Barbara Fredrickson

Who they are

Her two studies used film clips rather than pain. Thirty-two people watched pleasant and unpleasant clips and rated them moment by moment, then gave a verdict at the end. Ninety-six more ranked the clips afterwards for how much each part contributed to the overall feeling. Longer unpleasant clips were rated about the same as shorter ones. What predicted the verdict was the worst moment and the last moment.

Two terms, plainly. Duration neglect is the finding that how long an episode lasted barely affects how it is scored afterwards. The snapshot model is the account of why: memory keeps a couple of representative moments rather than a running total, so the total drops out.

She is also second author on the 1993 cold-water study that Kahneman led, which is separately his.

The correction this page makes. The record here had the attribution wrong twice. It first credited Kahneman alone. It was then corrected to Donald Redelmeier and Kahneman, which fixed the famous-name problem and created a chronology problem, because Redelmeier's papers are the medical applications and come three years later. Duration neglect and the snapshot model are Fredrickson and Kahneman, 1993, with Fredrickson first. That correction was made in the open on 11 September 2026, and the house rule it enforces is to credit the first author.

What is not established here. Nothing beyond her authorship on these two papers has been verified in this vault, and no affiliation is recorded because none has been checked. She is also widely known for the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotion and for work in positive psychology, some of which has been publicly contested. None of that has been read or verified here, so this site makes no claim about it in either direction, and this page should not be used as a source on it.

Key papers

Fredrickson, B. L., & Kahneman, D. (1993). "Duration neglect in retrospective evaluations of affective episodes", Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65(1), 45 to 55. First author. Thirty-two participants in the first study, ninety-six in the second. The founding paper for duration neglect and the snapshot model.

Kahneman, D., Fredrickson, B. L., Schreiber, C. A., & Redelmeier, D. A. (1993). "When more pain is preferred to less: adding a better end", Psychological Science, 4(6), 401 to 405. Second author, on the cold-water demonstration.

Key ideas

Credit the first author. On duration neglect that is Fredrickson. Not Kahneman, and not Redelmeier.

The founding evidence was never the colonoscopy study. It was film clips, rated as they played, three years earlier. The medical work is Donald Redelmeier's and comes later.

The design matters for anyone generalising from it. A few minutes of video in a laboratory, rated immediately, is a long way from a fortnight away. Any article reaching from this result to holidays should say so.

Concepts on this site

Duration Neglect, her finding

Peak-End Rule, the sibling claim, which does not survive in its strong form

The Experiencing Self and the Remembering Self, the account of why the clock drops out

---