Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert says that we synthesise our happiness. Not only that, he also maintains that when we imagine what could make us happy, such as new clothes or an around the world trip our brains are invariably wrong in advising us that those things will make us happy.
We tend to think that getting things such as a job, a new car, winning the lotto is what will make us happy. But he says that studies have shown that we make ourselves happy by imagining that we are happy. So getting what we want doesn’t actually have anything to do with being happy.
Watching his talk at TED, which may be viewed on TED.com or by viewing the video at the bottom of this article the point that made me think hard was not so much about the happiness issue. He further discussed findings of research that showed people who have multiple choices tend to be less happy than those who have limited choices. Wow. That goes against all of our current thinking that freedom makes us happy.
During an experiment conducted in his Lab at Harvard, he offered a photography course. During this session students were told to take pics on campus of anything that they wished to preserve as a memory. They could take twelve pictures.
Out of these photos, students needed to chose their best two and these were printed out in good size and quality prints. Once these had been selected the group was divided into two control groups. One group was allowed to select one of the two pics with an option of being able to exchange this with the other picture within a four day period.
The other study group were presented with a one off choice. Take your best picture, but there is no exchange option available. Out of the participants, the group that had no choice to exchange loved their final choice and thought they had chosen the best picture. However, the group with the freedom to exchange were unhappy with their choices.
These experiments made Dan Gilbert surmise that having too many choices might create more discontent. Whereas, he found, having to settle for something and having no further choices in the matter, could actually make us happier.
Taking this argument a step further one could then surmise that people living under a dictator are actually happier than people living in a fully functioning democracy. Not that there are many of those around either. With other words, Robert Mugabe’s elections were more legitimate than one gives credit. Yes there was intimidation, but he would have won anyway, that is what one could speculate. There are may more dictators who survived long years in power with their citizens putting up with it.
How many top companies had founders who were absolute dictators or at least close to one? Steve Jobs springs to mind, Bill Gates is apparently not that easy to work for either. These are two I can think of off hand. There are probably many more.
Have a look at modern society and international real estate, the so-called developed world which presents us with umpteen choices in food, clothing, gadgets, motor vehicles and much more. So we eat more and have weight problems because we can’t make up our minds what, out of a huge selection in the supermarkets, we actually want to eat. We drive our brand new car out of the showroom and we want to buy the next new thing a month later. Ford had it right. You can have any car as long as it is black!
Our youngsters have never been more unhappy and discontent. Possibly we give the kids too much freedom of choice. We provide them with all the latest mobile phones, clothes, music downloads and pocket money to hang around in the mall with. All that freedom of choice could in fact be making them unhappier. And all we want to do is make them happy!
Ever wondered why people love their jobs even if it means they spend eight hours a day being a drone. They do this because they do not have choice or freedom to do their own thing. That limitation is what makes them happy. And the most important component to this existence is that they get a pat on the head and a well done for their efforts.
That is some thinking! There are some fascinating studies on how the brain works and what we do with that power. If we have the power to invent our happiness, what else can we conjure up? We could synthesise permanent health or longevity for instance. Or we could become millionaires! Either way, it leads to some interesting thought. Watch the video and be inspired.
I love this post. Thanks Anja! You blog on serious topics, i appreciate this.
Thanks for your lovely comment.
Kind of ironic. The freedom of choice does not result in the actual achievement of happiness.
Exactly! What our parents and we have fought for.
If happiness is a limitation of choices, a desire to have people make your choices for you and a lack of freedom, then I choose to be the saddest person in the world.
Happiness should not be the true basis by which one bases one’s life, otherwise we’d all be happy little sheep. No, achievement is a far better choice, and one that requires freedom, and requires that you look at the grass as being greener, and that you can have more and better things, experiences, knowledge.
Its good research, and something good to know, but if that’s happiness, you can keep it.
Your post is a bit of a non-sequitur, one study about choosing photos to all of us would be happier as drones under a dictator is a stretch.
There are numerous stories of people from the former Soviet Union standing in a US supermarket marveling at its myriad of choices.
The grass is always greener. We “like” what we currently don’t have or don’t experience. The lack of choice is great when we have too many choices. Take our choices away and suddenly the thing we want the most and are the happiest with is to have choices.
Mmm, I quit reading after the second paragraph. After it suggests that I wouldn’t be happy after winning the lotto.
Well let me tell you something, broseph, try living in a shitty town, living pay check to pay check and tell me winning the lotto wouldn’t solve most of your problems, kay?
This full doesn’t know anything, he’s making only assumptions.
Apparently i’m the FOOL, as well
[...] What makes us happy Posted on October 8, 2007 by Kelly What makes us happy [...]
What were my choices again?
We assume that Freedom of Choice will be expressed by choosing the right choice. People aren’t perfect and neither are their choices. I disagree with the conclusion that excess choice is the cause of our unhappiness.
Within all choice, there still has to be a right answer. The unhappiness could be a result of knowing we must choose the right answer but don’t know what it is. Choice isn’t the problem. Not being able to accept a perceived incorrect decision is the cause of our unhappiness, or in another word: insecurity.
In today’s world, perfection is the only goal. Any imperfection and we are fired, dumped, passed over etc. If you aren’t perfect, you need to work to be perfect. Settling, well, is settling.
Hi Anja,
I found your site through Digg and thought I would add my two cents as someone who does similar research to that of Dan. I’m a doctoral student studying judgment and decision making and focus specifically on affect (or happiness).
You’re more or less right in your assessment of Dan’s talk at TED (and it’s a great talk), but it is a bit dangerous to follow his logic as far as you did in your idea about the dictator. Most of the research in this area (abundance of choice) shows that too many options are definitely bad, but the same can be said about too few options…depending on the choice set.
A small (or non existent) choice set containing all terrible options (like say a dictatorship might provide) is likely to be as (more??) aversive as lots of positive options to choose from. There are a lot of nuisances to this research and sometimes it comes off too much like “lots of choice is bad†when it really should be “lots of choice is sometimes bad.â€
If you’re curious, there’s a great book out there designed just for the lay (as opposed to scientific) audience called “The Paradox of Choice†which deals with just this issue. Dan also has a book “Stumbling on Happiness†which is fantastic and covers more than just the idea about choice.
-Jeff
Orwell was right, slavery is freedom – freedom is slavery.
The experiment itself needs to be called into question. Creating a photograph is different than buying a car (the act of creating something personal vs. purchasing something already made for a consumer). Also, the psychology of the participants and the female/male ratio need to be considered.
Having less choices does not make a person more happy. People learn to get by in such a system, and optimism is more socially accepted – almost expected. Which comes close to the company theory – you are expected to ACT happy at your job no matter if you like it or not. People need references to get another job, and don’t want to be fired.
An all-encompassing explanation for what makes us happy is futile. We are each different, unique beings with our own beliefs, feelings, and behaviors. Having choices or a lack of choices is irrelevant. What is going on in the person’s psyche? Is the person happy with their own life, or are they including external influences like global warming, less money for education, and the Iraq war? Is the person happy about new technologies, whether or not that person can purchase these?
Generations are different, attitudes are different, and if we were all happy – well, we might as well be drones. It is the critic that moves society forward by pointing out its flaws.
Hi Anja,
I think you are maybe overstepping your bounds on your whole argument about dictatorships…
First, I like your article and that I agree with you that your contention about consumption and choice. There’s a great book called “Paradox of Choice” that’s really good at illustrating it.
But dictatorships can cause a lot of suffering. Look at Maoist China or Stalinist Russia or even Leninist Russia or Burma today. I think I would agree with your argument that living under dictatorships may not be that bad (see Lee Kuan Yew & Singapore), but I think that there is a basic level of “comfort” that people need. They need to be able to eat ‘x’ amount every day and live in shelter. If you look at the Maoist ‘Great Leap Forward’ and much of Stalinist Russia it’s just not the case… they sacrificed for the ‘leader’ and didn’t have enough to eat…
On the flip side, I think that developing countries need to consider when ‘enough is enough’. In other words, when does abundance become superabundance? When do we have diminished returns for new items (e.g. the new car, the new house, etc.)? I think the answer to this question will save us ecologically and psychologically.
Again, my two cents, food for thought and thanks for the article.
I think that Dan Gilbert found us in a state of transition and that’s it.
We are crawling up out of the evolutionary waters and our gills are turning into lungs.
some of us might be gasping for breath, but many others are already adapting and finding how to be “happy” with all of the extra choices.
the entire argument is sort of silly, because we used to have fewer choices as a species:
wake up, try to find something to eat, try not to get killed, go to sleep hungry or not.
were we “happier” then?
the “photo choosing experiment” is flawed as well since the thing people were “unhappy” with choosing was art (photos) something with a high degree of subjectivity.
people aren’t unhappy because they have too many things to pick from…people are unhappy because we want stuff and we don’t like it when we don’t get what we want.
I wish I could say that idea is TED Conference good… but it’s actually just one of the basic ideas of buddhism.
my experiment and proof is played out in the millions of live around me every day.
think my idea is bullshit? great because there are about a trillion others you cabn chose from.
Fewer choices = less worry
It’s funny, but an essay I posted on my blog a while ago had the same idea:
http://florin.myip.org/blog/node/25
In fact, I was talking about zero choices = bliss.
Pretty close, I guess.
Yes and no to this article…
Yes, we produce our own happiness. Very little of emotion is actually externally generated – if any at all.
But no, having choices does not make us unhappy. Being unable – or probably better, *unwilling* – to take responsibility for our choices does. It’s a matter of cognitive dissonance, self doubt, and grass-is-greener syndrome. In particular, this study isn’t one of whether you’re given a choice. Both groups were given a choice. The difference is that the second group was allowed to CHANGE THEIR MIND.
When you’re given that ability, then self-doubt creeps in, along with dissatisfaction. It’s the question of whether you’re missing out.
When you aren’t given that ability, then cognitive dissonance kicks in. You picked this one, and you’re stuck with it… so logically (according to the complex & quite haywire human brain) it must be the one you wanted more. So you’re ‘happier’ with the choice.
It’s not the choice. It’s the ‘privelege’ of being a flake. People that have the will to stick to their guns I bet don’t have this happiness phenomenon with choices to the same degree by any stretch. Sure, they may still have it on average, but it won’t be as noticable (perhaps not even statistically significant). Ok, I’m done being long winded.
What utter crap! The article is attempting to make an analogy between choosing photographs and living within a democracy versus a dictatorship. Ask if a Chinese individual is happy to have only one child and the rest be forced to sell or abort. Ask the Dali Lama and every Buddhist if they are happy to be forced from their homeland for their beliefs. Ask the Jews if they were happy to be rounded up and killed in concentration camps during WWII.
“Our youngsters have never been more unhappy and discontent. Possibly we give the kids too much freedom of choice. We provide them with all the latest mobile phones, clothes, music downloads and pocket money to hang around in the mall with. All that freedom of choice could in fact be making them unhappier. And all we want to do is make them happy!”
Don’t be ridiculous. Children today have far less freedom that any other generation. Thirty years ago, a child of 12 would have been allowed roam free after school only to be home by say supper time. This child would have been completely unsupervised between the time school let out and supper. This would never happen today. Our children are not given such freedoms. In my town, there are no gathering places for children. When I was a child, we could go to the game room unsupervised at will. We’d ride our bikes down to it. Not today. Parents wouldn’t dream of letting their children ride a bike 2-3 miles alone.
“Ever wondered why people love their jobs even if it means they spend eight hours a day being a drone. They do this because they do not have choice or freedom to do their own thing. That limitation is what makes them happy. And the most important component to this existence is that they get a pat on the head and a well done for their efforts.”
Last time I checked everyone I know that spends 8 hours a day being a drone is miserable. They don’t have a choice to open up there own business and take huge risk involved with such a venture. This is completely opposite of the life my grandfather lived and he was much happier with his life than any of my peer group.
Frankly, I am disgusted with the Orwellian logic presented in this text.
Oof. I think “fewer choices” needs an awful lot of translation to become “dictatorship.”
I enjoy your post and plan on checking out more of your blog, but I have to go with Aaron and others here.
I wanted to post, though, because I really like the conversation you’ve managed to start in your comments.
Question…what about human creativity; does one have the capacity to bring to life magnificent works of art encompassing EVERYTHING in life (including joy, depression, stress, anger, love, hate, and even happiness) if one is always “happy” all the time??? Instead of Orwell, maybe think Huxley…but after all, it is up to you. That’s the beauty of choice…
There is a difference between saying whether or not people are happy with having lots of choices and whether or not they should have choices. Just because some people don’t like being bombarded with many different options for what to eat or buy does not mean that as a policy implementation, we should discourage choice. It may be an annoyance to figure out what clothes I need to buy, but at least in a capitalist choice-based-system lots of people are giving me options and they are all trying to lower their prices to make their products look attractive to me, which also helps my wallet.
Also, your comment about Zimbabwe is starkly uninformed, Zimbabwe is currently undergoing an economic collapse with lots of people trying to escape to South Africa, I don’t think they like their dictatorship there.
Yes its so true. I am from india and we have arrange marriages where Usually parents choose a spouse. People here in US are amazed that how can that work… How a person can be happy with someone whom he doesnot know that well. Compared to US where a person dates quite a few before making a choice. If you see the result in india divorce rates are very less…people are very happy with their families where as in US i see divorce rates are high and people are not willing to commit to any relationship after watching the video i can imagine how similar it is to the photograph experiment….described.
I think what we’re stumbling over here is that there must be value to the choices we make. If you’re in a dictatorship, your choices HAVE to have value because they’re so few. If you live in a country with choices aplenty, I think it’s really important to make your choices thoughtfully and instinctively rather than being boggled by all the options. I think if a person is well-actualized and has a nicely developed sense of self, multiple choices shouldn’t be a problem – a good sense of self is a natural choice-filter. It’s getting bogged down or overwhelmed that’s the problem.
[...] anja merret – chatting to my generation » What makes us happy [...]
I am extremely happy with the availability of choice. I don’t know who he was studying, but they’re not my friends. We like having a choice, variety and so forth and we’re happy with ourselves. I am not trying to be smug, I just think there are many happy people out there he might have studied, instead of all those “unhappy” types.
Dude DEVO said this about 30 years ago (“freedom of choice is what you got — freedom from choice is what you want”)…
[...] Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert says that we synthesise our happiness.read more | digg story [...]
DO NOT AGREE. I have had crappy jobs with no choice looking forward to life as drone. Didn’t last longer than a year in any such job. Imagining I am happy doesn’t make me happy. If I know I could be in a better position in life and put my kids in better shape, imagining I am happy doesn’t make me happy. Sorry, I am not buying. I do not like being told what to do, by work or government, and don’t think happiness is somehow just accepting what I someone else tries to feed me. This study is off.
Where I think this falls apart:
If people really desire fewer choices; if freedom to choose is really counter productive to humanity’s well being then why have free societies become the most productive and prosperous in the history of the world?
Economic compassion (as opposed to economic compulsion/forced taxation) which is giving happily of one’s wealth to those who are less fortunate finds its most fervent examples in the unfettered social and economic fabric of a hyper free society.
Conversely, political and economic systems (communism and totalitarianism) with little or no freedom that demand compulsive redistribution of wealth, always require tyranny and violence to keep them in place? The term,â€benevolent dictator†is an oxymoron.
It’s not the multiple choices that do us in but rather the lack of wisdom which accompany the process of choosing. Wisdom is essential. Wisdom is knowledge pressed into place through a crisis.
Absent being free to make wrong choices, one is no better at making choice 100 than he/she is at making choice number one. Freedom to fail is how human nature sorts out life. Want to have children? Is that a good choice? Have one. You will have a far better idea if you long for number two.
Marx and Engels would be very proud of the outcomes of your research…from those who have, to those who need….that is from those who understand and accept risk to those who seek the security of prefab decisions. In that rendition of society eventually negative entropy sucks the life out of the givers–then anarchy and chaos follow (which in of themselves are multiple choice).
[...] What makes us happy [...]
What make us truly happy is realizing that we were made by a God who loves us and wants a loving and nurturing relationship with us, that came to live with us and teach us how to love Him, love others and forgive each other.
“We have no happiness but that which we make”
I was never sure of that statement, but after attending this talk, I now know it to be true. Home is indeed where you find it.
Thanks for posting this for us to experience.
Re: arranged marriages, there’s probably several cultural factors at play. It’s not typical / highly frowned upon to have divorces in India (or any culture with arranged marrianges), sort of like the US in the 1950s.
As the century went on, the US became more liberal with respect to marriage and divorce does not have the stigma it once did.
Also, the fact that few people are expected to have a “love marriage” may mean you yourself can cope with a poor arranged marriage (“Well, what do you expect?”), even though you may have been happier having your pick.
I contradict with this post. If happiness comes out of limitation then no inventions basically improvements in life style would have happened. No inventions or improvements is made to bring unhappiness to life. Being contended with what you have may lead to happiness but if you are given better options you should go for it to make your life comfortable . Comfortableness leads to happiness.
A thoroughly poor misunderstanding of Daniel Gilbert’s research, your blog post leads to a conclusion far from Gilbert’s work, and your argument for the relative unhappiness of fat Westerners living in democratic countries compared to the presumed happiness of Zimbabwean peasants is uninspiring and patently false. The photograph study you cite is a perfect example: the subjects are offered either a very limited choice or greater limited choice, and the former creates greater happiness than the latter. The moral is to avoid excess, not to remove choice entirely.
Thanks for reminding me why I don’t read blogs, and I’m sure you’ll delete this comment in a day or two.
[...] More info: here [...]
You missed the point of the article. I was speculating, not stating points. And it was a call for people to think a little about what makes them happy.
However, I am happy to keep your comment up as long as this blog exists!
No debate is valid without some decent criticism.
I just have to reply with this article by article, why because my reply would be too long.
I sometimes wonder if some people live in the real world, those who believe that happiness is in your head really make me wonder what is really in their heads, if they actually think before speaking writing or making a video. Please just click on my website and take a look at my full reply, you can leave your comments there, thank you.
Happy is just a word that represents something else. What it represents is not exact and is not perfect, it has multiple meanings that are similar. So I ask, what does he mean by “happy”? Does he mean contentment/satisfaction?
It should also be noted that words are relative, asking someone if they are happy is different then asking if they are happier then they were before. I have to wonder what they asked people.
interesting post/article…thank you for it. It makes me think of the power of implementing visualization in our lives…such a wonderful tool to PURPOSEFULLY make us feel “happy”.
interesting post. on the whole, i agree. but i also think one can rise above this sort of thing. you can chose to be happy (a choice too) even though you have too many other choices. sort of ironic or paradoxical. if i have the choice of being content or discontent, does that choice automatically make me discontent. the mind boggles
I am in complete disagreement with this theory, not a year ago I was a “youngster” he was describing in this article, and I didnt have top-of-the-line cellphones, and I didn’t go to the mall every weekend to hang out with my friends, I didn’t get money every week for nothing- I had to work for my dollars, and what was the internet? My choice were very few indeed. Mornings and early afternoons, compulsory schooling that made me feel like a cow in a herd being prodded around class after class. Late afternoons and evenings, the house, and the backyard helping my dad with meaningless carpentry work he’d do just to stay busy, because that simple lifestyle made my parents happy. Now did that make me happy then? No. Do I think back fondly on all the swell time I had as a child? Absolutely not. I’m not a buddhist monk. I like my things. I like my car, I like the fact that I can change it’s color, just on impulse! Or the fact that cars can be made in such distinct styles all with varying degrees of uniqueness. You don’t find that in the boonies where I’m from. I’m not a communist, I don’t want the same make, model, & color car that everyone else has. I’m selfish, and materialistic, and I’m proud of it! Freedom now is amazing. I’ve never had so much fun just goofing off at the clubs I go too with friends now. Going to work, yeah its a pain, but I get paid, twice a month now – thats a lot more satisfying than working for one whole year and getting paid once for a hypothetical score on a piece of paper! I’m enjoying my life now, freedom is so fun, choice is so satisfying – it’s like I can taste it! And whenever something new comes around that I like I embrace it. It’s all there for me. It’s like in the movie Scarface “The world is yours.” That’s my two cents about it.
If it makes you happy – it can’t be that bad.
[...] What Makes us Happy by Anja Merret [...]
I guess ignorance is bliss, but there have been studies showing people have high levels of stress in jobs where they have no choices.
Other studies show people feel happy if they think they are doing better than other people.
Thank you for this Anja. For years my brother and I had a Minnesota State Fair concession, and we noticed that children almost invariably left the state fair frustrated and unhappy because there were so many choices of things to do and see, and they always seemed to feel the ones they missed were better than the ones they had experienced. We came to call this kind of unhappiness “the state fair syndrome” and found that it also applied to children in any situation which offered many choices of fun things to do.
We also noticed that the happiest people we saw leaving the fair grounds were those in wheelchairs. My brother said it was because their feet weren’t sore, but I think it was because they had adjusted their thinking to the fact that there was only so much they could do.
Many of these posts seem to take these suggestions about limited freedom and happiness too literally. He is not saying that all people across the board will instantly be happy when they have no freedom of choice. It is an attitude or an unconscious action that many people on todays modernized culture cannot relate to. We have had all the choices imaginable for as long as most of us have been alive.
He is trying to show the dangers of the great human ability to predict the outcomes of certain events in the future. If there is always another option to choose, or another path to follow for every decision we ever make then we can unwillingly use this ability against ourselves and second guess everything we’ve ever done. This may lead us to make major life changes based solely on these predictions, which are not always accurate. Everyone, even people who didn’t watch this video can agree than some things don’t turn out how you think they will. The video says that people who do not have this freedom of choice can be happy with the things that they have.
This also doesn’t imply a that this happiness excludes any motivation to succeed. There can still be a desire to achieve great things, have more wealth or be a better person. It is just a sense of satisfaction with the reality of any situation. If people spend their time constantly comparing their achievements, possessions and lives to that of others then envy and desire for bigger, better, faster and newer things is inevitable.
What I took away from this video is that all people have the ability to be happy in any situation. In this situation ability and willingness are miles apart. It all boils down to how you view the world. If you constantly are re-evaluating and second guessing your every decision, and then making predictions about different/alternate life paths which we know aren’t usually correct we are bound to be less happy then if we just accept things that are beyond our control.
This does not say this is the correct way of life, or that a life of constantly pursuing that which could have been and quite frankly I am not sure that either of these two forms would exist in pure states. But before many people dismiss this as insanity think about the culture we live and the ideals it endorses. American culture is one that wants everything, drives straight to the top and takes no mercy along the way. If this is the only culture we know and grow up in then of course it feels like the way things ought to be. On the other end of the spectrum are tribal cultures who have nothing except what the earth provides naturally and they are most likely happier than most of us.
We create our perception of reality.
This is something we can get better at when practicing well and there are so many different techniques (both religious and non-religious) to learn how to better control your mind.
So be happy
…
is there any help after a failed marriage…
really interesting interchange. I find myself rally impressed by the theory and yet in sympathy wit the more negative comments on the page – but then I also think it is wrong to draw an analogy between the Holocaust, for example, and reasonable expectations of happiness. Rather as in quantum physics, I suspect the research breaks down under extreme conditions. The really interesting idea/hook/concept that Ted offers is the synthetic versus natural happiness. I say this because I suspect that in my own life I privilege one over the other and yet,rationally, why is that the case? If I could learn to be create happiness in the situation I cannot alter, wouldn’t I actually be happier? (Happiness may itself not be a good word to use here – perhaps satisfied, or content is better). The critique that ted offers is rally about the proliferation of choice and neuroscience and psychology have for decades been showing that too much choice stress the organism, rather it be rats of teenagers. IN Spain, the government is now examining the idea of the consumidor racional, or the rational consumer; i.e. buying, consuming more rationally – not putting limits on what we want or need but trying to educate us to find put own way to limit what we want or need. Given the recent stresses on the planet isn’t this a sensible way forward? P.S. I am a Chinese language graduate and I am tempted to disagree very strongly with the assumption above that consumer culture is making the Chinese as a people happier; Outside of extreme events (like Maoist China) the Chinese seem happiest in traditional, predictable, contained and slowly evolving environments. I’m not sure that is China today. Have Carrefour and Big Macs made China a happier country? Answers on a post card please….
I guess if you are facing a serious decision, it’s not typically a happy state. But I think this is a bit short sited. While the actual process of choice may not be happiness in itself, the end result of being able to make a wide variety of choices and consistently choosing good decisions can create a situation of happiness in the long run.
I guess it depends on what granularity of choice your looking at. Sure having to choose between say 5 brands of bread may not be a significant freedom, and may not give your life anything. But what if you did not have the choice as to what profession you were to enter? Who you chose to spend your time with? Or lets take this to an extreme and even say the views you are able to communicate on the issues you see as important. Do you think this would be happiness? If so, I’ll give it a miss.
[...] What Makes Us Happy | Anja Merret [...]