Why This Election Is Much Less Satisfying (or Harrowing) Than You Thought It Would Be

Atlantic: Why This Election Is Much Less Satisfying (or Harrowing) Than You Thought It Would Be

Winning is much less satisfying when the other side doesn't concede it was wrong, for one.

If you're the sort of person who lives and breathes elections -- and if you're reading this, there's a good chance you are -- you probably had a deep emotional investment in this one. You might have predicted that you'd be impossibly elated or horribly depressed in its aftermath. Expecting that is natural, but as it turns out, it's also wrong.

Daniel Gilbert, the Harvard researcher in happiness studies, has shown repeatedly how crummy human beings are at predicting what will make us feel good. Again and again, we suffer from something called "impact bias," in which we overestimate how much influence a particular outcome (like winning the lottery or becoming a paraplegic) will have on our mood. And the presidential election is no exception, as Gilbert and colleagues found when they tested this theory on the Bush v. Gore showdown.

In 2000, while the nation was baiting its breath and biting its fingernails during the Florida recount, Gilbert and others polled college-aged Bush and Gore supporters about how they thought they'd feel in the election's aftermath, depending on what happened. The subjects were polled again when Al Gore conceded a month later. The Bush supporters didn't feel nearly as happy as they'd predicted they'd feel, while the Gore supporters didn't feel nearly as bad. The scholars wrote that Bush supporters likely engaged in "focalism," a phenomenon in which people consider only how a single event might make them happy, without considering all the other things that might affect their mood when the occasion arises. Gore supporters, meanwhile, appeared to rationalize the defeat by downplaying their support for Gore (a kind of sour grapes effect), and by describing the issues at stake in the election as less important than they had previously.

There's another reason why this election, like all elections, might not be as satisfying as Obama supporters expected it to be. It has to do with the way losers concede. ...

... But there's a third factor at work that's specific to this particular election, and it has to do with how human beings value potential over actual accomplishment. ...

So are you feeling less satisfied or less harrowed 48 hours later?

Comments

[Kenton]

I've come down off the ledge in thinking this is the end of the world, but I've also checked out. This election more has caused me to give up my faith in the American electorate.

[Dan]

You are aware that the GOP did so little to reduce their enmity with minority and women voters (in many cases stoking it) that they effectively got crushed by the weight of their hubris in those exit polls.

Women 55-45 for Obama
Black 91-9 for Obama
Latino 75-24 for Obama
Asian 70-30 for Obama

You can lose trust in the electorate all you want, but when you have folks like Akin sounding off like that, when you have frequent talk about mass deportations and mandatory language... you're just not going to get these large and growing electorate groups to suddenly vote for the same party that keeps screaming these kinds of things.

[Kenton]

Turn that knife, brother!

You know, it's comments like yours that continue to polarize our country. Do you really think that kind of rhetoric will get the current makeup of the house and senate to work together this next term? It's exactly that kind of venom that makes me want to check out.

[Michael W. Kruse]

Hang in there, Kenton. There is almost an irresistible urge to "spike the ball" after a touchdown (to borrow Dennis Sanders metaphor.) This too shall pass. ;-)

[Kenton]

Thanks, Michael.