predictions about future satisfaction.
Imagining future emotional states requires overriding the powerful influence of current feelings, which the brain struggles to do. The present state acts as an anchor from which people insufficiently adjust when forecasting their future preferences.
Make important decisions when you are in a neutral emotional state. Delay consequential purchases and revisit them when your current state has changed. Consult your past self's notes about similar situations.
Projection bias leads to overbuying when hungry, impulse purchases driven by current excitement, gym memberships bought in January enthusiasm but unused by March, and heating systems purchased in winter that overspec summer cooling needs.
Use these tools to detect, analyze, or train this aspect.