It brought to mind Daniel Kahneman's research. How people perceive an unpleasant experience is determined by how bad the experience was at the conclusion rather than the average of the entire experience.
This psychological phenomenon is known as the Peak-End Rule, discovered and formalized in the 1990s by Daniel Kahneman, Donald Redelmeier, and Barbara Fredrickson.
The core finding is that retrospective evaluations of an unpleasant experience are not an integral (mathematical sum or average) of pain over time. Instead, the retrospective evaluation is almost entirely predicted by a simple heuristic: the average of the peak intensity of pain and the pain level at the very end. Furthermore, the actual duration of the episode has virtually no impact on retrospective memory—a finding Kahneman termed duration neglect.
(I asked my trusty assistant Gemini to help me with this comment.)
I was being silly, actually. I don't have any doubt that you two immensely enjoyed your Italy visit going by your fascinating description over so many days.
I think I was motivated by a sneaky desire to show off that I am clever enough to have read Kahneman and Tversky's work. 😛
Thank you for the lovely description.
It brought to mind Daniel Kahneman's research. How people perceive an unpleasant experience is determined by how bad the experience was at the conclusion rather than the average of the entire experience.
This psychological phenomenon is known as the Peak-End Rule, discovered and formalized in the 1990s by Daniel Kahneman, Donald Redelmeier, and Barbara Fredrickson.
The core finding is that retrospective evaluations of an unpleasant experience are not an integral (mathematical sum or average) of pain over time. Instead, the retrospective evaluation is almost entirely predicted by a simple heuristic: the average of the peak intensity of pain and the pain level at the very end. Furthermore, the actual duration of the episode has virtually no impact on retrospective memory—a finding Kahneman termed duration neglect.
(I asked my trusty assistant Gemini to help me with this comment.)
Thank you. In this case, I think the inconveniences from this trip will quickly fade from memory, but the pleasant experiences will always remain.
JD:
I was being silly, actually. I don't have any doubt that you two immensely enjoyed your Italy visit going by your fascinating description over so many days.
I think I was motivated by a sneaky desire to show off that I am clever enough to have read Kahneman and Tversky's work. 😛
I never doubted you were that clever!
You'd be surprised how clever I am. I am so clever that I could kill myself with my brilliance. (OK, enough silliness for the day.)
Thank you for all your excellent posts. I read and enjoy, and envy your gift of the pen! Cheers.