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The surprising science of happiness | Dan Gilbert

The surprising science of happiness | Dan Gilbert
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when you have 21 minutes to speak two
million years seems like a really long
time but evolutionarily two million
years is nothing and yet in two million
years the human brain has nearly tripled
in mass going from the one and a quarter
pound brain of our ancestor here habilis
to the almost three pound meatloaf that
everybody here has between their ears
what is it about a big brain that nature
was so eager for Everyone us to have one
well it turns out when brings triple in
size they don't just get three times
bigger they gain new structures and one
of the main reasons that our brain got
so big is because it got a new part
called the frontal lobe and particularly
a part called the prefrontal cortex now
what does the prefrontal cortex do for
you that should justify the entire
architectural overhaul of the human
skull in the blink of evolutionary time
well turns out the prefrontal cortex
does lots of things but one of the most
important things it does is it is an
experience simulator
you know flight pilots practice in
flight simulators so that they don't
make real mistakes and planes human
beings have this marvelous adaptation
that they can actually have experiences
in their heads before they try them out
in real life this is a trick that none
of our ancestors could do that no other
animal can do quite like we can it's a
marvellous adaptation it's up there with
opposable thumbs and standing upright
and language as one of the things that
got our species out of the trees and
into the shopping mall now all of you
have done this I mean you know Ben and
Jerry's doesn't have liver in onion ice
cream and it's not because they whipped
some up tried it and went yuck
it's because from without leaving your
armchair you can simulate that flavor
and say yuck before you make it let's
see how your experience simulators are
working let's just run a quick
diagnostic before I proceed with the
rest of the talk here's two different
futures that I invite you to contemplate
and you can try to simulate them and
tell me which one you think you
might prefer one of them is winning the
lottery this is about 314 million
dollars and the other is becoming
paraplegic
so just given a moment of thought you
probably don't feel like you need a
moment of thought and interestingly
there are data on these two groups of
people data on how happy they are and
this is exactly what you expected isn't
it but these aren't the data
I made these up these are the data you
failed the pop quiz in your hardly five
minutes into the lecture because the
fact is that a year after losing the use
of their legs and a year after winning
the lotto lottery winners and
paraplegics are equally happy with their
lives now don't feel too bad about
failing the first pop quiz because
everybody fails all of the pop quizzes
all of the time the research that my
laboratory has been doing that
economists and psychologists around the
country have been doing have revealed
something really quite startling to us
something we call the impact bias which
is the tendency for the simulator to
work badly for the simulator to make you
believe that different outcomes are more
different than in fact they really are
from field studies to laboratory studies
we see that winning or losing an
election gaining or losing a romantic
partner getting or not getting a
promotion passing or not passing a
college test on and on have far less
impact less intensity and much less
duration that people expect them to have
effect a recent study this almost fleurs
me a recent study showing how major life
traumas affect people suggests that if
it happened over three months ago with
only a few exceptions it has no impact
whatsoever on your happiness why because
happiness can be synthesized
Sir Thomas Brown wrote in 1642 I am the
happiest man alive I have that in me
that can convert poverty to riches
adversity to prosperity I am more in
vulnerable than Achilles fortune hath
not one place to hit me kind of
remarkable machinery does this guy have
in his head well it turns out it's
precisely the same remarkable motion
that all of us have human beings have
something that we might think of as a
psychological immune system a system of
cognitive processes largely non
conscious cognitive processes that help
them change their views of the world so
that they can feel better about the
worlds in which they find themselves
like Sir Thomas you have this machine on
like Sir Thomas you seem not to know it
we synthesize happiness but we think
happiness is a thing to be found now you
don't need me to tell you give you too
many examples of people synthesizing
happiness I suspect though I'm gonna
show you some experimental evidence you
don't have to look very far for evidence
I as a challenge to myself since I say
this once in a while in lectures I took
a copy of the New York Times and tried
to find some instances of people
synthesizing happiness and here are
three guys synthesizing happiness I'm so
much better off physically financially
emotionally in almost every other way
mentally almost every other way and I'm
a 1 minutes regret it was a glorious
experience I believe it turned out for
the best who are these characters who
are so damn happy well the first one is
Jim Wright some of you are old enough to
remember he was the chairman of the
House of Representatives and he resigned
in disgrace when this young Republican
named Newt Gingrich found out about a
shady book deal he had done he lost
everything most powerful Democrat in the
country lost everything lost his money
lost his power what does he have to say
all these years later about it I am so
much better off physically financially
mentally in almost every other way what
other way would there be to be better
off vegetable e minerally animal e he's
pretty much covered in there
Maurice victim is somebody you've never
heard of Maurice victim uttered these
words upon being released he was 78
years old he'd spent 37 years in
Louisiana State Penitentiary for a crime
he didn't commit he was ultimately
exonerated at the age of 78 through DNA
evidence and what did he have to say
about his experience I don't have one
minutes regret it was a glorious
experience glorious this guy is not
saying why are some nice guys there too
Jim its glorious a word we usually
reserved for something like a religious
experience Harriet's Langerman uttered
these words and he's somebody you might
have known but
because in 1949 he read a little article
in the paper about a hamburger stand
owned by these two brothers named
McDonald's and he thought that's a
really neat idea so he went to find them
they said we'd give you a franchise on
this for three thousand bucks Harry went
back to New York asked his brother who
was an investment banker to loan him the
three thousand dollars and his brothers
and mortal words were you idiot nobody
eats hamburgers he wouldn't land in the
money and of course six months later Ray
Kroc had exactly the same idea it turns
out people do eat hamburgers and Ray
Kroc for a while became the richest man
in America oh and then finally you know
the best of all possible worlds some of
you recognize this young photo of Pete
best who was the original drummer for
The Beatles until they you know kind of
like sent him out on an errand and snuck
away and picked up Ringo on a tour well
in 1994 when Pete best was interviewed
yes he's still a drummer yes he's a
studio musician he this to say I'm
happier than I would have been with the
Beatles okay there's something important
to be learned from these people and it
is the secret of happiness here it is
finally to be revealed
first accrue wealth power and prestige
than losing second spend as much of your
life in prison
as you possibly can third make somebody
else really really rich and finally
never ever join the Beatles
okay no I like zefrank can predict your
next thought which is yeah right because
when people synthesize happiness is
these gentlemen seem to have done we all
smile at them but we kind of roll our
eyes and say yeah right you never really
wanted the job oh yeah right
she you really didn't have that much in
common with her and you figured that out
just about the time she threw the
engagement ring in your face
we smirk because we believe that
synthetic happiness is not of the same
quality as what we might call natural
happiness what are these terms natural
happiness is what we get when we get
what we wanted and synthetic happiness
is what we make when we don't get what
we wanted and in our society we have a
strong belief that synthetic happiness
is of an inferior kind why do we have
that belief well it's very simple what
kind of economic engine would keep
churning if we believe that not getting
what we want could make us just as happy
as getting it with all apologies to my
friend matthieu ricard a shopping mall
full of Zen monks is not going to be
particularly profitable because they
don't want stuff enough I want to
suggest to you that synthetic happiness
is every bit as real and enduring as the
kind of happiness you stumble upon when
you get exactly what you were aiming for
now in a scientist so I'm gonna do this
not with a rhetoric but by marinating
you in a little bit of data let me first
show you an experimental paradigm that
is used to demonstrate the synthesis of
happiness among regular old folks and
this isn't mine there's a 50 year old
paradigm called the free choice paradigm
it's very simple you bring in say six
objects and you ask a subject to rank
them for the most of the least liked in
this case because the experiment I'm
going to tell you about uses them
these are Monet prints so everybody can
rank these Monet prints from the one
they liked the most to the one they
liked the least now we give you a choice
we happen to have some extra prints in
the closet we're gonna give you one as
your prize to take home we happen to
have number three and number four we
tell the subject there's a bit of a
difficult choice because neither one is
preferred strongly to the
there but naturally people tend to pick
number three because they liked it a
little better than number four sometime
later it could be 15 minutes it could be
15 days the same stimuli or put before
the subject and the subject is asked to
rewrite the stimuli
tell us how much you like them now what
happens watch as happiness is
synthesized this is the result that has
been replicated over and over again
you're watching happiness be synthesized
would you like to see it again happiness
the one I got is really better than I
thought that other one I didn't get
sucks
that's the synthesis of happiness now
what's the right response to that yeah
right now here's the experiment we did
and I hope this is gonna convince you
that yeah right was not the right
response we did this experiment with a
group of patients who had antara grade
amnesia these are hospitalized patients
most of them have korsakoff's syndrome
Paulina attic psychosis that they they
drank way too much and they can't make
new memories okay they remember their
childhood but if you walk in and
introduce yourself and then leave the
room when you come back they don't know
who you are
we took our Monet prints to the hospital
and we asked these patients to rank them
from the one they liked the most to the
one they liked the least we then gave
them the choice between number three and
number four like everybody else they
said gee thanks doc that's great I can
use a new print I'll take number three
we explained we would have number three
mailed to them we gathered up our
materials and we went out of the room
and counted to a half-hour back into the
room we say hi we're back the patients
bless them say doc I'm sorry I kind of
memory problems one here if I've met you
before I don't remember really Jim you
don't remember I was just here with the
Monet prints sorry doc I just don't have
a clue no problem Jim all I want you to
do is rank these for me from the one you
like the most to the one you like the
least
what do they do well let's first check
and make sure they're really amnesiac we
ask these amnesiac patients to tell us
which one they own which one they chose
which one is theirs and what we find is
have music patience just guess these are
normal controls with I did this with you
all of you would know which print you
chose but if I do this with amnesia
patients they don't have a clue they
can't pick their print out of a lineup
here's what normal controls do they
synthesize happiness right this is the
change in liking score the change for
the first time they ranked - the second
time they're ranked normal controls show
that was the magic I showed you now I'm
showing it to you in graphical form the
one I own is better than I thought the
one I didn't own the one I left behind
is not as good as I thought and Nix do
exactly the same thing think about this
result these people liked better the one
they own but they don't know they own it
Yeah right
is not the right response what these
people did when they synthesized
happiness is they really truly change
their affective hedonic aesthetic
reactions to that poster they're not
just singing it because they own it
because they don't know they own it now
when psychologists show you bars you
know that they are showing you averages
of lots of people and yet all of us have
this psychological immune system this
capacity to synthesize happiness but
some of us do this trick better than
others and some situations allow anybody
to do it more effectively than other
situations do it turns out that freedom
the ability to make up your mind and
change your mind is the friend of
natural happiness because it allows you
to choose among all those delicious
futures that and find the one that you
would most enjoy but freedom to choose
to change and make up your mind is the
enemy of synthetic happiness and I'm
gonna show you why
Dilbert already knows of course you're
reading the cartoon as I'm talking
dogbert's tech-support how come eh I
abuse you my printer prints a blank page
after every document why would you
complain about getting free paper freeze
the other users giving my own paper egad
man look at the quality of the free
paper compared to your lousy
regular paper only fool or a liar would
say that they look the same now that you
mention it it does seem a little silkier
what are you doing I'm helping people
accept the things they cannot change
indeed the psychological immune system
works best when we are totally stuck
when we are trapped this is this is the
difference from dating in marriage right
I mean you go out on a date with a guy
and he picks his nose you don't go out
on another date you're married to a guy
and he picks his nose you know he has a
heart of gold don't touch the fruitcake
right you find a way to be happy with
what's happened now what I want to show
you is that people don't know this about
themselves and not knowing this can work
to our supreme disadvantage here's an
experiment we did it Harvard we created
a photography course a black-and-white
photography course and we allowed
students to come in and learn how to use
a darkroom so we gave them cameras they
went around campus they took 12 pictures
of their favorite professors in their
dorm room and their you know their dog
and all the other things they wanted to
have Harvard memories of they bring us
the camera we make up a contact sheet
they figure out which are the two best
pictures and we now spend six hours
teaching them about dark rooms and they
blow two of them up and they have two
gorgeous eight-by-ten glossies of
meaningful things to them and we say
which one would you like to give up I
have to give one up oh yes we need one
is evidence of the class project so you
have to give me one you have to make a
choice you get to keep one and I get to
keep one now there are two conditions in
this experiment in one case the students
are told but you know if you want to
change your mind I'll always have the
other one here and in the next four days
before I actually mail it to
headquarters I'd be glad to headquarters
I'll be glad to swap it out with you in
fact I'll come to your dorm room and
give just give me an email better yet
I'll check with you you ever want to
change your mind it's totally returnable
the other half of the students are told
exactly the opposite make your choice
and by the way the mail is going out
gosh in two minutes to England your
picture will be winging its way over the
Atlantic you will never see it again
now half of the students in each of
these conditions are asked to make
predictions about how much they're going
to come to
the picture that they keep in the
picture they leave behind other students
are just sent back to their little dorm
rooms and they are measured over the
next 6 to 3 to 6 days on their liking
satisfaction with the pictures and look
at what we find first of all here's what
students think is going to happen they
think they're gonna maybe come to like
the picture they chose a little more
than the one they left behind but these
are not statistically significant
differences it really it's this very
small increase and it doesn't much
matter whether they were in the
reversible or irreversible condition
wrong Oh bad simulators because here's
what's really happening both right
before the swap and five days later
people who are stuck with that picture
who have no choice who can never change
their mind liked it a lot and people who
are deliberating should I return it have
I gotten the right one maybe this isn't
the good one maybe I left the good one
have killed themselves they don't like
their picture and in fact even after the
opportunity to swap has expired they
still don't like their picture why
because the irreversible condition is
not conducive to the synthesis of
happiness so here's the final piece of
this experiment we bring in a whole new
group of naive Harvard students and we
say you know we're doing a photography
course and we can do it one of two ways
we could do it so that when you take the
two pictures you'd have four days to
change your mind oh we're doing another
course where you take the two pictures
and you make up your mind right away and
you can never change it which course
would you like to be in sixty-six
percent of the students two-thirds
prefer to be in the course where they
have the opportunity to change their
mind hello sixty-six percent of the
students choose to be in the course in
which they will ultimately be deeply
dissatisfied with the picture because
they do not know the conditions under
which synthetic happiness grows the Bard
said everything best of course and he's
making my point here but he's making it
hyperbolically it is nothing good or bad
but thinking makes it so
it's nice poetry but that can't exist
we be right is there really nothing good
or bad is it really the case that
gallbladder surgery and a trip to Paris
are just the same thing yeah there that
seems like a one-question IQ test
they can't be exactly the same in more
turgid pros but closer to the truth was
the father of modern capitalism Adam
Smith and he said this this is worth
contemplating the great source of both
the misery and disorders of human life
seems to arise from overrating the
difference between one permanent
situation and another some of these
situations may no doubt deserve to be
preferred to others but none of them can
be desert none of them can deserve to be
pursued with that passionate ardor which
drives us to violate the rules either of
prudence or of justice or to corrupt the
future tranquillity of our minds either
by shame from the remembrance of our own
folly or by remorse for the horror of
our own injustice in other words yes
some things are better than others we
should have preferences that lead us
into one future over another but when
those preferences drive us too hard and
too fast because we have overrated the
difference between these futures we are
at risk when our ambition is bounded it
leads us to work joyfully when our
ambition is unbounded it leads us to lie
to cheat to steal to hurt others to
sacrifice things of real value when our
fears are bounded we're prudent we're
cautious
we're thoughtful when our fears are
unbounded and overblown we're reckless
and we're cowardly the lesson I want to
leave you with from these data is that
our longings and our worries are both to
some degree overblown because we have
within us the capacity to manufacture
the very commodity we are constantly
chasing when we choose experience thank
you
you

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