Why Do We Judge the Future More Harshly Than the Past?

How many times in your life have you said, "I will never accept this," or "I will not allow anything to happen to me," or if I do, will I take immediate action? And yet, when you are faced with fulfillment, forget to do what you promised. Go over it, find justifications, and stop judging things that have happened so harshly compared to how you thought about them when you just thought it might happen. Next, we will see why we end up behaving this way, why we judge the future more harshly than the past.

"If he cheated on me I would leave him without blinking"

About blurred emotions, judgment on the future, and forgiveness of infidelities

When we think about future events, we tend to feel more intense emotions than in the past, according to research from the University of Chicago.

The fact that an event has taken place or will take place affects the perception of its correctness and morality, so judgments tend to become much more drastic when we think of insults or problems that might occur than when we think of those that have already happened.

A very good example of this would be women's perception of men's infidelity. When you talk about this topic with almost any woman, she will tell you that if her boyfriend or husband cheats on her, she will leave him without blinking.

However, in practice, this rarely happens. Many of the women continue to stand by unfaithful partners, and some of them even end up blaming themselves or finding excuses for them.

In one of the study's experiments, participants were asked how they felt about a soft drink juicer that automatically raised prices in the hot season. When told that this would happen next month, participants felt more strongly that the price increase was incorrect compared to another group who were told that the device was set to increase prices a month earlier.

Thus, people feel that a future offense should be punished more severely. Maybe that's why there is the saying "never say never". Because when you think about something in the future, you tend to be much harsher than when this has already happened to you. In this idea, people probably tend to say "better to prevent than to fix."

The good of the future is better, and the bad of the past is less bad

The fact that future events trigger stronger emotional responses also applies to good things. The results of another experiment showed that charitable donations made people feel better and categorized them as more generous when they were about to be made than when they were told they had happened in the past.

You have probably already experienced this sensation in everyday life when you were promised a gift for example. We tend to be more enthusiastic when we are about to get something we like, than sometime later when emotions tend to fade and things lose their importance.

Why is the future more evocative than the present?

In general, people respond to future events with stronger emotions as a form of personal preparation for action, said Eugene Caruso, a professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago. Therefore, even if people have no control over the events that are about to take place, this predetermined way of reacting to the future persists.

People seem to know how to rationalize and understand emotional experiences. Once these events are over, they become commonplace and the emotions associated with them become less intense.

This can also be an explanation of habit, a phenomenon that is installed in each of us in connection with things that are familiar to us. Maybe that's why love if we link it to intense emotions, tends to fade in a marriage.

If the evil of the past is perceived less dramatically than the evil of the future, a perverse consequence of this is that past injustice will be viewed with a lesser desire to punish them severely than future wrongdoings.

Therefore, those who intend to behave immorally may benefit from the fact that people tend to forgive past transgressions more easily than future ones. This can apply to both individuals and corporations or governments that decide to engage in risky or immoral actions, expecting the consequences to be less severe once the events have taken place.

However, we can also look at the positive side of this fact, namely that this way of reacting helps us to overcome the unpleasant things we go through much easier.