Dan Gilbert on our mistaken expectations, Best Brain Supplements

http://www.excelerol.com - Best Brain Supplements
Dan Gilbert believes that, in our ardent, lifelong pursuit of happiness, most of us have the wrong map. In the same way that optical illusions fool our eyes -- and fool everyone's eyes in the same way -- Gilbert argues that our brains systematically misjudge what will make us happy. And these quirks in our cognition make humans very poor predictors of our own bliss.

The premise of his current research -- that our assumptions about what will make us happy are often wrong -- is supported with clinical research drawn from psychology and neuroscience. But his delivery is what sets him apart. His engaging -- and often hilarious -- style pokes fun at typical human behavior and invokes pop-culture references everyone can relate to. This winning style translates also to Gilbert's writing, which is lucid, approachable and laugh-out-loud funny. The immensely readable Stumbling on Happiness, published in 2006, became a New York Times bestseller and has been translated into 20 languages.

In fact, the title of his book could be drawn from his own life. At 19, he was a high school dropout with dreams of writing science fiction. When a creative writing class at his community college was full, he enrolled in the only available course: psychology. He found his passion there, earned a doctorate in social psychology in 1985 at Princeton, and has since won a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Phi Beta Kappa teaching prize for his work at Harvard. He has written essays and articles for The New York Times, Time and even Starbucks, while continuing his research into happiness at his Hedonic Psychology Laboratory.
"Gilbert's elbow-in-the-ribs social-science humor is actually funny. ... But underneath the goofball brilliance, [he] has a serious argument to make about why human beings are forever wrongly predicting what will make them happy."
New York Times Book Review

• Category

  People & Blogs

[MrFirstBanana]

I agree. Can't remember the vid now. I guess I was arguing that losing a $20 ticket/actual money & then buying a new ticket is not the same as buying a $40 ticket, because of the expected cumulative effect of these decisions in the long run, and their independence: losing a ticket/money is (hopefully) a less common situation than buying a ticket, and so in the long run choosing to buy tickets for $40 would effect your savings more than choosing to buy one for $20 despite of recently losing $20.

[zooch79]

You're adding variables. If someone could choose to not lose their ticket or money in the first place, I'm sure they would pick that every time. I think there's a disconnect between what you're thinking and what he's saying. Maybe listen to it again? It's not irrational to think of a ticket that you've paid $20 for as having the same value as a $20 bill. And when you think of it like that, the ticket becomes another $20. Losing the ticket is no different than losing money...

[MrFirstBanana]

But that's a different situation altogether. If you lost your ticket or $20 you can expect it to be a rare event (and to the extent you give these 2 scenarios a different value, that's indeed irrational). But if you get into the habit of paying $40 for a ticket, you may exceed your budget in the long run

[zooch79]

That's not really the scenario... Basically he saying this. you bought a ticket for $20. if you lose the ticket it is really the same thing as losing $20. People said they would not buy another ticket if they had lost the TICKET, but they would buy a ticket if they had lost their MONEY... Ultimately the money and the ticket are the same thing. But our preception is that the ticket has more value because we already paid for it.

[MrFirstBanana]

A logical flaw: In the movie ticket example, if you lost $20, you are choosing between having your remaining $20 or watching the movie (you don't get to choose not to have the money lost). If the price increases, your decision is different: having $40 vs. watching the movie.

[AussieGriffin]

The truth is these tricks are how you convince people to de-regulate markets and make themselves poor.

A.G.

[illyssalou]

AMAZING TALK! or why ecological problems are still not seriously considered by politicians...

[Dino Marcoccia]

came here because of the video's acceptable quality (320p)... it's horrible at TED

[mwaseem6]

Only 3 views!!! how come? a great video that is both informative and challenging

thanks for the uploader