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Many important life decisions are guided, in part, by how we think such decisions will impact us emotionally. For example, many people decide to propose to their dating partner because they believe that such a decision will ensure romantic happiness for the rest of their lives. However, current divorce rates suggest that many people who chose to marry erred in this prediction (Munson & Sutton, 2006). Such affective prediction errors are not limited to choosing a mate: Results from affective forecasting research suggest that people tend to inaccurately predict future happiness across a wide variety of life domains, including career promotions, sports victories, and food preferences (Wilson & Gilbert, 2003). Recent affective forecasting research has moved beyond the mere observation of the forecasting error across different life domains and seeks to better understand the processes causing the error. This research has addressed questions related to: (1) the sources of information that are used to make affective forecasts; (2) the mental processes that contribute to the production of such forecasts; (3) the role of emotional intelligence in affective forecasting; and (4) variables that alter the extremity of the affective forecasts that are produced (Dunn, Brackett, Ashton-James, Schneiderman, & Salovey, 2006; Gilbert, Gill, & Wilson, 2002; Gilbert, Lieberman, Morewedge, & Wilson, 2004; Morewedge, Gilbert, & Wilson 2005; Wilson, Wheatley, Meyers, Gilbert, & Axsom, 2000). Following in this tradition of better understanding the cognitive processing associated with affective forecasting, the research described in the present article explored another possible cognitive influence in affective forecasting: Individual difference variables that are related to the extremity of affective forecasts made after imagining significant life events. One way to approach individual differences in affective forecasting is to focus on how forecasts are impacted by the self-relevance or self-importance of a future event. Studies in this literature (e.g., Morewedge, Gilbert, & Wilson, 2005; Wilson, Wheatley, Meyers, Gilbert, & Axsom, 2000) have often used event domains (e.g., football game outcomes) of obvious personal relevance to forecasters (football fans). However, to our knowledge, research has not yet examined how the degree of event self-relevance influences affective forecasts. Accordingly, the research described in this article investigated the extent to which the affective forecast depends on the match between the characteristics of the event and the personal values held by the forecaster. It seems reasonable to speculate that self-relevance may impact an affective forecast. Ample research has shown that self-relevant goals and values influence the way people see and respond to the world (Bargh, 1982; Moskowitz, Salomon, & Taylor, 2000). The same bias should apply to affective forecasts. Needless to say, countless individual differences might impact our affective forecasts about pertinent life events: Being a Pittsburgh Steelers fan could influence the fervor with which you anticipate the next football season, being highly politically active could influence your anticipation for the next presidential election, or being neurotic could influence your affective forecast about missing the morning train. Out of the innumerable individual differences that could be tested, the current research focused on materialism. For our purposes, materialism is defined as a personal value in which gaining material wealth is an important life focus, and it is a well established topic within psychology (for review, see Kasser, 2002). It makes a reasonable choice for our individual difference variable for several reasons. First, it is relatively easy to construct scenarios in which equivalent amounts of material gains and losses occur. Moreover, manipulation of scenarios in such terms suggests the possibility that future lines of research can link with other seemingly relevant theoretical and empirical domains, such as Kahneman and Tversky's Prospect Theory (1979), a possibility previously suggested by Kermer, Driver-Lynn, Wilson, and Gilbert (2006). …
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