When
I was searching for what to do for my final blog post, I was intrigued by a
couple different books that contained some varying views on how psychology and
our perception pays a role in how and if we can be happy. In the process of
doing so I stumbled, pun intended, into Daniel Gilbert’s book titled Stumbling
on Happiness. Daniel Gilbert is a popular social psychologist who is a
professor at the Harvard and throughout this book Gilbert explains how unique
humans are in both positive and negative ways in regard to how we think we can
achieve happiness. He uses humor and science to explain the flaws with how our
brains predict what will make us happy and how we view past experiences with
happiness. In this post I will delve into some of the aspects of human
psychology that Daniel Gilbert discusses which can make us both prone to
happiness and struggle to obtain happiness.
Daniel
Gilbert starts off the book by stating that humans are the only being that we
know of that has the ability to imagine. This unique ability allows humans to
essentially exist in the three states of time, these being past, present, and
future. The first couple of chapters of Stumbling on Happiness is Daniel
Gilbert talking about the flaws that exist with our ability to imagine in both
the past and the future. Gilbert states that our brains are essentially
association machines and they are historically bad at it, especially when
looking at past experiences as our memories of the past are easily forgotten and
our brain fills in holes where we don’t remember. These details of our memories
are used to help us determine what has not made us happy in the past and help
us predict what can make us happy in the future. This flaw is one of the many
reasons why us as humans are fundamentally challenged by our brains in our attempts
to achieve happiness because our brains are not the best predictors at judging
what will make us happy. Daniel Gilbert says that there are two main reasons on
why humans like to think about the future. The first reason is because thinking
about the future can make us happy or help minimize potential negative
situations if you visualize them happening before-hand; consequently, a perfect
example of both of these scenarios would be daydreaming and imagining your dog
dying before it actually does. The second reason that we like to think about
the future is to help us feel a sense of control about our lives because we as
humans would rather be in control than not.
Another
problem that Daniel Gilbert presents us with is how imagination doesn’t fair
very well as far as its ability to predict how we will feel about the future
once we get there. This point is actually not a new one as it’s not very
uncommon for people who imagined being successful and then became successful,
yet they were nearly as happy once they got to their desired place of success.
The
final problem that Daniel Gilbert states is how our views of happiness are affected
by our cultural values. This is yet another variable that affects everyone differently
and makes it more difficult as what makes you happy doesn’t necessarily make other
people happy.
In
conclusion, Daniel Gilbert’s book Stumbling on Happiness can be summarized
into three points regarding human’s imagination. First, imagination tends to
fill in and leave out information without telling us. Second, imagination tends
to project our present feelings onto our future. Third, imagination fails to be
able to recognize that things will look differently once they actually happen.
Although this book’s summary may sound slightly negative when talking about human’s
imagination, our ability to do this is unique to us and can help to create
feelings of happiness. Daniel Gilbert does a great job of making a book that weaves
abstract concepts about happiness with scientific evidence that makes this book
a great read in my opinion. If you’re interested about the more scientific
aspects about what can make you either happy or unhappy then I recommend
Stumbling on Happiness to you.
Quiz
Questions:
1.
What
ability do humans have that no other animal has?
2.
Our
imagination often fails to ______ what can make us happy in the future.
3.
Humans
can think about how many states of time?
Discussion
Questions:
1.
Do
you think that our ability to imagine is a good or bad thing?
2.
Would
life be better if we could accurately predict what would make us happy?
3.
What
are some aspects of our culture in the United States that affect our happiness?
Works Cited
Gilbert, Daniel Todd. Stumbling on Happiness.
Vintage Books, 2007.
He is funny, as we saw in your Colbert clip. “My friends tell me that I have a tendency to point out problems without offering solutions, but they never tell me what I should do about it.” And “If you are like most people, then like most people, you don't know you're like most people.” And “Psychologists call this habituation, economists call it declining marginal utility, and the rest of us call it marriage.”
ReplyDeleteHe says we overrate our ability to control circumstances in life. “Perhaps the strangest thing about this illusion of control is not that it happens but that it seems to confer many of the psychological benefits of genuine control." So... is this a useful illusion? What would the Stoics say?
Graham, I am fascinated by the way our mind fills in and leaves out information, as you said. I find myself constantly in battle with my own memory, trying to recall experiences as they actually happened, rather than how my mind tells me they occurred. From my own experience, I certainly concur with us overrating our own abilities to control situations, and I think I could find myself far more content if I released my need for control in situations.
ReplyDeleteI also find the fact that humans seem to be the only beings capable of thinking about thinking very interesting. Our Latin name, homo sapiens or "wise man," actually relates to this fact. However, the author also seems to be speaking in a very Buddhist vein when he talks about the harm that thinking of the past and/or future can cause us. This is why Buddhists insist on living in the present to help avoid suffering.
ReplyDeleteGreat report!