stumbling+on+happiness

Bridget Fox Moeller Stumbling on Happiness Review 10 December 2008

Stumbling on Happiness was published in 2006 as a response to some of the most seemingly simple questions. Within the book author Daniel Gilbert, a renowned Harvard psychologist, attempts to answer such commonly pondered questions as, “Why am I not happier?” and “What makes me happy?” In attempting to do so Gilbert reveals the inner workings of the brain, and why so many people question their happiness. The author composes three focal points through the novel, including: 1. When humans envision their state of mind, key details are often missing. 2. When the future is imagined often times it is much less elaborate than expected. Also, majority of the time the future is largely reliant on the current feelings of the human, which in turn skews feelings of the future. 3. When key events occur in reality, psychologically the stance in which the event is viewed can largely differ. Many times the human brain protects itself from undesired depression or sadness by blocking negative effects of an event. Upon these Gilbert largely focuses, and throughout the book each section further develops one of these three key concepts. (Discussers stay with me, the concepts Gilbert proposes are often confusing, but I will do my best to clarify!) To begin, Gilbert explains a common psychologist practice, “The Sentence.” “The Sentence,” in short, is the defining moment of a psychologists’ career. It’s the make or break point, and what an individual’s lifelong profession can be boiled down to. Thus, Gilbert explains that he has never personally stated his “Sentence,” but does so saying “The human being is the only animal that thinks about the future.” To clarify Gilbert proceeds by explaining how and why the human being so often ponders its future. He refers to the act of predicting, pondering, daydreaming, etc. as “nexting,” during which the human brain processes thoughts of the future. The reason for “nexting?” Gilbert explains that humans “next” for two basic reasons: 1. “Nexting” is a form of satisfaction and allows humans to place themselves in ideal situations. A person’s future according to that person will always be bright, and thus pleasurable. 2. Seeing the future allows humans to place control over their lives. Humans like control, especially when it’s in their hands and over their own lives. However, within this section of the book Gilbert furthers by adding that overzealous imaginations often lead to let down for “The future is fundamentally different” than what humans present it to be. Section two of the book reviews subjectivity concerning happiness. Here Gilbert reveals that although happiness may be measured, a concise and accurate account is few and hard to come by. When reviewing happiness there is no easy way to scale or measure it, for happiness is a “subjective feeling.” For example, when measuring a single person’s present happiness with the happiness of the past, the measurement can be extremely inaccurate. Often the recollection of a past time is glossy and extremely exaggerated, for the brain often fails to recall frustrations within this memory, or differences within the recollection of the past and the reality of it. Gilbert exemplifies such a situation with an experiment involving a paint swatch. Gilbert describes that a paint swatch was handed out to several volunteers, during which the volunteers had 5 seconds to study the swatch. Half of the volunteers were told to spend thirty seconds describing the swatch, while the other half simply viewed the swatch. Then, the researchers retrieved the swatches, and thirty seconds later revealed a line up of paint swatches, one of which matched the one that was reviewed. Surprisingly enough 73 percent of the group that simply viewed the swatch was able to accurately identify the correct sample. On the other hand, only 33 percent of those that spoke throughout their observations were capable of identifying the correct swatch. Researchers concluded that those who spoke throughout observations overshadowed their true thoughts and collections of the swatch, with their thoughts on the experience. In other words, the babble humans present as memories of pastimes are often inaccurate accounts of what a person believes happened or psychologically wished. With this, it makes it quite difficult to compare the inaccurate pleasure of the past with the contentment of the present. In response, Gilbert’s next chapter is entitled “Realism.” Within the chapter Gilbert proposes the “What it would feel like,” or “What if” statements and comments that these statements truly cannot be accurately answered. All answers other than those which result from being in the actual “what if” situation are disregarded for ultimately no one knows the full circumstances of the situation. Gilbert states the common example of talking a walk in someone else’s shoes, but clarifies in saying that just because we don’t agree with the conclusions the owner of the shoes has made, doesn’t mean they’re wrong. In fact, it most likely means there’s something left that this borrower of shoes is unaware of. Gilbert transitions to say that this misunderstanding is due to a common trick the brain often plays. This trick being, that the brain with its vast capacity “cheats” so to say. In order to cram new information into the brain, rather than recalling a complete account of an experience, the brain summarizes, and creates what Gilbert refers to as “threads.” Each strand is a link to an occurrence, however rather than accurately recalling each specific detail, the brain simply fills in the gaps on the thread. In doing so, often times the accounts may be flawed, since complete detail was never stored in the brain. What we also commonly fail to do is realistically note what we do and do not imagine. Just as easily as we compose the images within each thread, we equally “fail to consider how much it [the brain] leaves out.” So, the retelling of occurrences clearly is often flawed. Within the next section the author proposes “Presentism,” what he describes as “the tendency for current experience to influence one’s views of the past and the future.” Within the section Gilbert covers such topics as affected emotions. Affected emotions refer to the emotional state of one time period acting on that of another. For example, Gilbert suggests that when middle-aged people are asked to recall how they feel about political issues, or how much they drank in college, their responses are often “misremember,” and therefore misleading, for their response contains how they think and drink now. Their brains cannot recalls how they once felt for, their current thoughts and beliefs overshadows those of the past. This often happens with respect to thoughts of the future. People have the tendency to imagine options of the future as occurring in present times, and then assessing a reaction, which is often inaccurate. The fact is that with this process, the mind relates the present too closely with that of the future. The future could in fact be immeasurably different. Similarly, Gilbert presents the concept that the mind has a terrible time attempting to conceive how the future will be thought of, once we get there. Contemplating the future greatly differs than considering the past. For in pondering the past, regret of action and inaction are assessed. However when humans evaluate the future, little thought is devoted to evaluating what should and shouldn’t have been done. The rationalization that is present within the past is nonexistent within the future. This concept ties in to that of Gilberts final section entitled “Corrigibility.” The section questions why can’t the future be affected by past experience. Gilbert answers in concluding that since our recollection of pastimes are often skewed; their relation to the future is equally distorted. It’s hard to learn from the past, when memories only trigger positive emotions. Thus these “shortcomings” of our imaginations only further lead people down falsely advertised paths. These paths we’ve conceived and created for our future most likely include similar flaws we’ve experienced during a pastime. In short, recollection of the past cannot be trusted. When attempting to conduct an educated decision, pulling from peoples’ similar and more recent experiences is the best bet.


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