Author(s)

Tan Fei

Jinan University, Guangzhou, China.

Prospect theory study found that people’s perception of the loss was greater than the strength obtained (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979), and the cognitive processes of “priority processing trend of negative events” thought that negative events would be priority processing than positive events (Huang & Luo, 2009). Researchers infer that when people focus on the lack of real life, it will produce the missing amplification effect, and this will further affect people’s well-being experiences. We used three experiments to test our hypotheses. Experiment 1 was between subjects design, and found that focusing missing was widespread, in addition, focusing missing and happy experience were negative correlation; Experiment 2 was picture experiment, and found that “missing amplification effect” existed. The greater the missing amplified effect, the lower the happiness; Experiment 3 merged experiment 1 and experiment 2, And found that the intermediary role between focusing missing and happy experience. Through the above three experiments, we concluded that: focusing missing leaded low happy experience, and missing amplification effect was the psychological mechanisms to explain why the focusing missing leaded to the low happy experience.

Experienced Happiness, Focusing Illusion, Focusing Missing, Missing Amplification Effect

Fei, T. (2015) Missing Amplification Effect: Focusing Missing Leads to Low Happiness Experience. Psychology, 6, 2171-2187. doi: 10.4236/psych.2015.616214.