Stumbling on Happiness
by Daniel Todd Gilbert
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22:03
Author speaks and shows slides in TED format
2.1M
11K
Jan, 2007
Spoiler:
The author explains that the human brain has tripled in mass over the last 2 million years, most of that new mass being attributed to a change in brain structure that gave us the prefrontal cortex. He calls this part of the brain a “simulator” that allows us to imagine future experiences and how they will make us feel. However, he says we are terrible at imagining the impact of future events on our happiness, wildly overestimating how happy or unhappy something will make us.
51:05
Author shows slides and explains data collected on happiness
67K
782
Jan, 2015
Spoiler:
The author details several experiments his lab has conducted on how humans predict future happiness. For example, people asked to eat potato chips at a table that includes chocolate predict that they will enjoy them less than people asked to eat potato chips at a table that includes a less desirable food like canned meat. However, it turns out that both groups enjoy the potato chips equally. His point is that humans are not good at accurately imagining future feelings.
4:07
Book summary and review in talking-head format
6K
149
Jul, 2021
Spoiler:
Advising that this book and others like it can possibly save us a lot of time and suffering, the reviewer also warns that Stumbling on Happiness will be a big “reality check” for some readers. He says that the book doesn’t so much address happiness but rather the way that we create unhappiness for ourselves by incorrectly assuming that the future will be very much like the present. We can avoid this by creating a written record of our decisions and the attached feelings.
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