Objectives: Affective forecasting refers to people's prediction of future emotional experiences. This study aimed to investigate (a) the impact of task completion outcomes (success vs. failure) on affective forecasting bias in young and older adults and (b) the difference in sensitivity to task difficulty between predictors/forecasters and experiencers in the context of success or failure.
Methods: A total of 243 older adults and 240 young adults were recruited from China. A 2 (task difficulty: high vs. low) x 2 (role: predictor/forecaster vs. experiencer) x 2 (completion outcome: success vs. failure) x 2 (age: young vs. older) between-subjects design was employed.
Results: The results showed that (a) negative events led to affective forecasting bias in both young and older adults, but positive events did not have such an impact; (b) for young people, predictors/forecasters were more sensitive to task difficulty than were experiencers, regardless of the success or failure of the task; and (c) for older adults, predictors/forecasters and experiencers had similar sensitivity to task difficulty when the task was successful, whereas predictors/forecasters were more sensitive to difficulty than were experiencers when the task was unsuccessful.
Conclusion: These findings indicate that the influence of task difficulty on affective forecasting bias differs between older and young adults, and this age difference is partially related to their sensitivity to task difficulty.
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