Article

Predicting a changing taste: Do people know what they will like?

  1. Daniel Kahneman1,†,*,
  2. Jackie Snell2,‡,*

Article first published online: 15 SEP 2006

DOI: 10.1002/bdm.3960050304

Issue

Journal of Behavioral Decision Making

Journal of Behavioral Decision Making

Volume 5, Issue 3, pages 187–200, July/September 1992

Additional Information

How to Cite

Kahneman, D. and Snell, J. (1992), Predicting a changing taste: Do people know what they will like?. J. Behav. Decis. Making, 5: 187–200. doi: 10.1002/bdm.3960050304

Author Information

  1. 1

    University of California, USA

  2. 2

    San Jose State University, USA

  1. †

    Professor of Psychology at the University of California at Berkeley

  2. ‡

    Assistant Professor of Marketing at San JosC State University

*Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA

Publication History

  1. Issue published online: 15 SEP 2006
  2. Article first published online: 15 SEP 2006
  3. Manuscript Revised: 13 DEC 1991
  4. Manuscript Received: 12 SEP 1990

Funded by

  • Office of Naval Research and by the SIoan Foundation
  • Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

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Keywords:

  • Self-prediction;
  • Utility;
  • Temporal preferences

Abstract

A distinction is made between decision utility, experienced utility, and predicted utility and an experiment is reported addressing people's ability to forecast experienced utility. Subjects in two experiments made predictions of their future liking for stimuli to which they were then exposed daily for one week. The stimuli were ice cream in a pilot study, plain yogurt in the main study, and short musical pieces in both studies. Decreased liking was the modal prediction, even when the true outcome was increased liking, or reduced dislike. There was substantial stability of tastes, but there were also substantial individual differences in the size and even the sign of changes in liking with repeated exposure. There was little or no correlation between the predictions of hedonic change that individuals made and the changes they actually experienced.

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