Ask people who’ve been there instead of imagining it
Other people’s actual experiences predict your future feelings more accurately than your own imagination.
Key takeaways
- What it is: Other people’s actual experiences predict your future feelings more accurately than your own imagination.
- Why it works: Gilbert and colleagues found that "surrogation" — asking someone who is currently experiencing a future state how they feel — outperforms personal simulation for predicting emotional responses. This works because imagination recruits the errors of focalism and impact bias; a real person in that real situation has already been moderated by context, adaptation, and all the other factors imagination ignores.
- Evidence: Backed by observational / correlational evidence.
- Avoid: Finding surrogates but selectively weighting the ones whose experience confirms your preferred outcome — this preserves the bias while appearing to use the technique.
Why it works
Gilbert and colleagues found that "surrogation" — asking someone who is currently experiencing a future state how they feel — outperforms personal simulation for predicting emotional responses. This works because imagination recruits the errors of focalism and impact bias; a real person in that real situation has already been moderated by context, adaptation, and all the other factors imagination ignores.
How to do it
- 1Before a major decision, find people who have recently made the same choice and are living with its consequences.
- 2Ask them directly: "How do you actually feel about it now, a year in?"
- 3Weight their answers more heavily than your own simulation of how the outcome would feel.
What the evidence says
ObservationalGilbert, Killingsworth et al. showed surrogation outperformed personal simulation in predicting emotional outcomes in controlled experiments. Most participants resisted using surrogate data, preferring their own (inferior) imagination.
Honest caveat: Most people find surrogate data psychologically unsatisfying — they want to believe their situation is unique enough to require personal simulation. The bias against using surrogates is itself real.
- — Gilbert et al. (2009), The surprising power of neighborly advice, Science
Common mistake
Finding surrogates but selectively weighting the ones whose experience confirms your preferred outcome — this preserves the bias while appearing to use the technique.
IX Coach can prompt you to seek surrogate information before major life decisions, surfacing questions to ask people already living the future you’re contemplating.
Practice this with IX Coach →