The Chicago Tribune had an interesting article this morning about how the dread of anticipating a painful event is worse than the pain itself:
"Now researchers using brain scans to unravel the biology of dread have an explanation: For some people, anticipating pain is as bad as experiencing it. How bad? Among people who volunteered to receive electric shocks, almost a third opted for a stronger zap if they could just get it over with, instead of having to wait…Standard economic theory says that people should postpone bad outcomes for as long as possible, because something might happen in the interim to improve the outlook."
In business, the anticipation of what will happen sometimes is better or worse than what actually does happen.
