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“We believe that having a longer duration of pain is worse than a shorter duration and that having a greater average level of pain is worse than having a lower average level. But this wasn’t what the patients reported at all. Their final ratings largely ignored the duration of pain. Instead, the ratings were predicted by what Kahneman termed the “Peak-End rule”: an average of the pain experienced at just two moments - the single worst moment of the procedure and the very end.” — Atul Gawande
We believe that having a longer duration of pain is worse than a shorter duration and that having a greater average level of pain is worse than having a lower average level. But this wasn’t what the patients reported at all. Their final ratings largely ignored the duration of pain. Instead, the ratings were predicted by what Kahneman termed the “Peak-End rule”: an average of the pain experienced at just two moments - the single worst moment of the procedure and the very end.