Abstract: Focusing illusion refers to a tendency that individuals fail to estimate how focal event would affect their emotion when they are making an affective forecasting. Focusing illusion is a major explanation for affective forecasting bias. There are two psychological mechanisms of focusing illusion: intuitive prediction and accessibility model. The factors to influence focusing illusion are: valence and feature of the predicted event, context, habit and cultural difference and so on. The strategies to deal with the focusing illusion are: defocusing and affective averaging. Future research shall clarify the relationship between focusing illusion and fail to considerate emotional adaptation, to deepen our understanding of its original roots and to clarify the relationship between focusing illusion and other focusing effects.

Key words: focusing illusion, intuitive prediction, accessibility model, affective forecasting