Daniel Gilbert and the Psychology of Happiness

Last week St. John’s University hosted a lecture by Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert, who has gained some fame recently with his book Stumbling on Happiness.

The talk dealt with how the choices we make affect our happiness. It is not only the choices themselves, Gilbert said, but also our expectations about our choices that affect happiness. In exploring life events that might influence happiness, the speaker compared a person who won a large amount of money in a lottery drawing with another person whose leg was amputated. Almost everyone would guess that the lottery winner would be happier, but Gilbert said studies show that in about three years both the lottery winner and the amputee would be about as happy as before their supposedly “life changing” experiences.

Gilbert gave a similar talk at a TED Conference. He is a lively speaker who presents some fascinating arguments. Just to forewarn you, Gilbert does not provide any magic prescription for achieving happiness. The first PowerPoint slide for his talk at St. John’s read “The secret of happiness isn’t.” He completed this thought by telling the audience that it “isn’t a secret.”

In sum, Gilbert asserted, happiness is a function of the likelihood that we will get what we want combined with our expectations about how happy this will make us.