Washington: People assume that knowing the duration of a pleasant event will ‘kill the fun’, whereas knowing the duration of an unpleasant event makes it tolerable.
However, a new study has contradicted this notion.
Researchers at the University of Toronto have found that knowing how long a good experience will last makes it better, but being aware of the duration of an unpleasant event makes it worse.
"Which is more enjoyable, knowing the exact duration of a dinner with a charming friend or not knowing it? What if the dinner is with disliked in-laws?" ask Min Zhao and Claire I. Tsai.
They explain that "rather than weakening affective episodes over time, duration knowledge actually intensifies them, rendering a positive experience more pleasurable and a negative experience more aversive."
Researchers conducted an experiment on a group of students, half of whom were told the duration of a lecture and the other half was kept uninformed.
It emerged that whereas students predicted that duration knowledge would improve their negative experience, in fact it rendered the experience worse."
ANI
