Durability bias

Biological Parallel

Territorial fish like three-spine sticklebacks experience intense aggression when defending spawning sites—but once intruders retreat, arousal fades within minutes and normal foraging resumes. Sustained aggression would waste energy needed for reproduction. Durability bias—overestimating how long emotions will last—stems from the mismatch between emotion intensity (which must be high to motivate action) and duration (which evolved to be short to conserve resources). We conflate intensity with duration: just as the stickleback's rage feels overwhelming in the moment but dissipates rapidly, our predicted long-term misery typically yields to faster adaptation than anticipated.