Misjudged moments: forecasting bias in minimal social interactions and its role in daily happiness

Official URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2026.2714539

Previous research in Western cultures shows that conversations with strangers contribute to happiness, yet people underestimate how pleasant these interactions will be. It remains unclear, however, whether this forecasting bias extends to interactions with weak ties (i.e. acquaintances), generalizes to non-Western contexts, and which forms of prediction-experience (mis)alignment are linked to happiness. In a daily diary study in Turkiye, participants predicted the pleasantness of their future conversations with weak ties and strangers at baseline. Over the next 21 days, they reported actual conversation pleasantness and daily happiness. Participants underestimated conversation pleasantness for both weak ties and strangers. Forecasting bias alone was not significantly associated with happiness. However, response surface analyses showed that people felt happier when predicted and actual conversation pleasantness matched at high versus low levels. Moreover, underestimating (vs. overestimating) pleasantness was associated with greater happiness, but only for weak-tie conversations.