As people, we always assume how we will react in a serious matter. We always think to ourselves, "I can handle this" and when the time comes we react differently than we had thought. An idea that was intelligently proposed by economist George Lowenstein was the “empathy gap”. The “empathy gap” explained how people would predict how they would react in a hot state when they are currently in a cold state. A hot state would be anger for example where one acts when not thinking straight or when they act based on their emotions. There are various hot states like lust, anxiety, courage, fear and sexual excitation. It is just a state that you do things without thinking about the consequences. A cold state would be when a person is at ease and relaxed.
An example of this from my life experience was confronting my friend about a secret I had told her. When I first learned that she had told some of her friends that I didn’t trust I thought I could handle it. I thought I’d be able to talk to her in a calm matter and tell her that I didn’t like what she had done. When the time came, I felt anger burst within me and felt like I couldn’t hold it in. I went up to her and told her she was a bad friend for doing what she did and had told her many other things. I acted upon how I was feeling and was different than what I had expected when I was in my cold state.
Another example in my life that falls into the empathy gap would be a time in my senior year of high school. I had been put in an advanced chemistry course in Hunter College. My first impression and what I was thinking was that I could handle it. I thought the work was going to be easy and I’d get an easy A. I was in a calm state as I thought in my mind that this would be an easy course.
Finals week was around the corner and I was so nervous and scared that I’d fail. I was worried that this chemistry class would be my destruction as it was the second college credit I was receiving. I had thought that this class was very difficult and felt like I couldn’t do it. I had predicted very wrong when I was in my calm state. As I was experiencing the anxiety hot state, I felt so different about passing the chemistry final. I had gotten a C in that class, which wasn’t what I expected. My outcome was different than what I had predicted and felt in my cold state. It comes to show that humans make a lot of predictions that don't follow through. We all act on how we feel sometimes and don't think twice about it.
