Psychology Big Ideas Cognitive Science

Stumbling on Happiness (Summary)

by Daniel Gilbert

Imagine two people: one just won the lottery, the other just became a paraplegic. A year later, who is happier? The shocking answer from research is that they are likely to be equally happy. Our brains have a powerful 'psychological immune system' that synthesizes happiness when things go wrong, but we are completely blind to its existence, causing us to chronically misjudge what will actually make us happy.

Your Brain is a Bad Simulator

We predict our future happiness by imagining future events, but our imagination is lazy and biased. It fills in details from the present and leaves out crucial context, leading to systematic errors in what Gilbert calls 'affective forecasting'.

When you imagine a delicious dinner at your favorite restaurant next week, you don't imagine the annoying traffic on the way there, the loud couple at the next table, or the fact you might have a stressful day at work beforehand. Your brain simulates the best-case scenario, ignoring the countless real-world details that will actually define the experience.

You Have a Psychological Immune System

Our minds have a powerful, non-conscious system for rationalizing and reframing negative events, allowing us to 'synthesize' happiness even when we don't get what we wanted. We fail to anticipate this, so we overestimate the long-term emotional impact of failures and misfortunes.

In one experiment, students were asked to choose a photograph to keep from a set they had taken. One group was told their choice was final; the other was told they could swap it later. The group whose choice was final ended up much happier with their photo. Their psychological immune system kicked in, finding reasons to love the choice they were stuck with.

The Best Way to Predict Your Future Happiness Is to Ask a Stranger

Instead of trusting our flawed imagination, the most accurate way to predict how we'll feel about a future experience is to find someone who is currently having that experience and ask them how they feel. We resist this advice because we believe we are unique, but our emotional reactions are far more similar than we think.

To know if you'll enjoy being a lawyer, don't imagine yourself in a courtroom like on TV. Go talk to a random, mid-career lawyer about their day-to-day satisfaction. Their present reality is a far better predictor of your future experience than your own fantasized version of it.

Your Present Feelings Taint Your Future Predictions

Our current emotional state heavily influences how we imagine our future self will feel, a bias Gilbert calls 'presentism.' We find it nearly impossible to imagine a future that feels different from the present moment.

If you go grocery shopping when you're starving, you'll buy far more food than you need. Your current hunger makes it almost impossible to accurately simulate what your future, non-hungry self will want. Your present state is projected onto your future self, leading to a cart full of unnecessary snacks.

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