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    Psychol Sci. 2003 Sep;14(5):520-4.

    What to do on spring break? The role of predicted, on-line, and remembered experience in future choice.

    Wirtz D, Kruger J, Napa Scollon C, Diener E.

    University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL 61820, USA. d-wirtz@s.psych.uiuc.edu

    When individuals choose future activities on the basis of their past experiences, what guides those choices? The present study compared students' predicted, on-line, and remembered spring-break experiences, as well as the influence of these factors on students' desire to take a similar vacation in the future. Predicted and remembered experiences were both more positive-and, paradoxically, more negative-than on-line experiences. Of key importance, path analyses revealed that remembered experience, but neither on-line nor anticipated experience, directly predicted the desire to repeat the experience. These results suggest that although on-line measures may be superior to retrospective measures for approximating objective experience, retrospective measures may be superior for predicting choice.

    PMID: 12930487 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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