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The surprising science of happiness | Dan Gilbert

Name: The surprising science of happiness | Dan Gilbert
Uploaded: 2026-09-03T16:49:25.352Z
Description: [Music] 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…

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[Music]

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

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