By: Daniel Gilbert Publisher: Vintage Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Vintage Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 336 Publication Date: March 20, 2007 Release Date: March 20, 2007
Amazon.com: Do you know what makes you happy? Daniel Gilbert would bet that you think you do, but you are most likely wrong. In his witty and engaging new book, Harvard professor Gilbert reveals his take on how our minds work, and how the limitations of our imaginations may be getting in the way of our ability to know what happiness is. Sound quirky and interesting? It is! But just to be sure, we asked bestselling author (and master of the quirky and interesting) Malcolm Gladwell to read Stumbling on Happiness, and give us his take. Check out his review below. --Daphne Durham
Guest Reviewer: Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell is the author of bestselling books Blink and The Tipping Point, and is a staff writer for The New Yorker.
Several years ago, on a flight from New York to California, I had the good fortune to sit next to a psychologist named Dan Gilbert. He had a shiny bald head, an irrepressible good humor, and we talked (or, more accurately, he talked) from at least the Hudson to the Rockies--and I was completely charmed. He had the wonderful quality many academics have--which is that he was interested in the kinds of questions that all of us care about but never have the time or opportunity to explore. He had also had a quality that is rare among academics. He had the ability to translate his work for people who were outside his world.
Now Gilbert has written a book about his psychological research. It is called Stumbling on Happiness, and reading it reminded me of that plane ride long ago. It is a delight to read. Gilbert is charming and funny and has a rare gift for making very complicated ideas come alive.
Stumbling on Happiness is a book about a very simple but powerful idea. What distinguishes us as human beings from other animals is our ability to predict the future--or rather, our interest in predicting the future. We spend a great deal of our waking life imagining what it would be like to be this way or that way, or to do this or that, or taste or buy or experience some state or feeling or thing. We do that for good reasons: it is what allows us to shape our life. And it is by trying to exert some control over our futures that we attempt to be happy. But by any objective measure, we are really bad at that predictive function. We're terrible at knowing how we will feel a day or a month or year from now, and even worse at knowing what will and will not bring us that cherished happiness. Gilbert sets out to figure what that's so: why we are so terrible at something that would seem to be so extraordinarily important?
In making his case, Gilbert walks us through a series of fascinating--and in some ways troubling--facts about the way our minds work. In particular, Gilbert is interested in delineating the shortcomings of imagination. We're far too accepting of the conclusions of our imaginations. Our imaginations aren't particularly imaginative. Our imaginations are really bad at telling us how we will think when the future finally comes. And our personal experiences aren't nearly as good at correcting these errors as we might think.
I suppose that I really should go on at this point, and talk in more detail about what Gilbert means by that--and how his argument unfolds. But I feel like that might ruin the experience of reading Stumbling on Happiness. This is a psychological detective story about one of the great mysteries of our lives. If you have even the slightest curiosity about the human condition, you ought to read it. Trust me. --Malcolm Gladwell
Product Description: • Why are lovers quicker to forgive their partners for infidelity than for leaving dirty dishes in the sink?
• Why will sighted people pay more to avoid going blind than blind people will pay to regain their sight?
• Why do dining companions insist on ordering different meals instead of getting what they really want?
• Why do pigeons seem to have such excellent aim; why can’t we remember one song while listening to another; and why does the line at the grocery store always slow down the moment we join it?
In this brilliant, witty, and accessible book, renowned Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert describes the foibles of imagination and illusions of foresight that cause each of us to misconceive our tomorrows and misestimate our satisfactions. Vividly bringing to life the latest scientific research in psychology, cognitive neuroscience, philosophy, and behavioral economics, Gilbert reveals what scientists have discovered about the uniquely human ability to imagine the future, and about our capacity to predict how much we will like it when we get there. With penetrating insight and sparkling prose, Gilbert explains why we seem to know so little about the hearts and minds of the people we are about to become.
Not What I Was Expecting The book wasn't exactly what I thought it would be like but I still enjoyed it. There were a lot of examples of human behavior studies which I found very interesting . . . but I am not sure exactly how it all applied to happiness.
Our lack of power to predict emotions Ever said to yourself that if something happened you'd be devastated? Whether its you or a loved one getting cancer, or becoming paralyzed or going bankrupt or anything else that you think would strip you of your happiness you might want to think again.
Gilbert, a Harvard professor, examines how unable we are to predict our emotions, and presents a book that will surely help you control your happiness levels and maybe even have a better outlook on life, even when the bad happens.
Insightful, Informative & Entertaining Dan Gilbert provides a fun, informative, and intriguing read in "Stumbling on Happiness." He uses anecdotes, research studies, visuals, charts, analysis, and humor to enlighten and entertain the reader about this common yet misunderstood phenomenon called....happiness. Most of us want it, strive to attain it, compare our current state of happiness with the past, and hope for it in the future.
Happiness: so....what is it? What IS happiness? How do we define it? Achieve it? And perhaps more importantly, perceive it? We humans often fool ourselves into thinking some "thing" or set of "circumstances" will passively allow us to achieve this state, that we label as happiness. But what makes this book so worthy is that it's not a "how to find happiness" book.
Part I: Prospection.
"The act of looking forward in time or considering the future."
Alas, this seems to be the foundation of this thing called "Happiness," and more significantly what we *think* will make us happy in the *future.*
Which leads to ---> THE CONCEPT OF "THE LATER:"
One significant thing that differentiates humans from the animal world is the concept of the future. The "Later." Part of this evolutionary concept in how it related to happiness is that we expect the next car, next house, next girlfriend/boyfriend or next promotion to make us happy, even though the last time we got these things we didn't didn't get "happy" for more than a very brief period of time. Studies conclude this. And this, according to Gilbert, is why there are "plenty of mistakes that we highly experienced folks, seem to make over and over again" (p. 217, Chapter 10).
The biological aspect of the future, or the "later," is a very recent concept in human evolution. Human brains appeared on Earth 500 million years ago, but the ability to think of "later" came approximately 3 million years ago. This is when the frontal lobe of the proto-humans expanded and grew in size and the entire brain got bigger and heavier.
Many things elucidated in this book are concepts we implicitly know, but Gilbert provides more details and empirical numbers for us. Wonderful things are especially wonderful at first when they happen, but their wonderfulness wanes with repetition. Psychologists call this "habituation." Economists call it "Marginal Utility" (p. 143-144).
OUR RECOLLECTIONS OF THE PAST:
Our Recollections of the Past: "The tendency to recall and rely on unusual instances is one of the reasons we so often repeat mistakes" (p. 221). It reminds me of Pavlov's dogs: We try to repeat those experiences that we remember with pleasure and pride, and we try to avoid repeating those that we remember with embarrassment and regret. The trouble is that we often don't remember these past experiences correctly. Our "feelings" about some event in the past is one of the brain's most sophisticated illusions (p. 217).
Gilbert states that there are three related concepts: emotional happiness, moral happiness, and judgmental happiness. Emotional happiness is the most basic.
I focused on Prospection, part one, the "future" part, but the rest of the book is also equally fun and informative.
Additional parts of the book that are relevant, but won't be noted because there isn't enough space:
Part II: Subjectivity Part III: Realism Part IV: Presentism Part V: Rationalization
Dan Gilbert has a knack for entertaining and enjoyable writing. This book is not about what it takes to be "happy" but is about human concept of happiness. It's not a "how to be happy" book, thankfully. But the principles can be applied to you, individually. Enjoy the book - and your life.
Descriptive (not prescriptive) - helps you deal with other people's (un)happiness The book is witty, interesting, and an overall fun read. It takes a more-or-less scientific approach towards how the brain perceives its current reality, how and of what it constructs memories, and how it attempts to construct possible futures. Throughout the book, Gilbert references scientific studies that appear to support his hypotheses.
The book gave many opportunities for introspection, was easy to make relevant to my own life, and gave me some useful ideas for dealing with other people. It's less prescriptive, as other reviewers note, but it does a good job of being descriptive: why is a person happy or unhappy? Just knowing the answer to that question opens a lot of good doors when dealing with a spouse, child, parent, colleague, or friend. Know why they are sad, why they are happy, with different events.
You see? It's not my fault I can't remember our first dance...I just remember that I LIKED it!
I'd recommend the book. Best if you can share the anecdotes with someone!
not very impressed, this book is overrated I was not very impressed. I had to force myself to read the second part since I lost much of interest. Author's inclination to try to be funny and insert lame jokes everywhere became a turn-off. This book is overrated.
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