1st
Stumbling on Happiness
We have brains that allow us to predict the future
We predict the future based on past memories
BUT our past memories are falliable: we tend to fill in details in our memories - we remember things not as they actually happened, but as we think they happened when we think about them in the future.
AND we predict poorly because
1. we fill in details that will never come to pass (we are optimists!)
2. we leave out (often unpleasant) details that do come to pass
ALSO when thinking about the future, we find it impossible to leave out how we are feeling now, and impossible to recognize how we will think about things that happen later.
SO how to make better predictions and thus be happier?
ASK PEOPLE WHO HAVE DONE WHAT YOU ARE THINKING ABOUT DOING
“when people are deprived of the information that imagination requires and are thus forced to use others as surrogates, they make remarkably accurate predictions about their future feelings.”
We Don’t Do This.
WHY?
- because we assume we are unique little snowflakes:
- we attribute other people’s choices to attirbutes of the chooser (“Phil picked English because he’s a literary type”), but attribute our choices to options (“I picked it because it is easier than economics”)
- recognize our decisions are influenced by social norms (“I was too embarrassed to raise my hand because I was super confused”, but don’t recognize others’ decisions are based on the same factors (“No one else raised a hand because nobody else was as confused as I”)
- Our choices reflect our aversions (“I voted for kerry b/c i can’t stand bush”) but assume others’ reflect their appetites (“if Leon voted for Kerry, it’s because he likes him”)
ALSO
- even though we aren’t special, the way we know ourselves is — we experience our own thoughts and feelings but must infer those of others
- we enjoy thinking of ourselves as special — we want to fit in, but not too well
- we tend to overestimate *everybody’s* uniqueness — despite having very similar characteristics (breathe oxygen, mostly water-based, big brains, etc) we focus on differences to decide who to hang out with, hump, and do business with. we are obsessed with differences and thus overestimate how different people are.
so, ask other people who have had similar experiences to predict how happy you’ll be!
“surrogation is a cheap and effective way to predict one’s future emotions, but because we don’t realize just how similar we all are, we reject this reliable method and rely instad on our imaginations, as flawed and falliable as they may be.”
