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The Mind and the Future

The (Negative) Power of Expectations

Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, National Research Council of Italy, miceli{at}ip.rm.cnr.it

Cristiano Castelfranchi

Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, National Research Council of Italy, castel{at}ip.rm.cnr.it

We try to identify the configurations of beliefs and goals typical of the various kinds of representation of the future: forecasts, hopes and fears, and a particular kind of anticipatory representations that we call `hope-casts' and `fear-casts', which are supposed to imply not only forecasts and either hopes or fears, but also a normative component according to which the expected event `ought' to happen. We address the psychological consequences of hope-casts, either before or after the expected event comes true or false, and point to the sense of injustice and loss produced by violated hope-casts. We also address individual differences in dealing with violated hope-casts, and the possible role played by just-world beliefs, optimism and defensive pessimism. Finally, we compare our model with related approaches, and stress the negative potential of hope-casts in terms of the negative attitudes associated with them, which hamper people's ability to cope with disappointment.

Key Words: disappointment • forecast • hope • sense of injustice

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