A kind of memory bias, rosy retrospection refers to the finding that subjects later rate past events more positively than they had actually rated them when the event occurred. Memory biases may either enhance or inhibit the recall of memory, or they may alter the content of what we report remembering. ...
The effect appears to be stronger with moderately pleasant events.
In one group of experiments, three groups going on different vacations were interviewed before, during and after their journeys. Most followed the pattern of initial anticipation, followed by mild disappointment. Generally, most subjects some time later reviewed the events more favorably than they actually did while experiencing them.
Cognitive bias is distortion in the way we perceive reality (see also cognitive distortion). ... The positivity effect refers to the tendency for people to attribute the positive behavior of other people whom they like to their disposition, while attributing negative behavior to their situation. ...
References
Mitchell, T. & Thompson, L. (1994). A theory of temporal adjustments of the evaluation of events: Rosy Prospection & Rosy Retrospection. In C. Stubbart, J. Porac, & J. Meindl (Eds.), Advances in managerial cognition and organizational information-processing, Vol. 5, 85-114. Greenwich, CT: JAI press.
Retrospecting, they believed that their attitudes nine years previous were very close to their current one, much closer than they in fact were.
This bias was so strong that an equation set up to predict subjects' recall of their 1973 attitudes gives almost all weight to their 1982 attitudes, and virtually none at all to the attitudes they actually expressed in 1973 (with the important exception of the students' overall liberal versus conservative ratings).
It is possible, for example, that when the depression-prone people become depressed, their memory of their parents' behavior loses the "rosy glow" that appears to be a concomitant of "good mental health," and that the reports are in fact more accurate than when the people are not depressed.
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