A cognitive bias showing that people remember experiences based on the most intense moment and the ending.
What the Peak-End Rule Is About
In 2002, Nobel Prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman introduced the Peak-End Rule, a concept that explains how we remember experiences.
According to this rule, people's memories of an event don't necessarily align with how they felt during the entire experience. Instead, their recollections are shaped by two key moments: the peak (the most intense part) and the end.
If both the peak and the end are pleasant, our brain convinces us that the entire experience was enjoyable—even if parts of it were less than ideal.
In other words, we evaluate experiences based on these two moments, rather than the finer details or the overall average.
