Differential partitioning of extended experiences

This article focuses on the effect of the perceived cohesiveness of experiences, whether composed of single or multiple parts, on their overall hedonic evaluations. Four experiments demonstrate the effects of partitioning on decision makers evaluation of extended experiences. First, patterns (i.e., improving vs. deteriorating trends) strongly influence how experiences are evaluated. Second, increased partitioning of an experience reduces the effect of the overall trend and results in more equal weighting of its parts. Third, breaking experiences at strategic points (i.e., local maxima and minima) influences the overall evaluation of experiences as well as the prediction of their future levels. These results suggest that components of sequences are evaluated similarly to the way whole sequences are evaluated and that experiences composed of multiple components are evaluated relatively more on the basis of their individual intensity and less based on their overall pattern. 2003 Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.