Adaptive expectations

Adaptive expectations is the theory that people look at past experience and gradually adapt their beliefs and behavior as circumstances change.

Definitions

According to Principles of Economics by Timothy Taylor (3rd edition),

Adaptive expectations. The theory that people look at past experience and gradually adapt their beliefs and behavior as circumstances change.

According to Macroeconomics by Mankiw (7th edition),

Adaptive expectations. An approach that assumes that people form their expectation of a variable based on recently observed values of the variable. (Cf. rational expectations.)