Hot-cold Empathy Gap

What is it?

The hot-cold empathy gap, researched extensively by George Loewenstein, describes our difficulty predicting how we'll feel and behave in different emotional states. When "cold" (calm, satiated, comfortable), we underestimate the influence of "hot" states (angry, hungry, aroused, in pain) on our decisions. When hot, we underestimate how differently we'll feel when cold. This creates systematic prediction errors. Satiated, we underestimate how hungry we will be later; hungry, we shop as if the craving will last and overbuy groceries. Calm, we underestimate how anger will affect our negotiations. Comfortable, we underestimate how pain will affect our judgment. The gap works in both directions: while experiencing strong emotions, we fail to recognize how temporary they are and make decisions we'll later regret. The empathy gap also affects our understanding of others: we struggle to empathize with someone in a different emotional state. People in drug withdrawal are often judged harshly by those who have never felt a strong craving. Strategies to bridge the gap include making important decisions in neutral states, building in cooling-off periods before consequential choices, using precommitment devices, and actively imagining (through visualization or even mild exposure) how the target emotional state might affect judgment.