TEDGlobal 2005
Dan Gilbert: Why we make bad decisions
Filmed:
Readability: 3.4
5,287,085 views
Dan Gilbert presents research and data from his exploration of happiness -- sharing some surprising tests and experiments that you can also try on yourself. Watch through to the end for a sparkling Q&A with some familiar TED faces.
Dan Gilbert - Psychologist; happiness expert
Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert says our beliefs about what will make us happy are often wrong -- a premise he supports with intriguing research, and explains in his accessible and unexpectedly funny book, Stumbling on Happiness. Full bio
Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert says our beliefs about what will make us happy are often wrong -- a premise he supports with intriguing research, and explains in his accessible and unexpectedly funny book, Stumbling on Happiness. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:18
We all make decisions every day; we want to know
0
0
2000
00:20
what the right thing is to do -- in domains from the financial
1
2000
3000
00:23
to the gastronomic to the professional to the romantic.
2
5000
4000
00:27
And surely, if somebody could really tell us how to do
3
9000
3000
00:30
exactly the right thing at all possible times,
4
12000
3000
00:33
that would be a tremendous gift.
5
15000
3000
00:36
It turns out that, in fact, the world was given this gift in 1738
6
18000
5000
00:41
by a Dutch polymath named Daniel Bernoulli.
7
23000
3000
00:44
And what I want to talk to you about today is what that gift is,
8
26000
3000
00:47
and I also want to explain to you why it is
9
29000
3000
00:50
that it hasn't made a damn bit of difference.
10
32000
3000
00:53
Now, this is Bernoulli's gift. This is a direct quote.
11
35000
5000
00:58
And if it looks like Greek to you, it's because, well, it's Greek.
12
40000
3000
01:02
But the simple English translation -- much less precise,
13
44000
4000
01:06
but it captures the gist of what Bernoulli had to say -- was this:
14
48000
4000
01:10
The expected value of any of our actions --
15
52000
2000
01:12
that is, the goodness that we can count on getting --
16
54000
4000
01:16
is the product of two simple things:
17
58000
2000
01:18
the odds that this action will allow us to gain something,
18
60000
4000
01:22
and the value of that gain to us.
19
64000
3000
01:25
In a sense, what Bernoulli was saying is,
20
67000
2000
01:27
if we can estimate and multiply these two things,
21
69000
3000
01:30
we will always know precisely how we should behave.
22
72000
3000
01:33
Now, this simple equation, even for those of you
23
75000
3000
01:36
who don't like equations, is something that you're quite used to.
24
78000
3000
01:39
Here's an example: if I were to tell you, let's play
25
81000
3000
01:42
a little coin toss game, and I'm going to flip a coin,
26
84000
3000
01:45
and if it comes up heads, I'm going to pay you 10 dollars,
27
87000
3000
01:48
but you have to pay four dollars for the privilege of playing with me,
28
90000
4000
01:52
most of you would say, sure, I'll take that bet. Because you know
29
94000
3000
01:55
that the odds of you winning are one half, the gain if you do is 10 dollars,
30
97000
5000
02:00
that multiplies to five, and that's more
31
102000
2000
02:02
than I'm charging you to play. So, the answer is, yes.
32
104000
4000
02:06
This is what statisticians technically call a damn fine bet.
33
108000
4000
02:10
Now, the idea is simple when we're applying it to coin tosses,
34
112000
3000
02:13
but in fact, it's not very simple in everyday life.
35
115000
4000
02:17
People are horrible at estimating both of these things,
36
119000
4000
02:21
and that's what I want to talk to you about today.
37
123000
2000
02:23
There are two kinds of errors people make when trying to decide
38
125000
3000
02:26
what the right thing is to do, and those are
39
128000
2000
02:28
errors in estimating the odds that they're going to succeed,
40
130000
3000
02:31
and errors in estimating the value of their own success.
41
133000
4000
02:35
Now, let me talk about the first one first.
42
137000
4000
02:39
Calculating odds would seem to be something rather easy:
43
141000
2000
02:41
there are six sides to a die, two sides to a coin, 52 cards in a deck.
44
143000
4000
02:45
You all know what the likelihood is of pulling the ace of spades
45
147000
4000
02:49
or of flipping a heads.
46
151000
1000
02:50
But as it turns out, this is not a very easy idea to apply
47
152000
5000
02:55
in everyday life. That's why Americans spend more --
48
157000
3000
02:58
I should say, lose more -- gambling
49
160000
3000
03:01
than on all other forms of entertainment combined.
50
163000
5000
03:06
The reason is, this isn't how people do odds.
51
168000
3000
03:09
The way people figure odds
52
171000
1000
03:10
requires that we first talk a bit about pigs.
53
172000
3000
03:13
Now, the question I'm going to put to you is whether you think
54
175000
2000
03:15
there are more dogs or pigs on leashes
55
177000
3000
03:18
observed in any particular day in Oxford.
56
180000
3000
03:21
And of course, you all know that the answer is dogs.
57
183000
2000
03:23
And the way that you know that the answer is dogs is
58
185000
3000
03:26
you quickly reviewed in memory the times
59
188000
2000
03:28
you've seen dogs and pigs on leashes.
60
190000
2000
03:30
It was very easy to remember seeing dogs,
61
192000
3000
03:33
not so easy to remember pigs. And each one of you assumed
62
195000
3000
03:36
that if dogs on leashes came more quickly to your mind,
63
198000
4000
03:40
then dogs on leashes are more probable.
64
202000
2000
03:42
That's not a bad rule of thumb, except when it is.
65
204000
5000
03:47
So, for example, here's a word puzzle.
66
209000
2000
03:49
Are there more four-letter English words
67
211000
2000
03:51
with R in the third place or R in the first place?
68
213000
4000
03:55
Well, you check memory very briefly, make a quick scan,
69
217000
3000
03:58
and it's awfully easy to say to yourself, Ring, Rang, Rung,
70
220000
3000
04:01
and very hard to say to yourself, Pare, Park: they come more slowly.
71
223000
7000
04:08
But in fact, there are many more words in the English language
72
230000
2000
04:10
with R in the third than the first place.
73
232000
3000
04:13
The reason words with R in the third place come slowly to your mind
74
235000
4000
04:17
isn't because they're improbable, unlikely or infrequent.
75
239000
3000
04:20
It's because the mind recalls words by their first letter.
76
242000
4000
04:24
You kind of shout out the sound, S -- and the word comes.
77
246000
3000
04:27
It's like the dictionary;
78
249000
1000
04:28
it's hard to look things up by the third letter.
79
250000
3000
04:31
So, this is an example of how this idea that
80
253000
2000
04:33
the quickness with which things come to mind
81
255000
2000
04:35
can give you a sense of their probability --
82
257000
2000
04:37
how this idea could lead you astray. It's not just puzzles, though.
83
259000
4000
04:41
For example, when Americans are asked to estimate the odds
84
263000
3000
04:44
that they will die in a variety of interesting ways --
85
266000
3000
04:47
these are estimates of number of deaths per year
86
269000
3000
04:50
per 200 million U.S. citizens.
87
272000
2000
04:52
And these are just ordinary people like yourselves who are asked
88
274000
2000
04:54
to guess how many people die from tornado, fireworks, asthma, drowning, etc.
89
276000
4000
04:58
Compare these to the actual numbers.
90
280000
3000
05:01
Now, you see a very interesting pattern here, which is first of all,
91
283000
3000
05:04
two things are vastly over-estimated, namely tornadoes and fireworks.
92
286000
5000
05:09
Two things are vastly underestimated:
93
291000
2000
05:11
dying by drowning and dying by asthma. Why?
94
293000
3000
05:14
When was the last time that you picked up a newspaper
95
296000
3000
05:17
and the headline was, "Boy dies of Asthma?"
96
299000
3000
05:20
It's not interesting because it's so common.
97
302000
3000
05:23
It's very easy for all of us to bring to mind instances
98
305000
4000
05:27
of news stories or newsreels where we've seen
99
309000
3000
05:30
tornadoes devastating cities, or some poor schmuck
100
312000
2000
05:32
who's blown his hands off with a firework on the Fourth of July.
101
314000
4000
05:36
Drownings and asthma deaths don't get much coverage.
102
318000
3000
05:39
They don't come quickly to mind, and as a result,
103
321000
2000
05:41
we vastly underestimate them.
104
323000
2000
05:43
Indeed, this is kind of like the Sesame Street game
105
325000
2000
05:45
of "Which thing doesn't belong?" And you're right to say
106
327000
4000
05:49
it's the swimming pool that doesn't belong, because the swimming pool
107
331000
3000
05:52
is the only thing on this slide that's actually very dangerous.
108
334000
4000
05:56
The way that more of you are likely to die than the combination
109
338000
2000
05:58
of all three of the others that you see on the slide.
110
340000
4000
06:02
The lottery is an excellent example, of course -- an excellent test-case
111
344000
4000
06:06
of people's ability to compute probabilities.
112
348000
3000
06:09
And economists -- forgive me, for those of you who play the lottery --
113
351000
3000
06:12
but economists, at least among themselves, refer to the lottery
114
354000
3000
06:15
as a stupidity tax, because the odds of getting any payoff
115
357000
5000
06:20
by investing your money in a lottery ticket
116
362000
2000
06:22
are approximately equivalent to flushing the money
117
364000
2000
06:24
directly down the toilet -- which, by the way,
118
366000
2000
06:26
doesn't require that you actually go to the store and buy anything.
119
368000
4000
06:30
Why in the world would anybody ever play the lottery?
120
372000
3000
06:33
Well, there are many answers, but one answer surely is,
121
375000
3000
06:36
we see a lot of winners. Right? When this couple wins the lottery,
122
378000
4000
06:40
or Ed McMahon shows up at your door with this giant check --
123
382000
3000
06:43
how the hell do you cash things that size, I don't know.
124
385000
3000
06:46
We see this on TV; we read about it in the paper.
125
388000
3000
06:49
When was the last time that you saw extensive interviews
126
391000
3000
06:52
with everybody who lost?
127
394000
2000
06:54
Indeed, if we required that television stations run
128
396000
3000
06:57
a 30-second interview with each loser
129
399000
2000
06:59
every time they interview a winner, the 100 million losers
130
401000
4000
07:03
in the last lottery would require nine-and-a-half years
131
405000
3000
07:06
of your undivided attention just to watch them say,
132
408000
3000
07:09
"Me? I lost." "Me? I lost."
133
411000
3000
07:12
Now, if you watch nine-and-a-half years of television --
134
414000
2000
07:14
no sleep, no potty breaks -- and you saw loss after loss after loss,
135
416000
5000
07:19
and then at the end there's 30 seconds of, "and I won,"
136
421000
2000
07:21
the likelihood that you would play the lottery is very small.
137
423000
3000
07:24
Look, I can prove this to you: here's a little lottery.
138
426000
3000
07:27
There's 10 tickets in this lottery.
139
429000
2000
07:29
Nine of them have been sold to these individuals.
140
431000
3000
07:32
It costs you a dollar to buy the ticket and, if you win,
141
434000
3000
07:35
you get 20 bucks. Is this a good bet?
142
437000
2000
07:37
Well, Bernoulli tells us it is.
143
439000
1000
07:38
The expected value of this lottery is two dollars;
144
440000
3000
07:41
this is a lottery in which you should invest your money.
145
443000
3000
07:44
And most people say, "OK, I'll play."
146
446000
2000
07:46
Now, a slightly different version of this lottery:
147
448000
3000
07:49
imagine that the nine tickets are all owned
148
451000
2000
07:51
by one fat guy named Leroy.
149
453000
2000
07:53
Leroy has nine tickets; there's one left.
150
455000
2000
07:55
Do you want it? Most people won't play this lottery.
151
457000
3000
07:58
Now, you can see the odds of winning haven't changed,
152
460000
2000
08:00
but it's now fantastically easy to imagine who's going to win.
153
462000
5000
08:05
It's easy to see Leroy getting the check, right?
154
467000
3000
08:08
You can't say to yourself, "I'm as likely to win as anybody,"
155
470000
2000
08:10
because you're not as likely to win as Leroy.
156
472000
3000
08:13
The fact that all those tickets are owned by one guy
157
475000
2000
08:15
changes your decision to play,
158
477000
2000
08:17
even though it does nothing whatsoever to the odds.
159
479000
3000
08:20
Now, estimating odds, as difficult as it may seem, is a piece of cake
160
482000
5000
08:25
compared to trying to estimate value:
161
487000
2000
08:27
trying to say what something is worth, how much we'll enjoy it,
162
489000
3000
08:30
how much pleasure it will give us.
163
492000
3000
08:33
I want to talk now about errors in value.
164
495000
2000
08:35
How much is this Big Mac worth? Is it worth 25 dollars?
165
497000
4000
08:39
Most of you have the intuition that it's not --
166
501000
3000
08:42
you wouldn't pay that for it.
167
504000
2000
08:44
But in fact, to decide whether a Big Mac is worth 25 dollars requires
168
506000
4000
08:48
that you ask one, and only one question, which is:
169
510000
3000
08:51
What else can I do with 25 dollars?
170
513000
2000
08:53
If you've ever gotten on one of those long-haul flights to Australia
171
515000
4000
08:57
and realized that they're not going to serve you any food,
172
519000
3000
09:00
but somebody in the row in front of you has just opened
173
522000
2000
09:02
the McDonald's bag, and the smell of golden arches
174
524000
3000
09:05
is wafting over the seat, you think,
175
527000
3000
09:08
I can't do anything else with this 25 dollars for 16 hours.
176
530000
3000
09:11
I can't even set it on fire -- they took my cigarette lighter!
177
533000
3000
09:14
Suddenly, 25 dollars for a Big Mac might be a good deal.
178
536000
3000
09:17
On the other hand, if you're visiting an underdeveloped country,
179
539000
2000
09:19
and 25 dollars buys you a gourmet meal, it's exorbitant for a Big Mac.
180
541000
4000
09:23
Why were you all sure that the answer to the question was no,
181
545000
3000
09:26
before I'd even told you anything about the context?
182
548000
3000
09:29
Because most of you compared the price of this Big Mac
183
551000
4000
09:33
to the price you're used to paying. Rather than asking,
184
555000
3000
09:36
"What else can I do with my money," comparing this investment
185
558000
3000
09:39
to other possible investments, you compared to the past.
186
561000
4000
09:43
And this is a systematic error people make.
187
565000
2000
09:45
What you knew is, you paid three dollars in the past; 25 is outrageous.
188
567000
5000
09:50
This is an error, and I can prove it to you by showing
189
572000
2000
09:52
the kinds of irrationalities to which it leads.
190
574000
2000
09:54
For example, this is, of course,
191
576000
3000
09:57
one of the most delicious tricks in marketing,
192
579000
2000
09:59
is to say something used to be higher,
193
581000
2000
10:01
and suddenly it seems like a very good deal.
194
583000
3000
10:04
When people are asked about these two different jobs:
195
586000
3000
10:07
a job where you make 60K, then 50K, then 40K,
196
589000
3000
10:10
a job where you're getting a salary cut each year,
197
592000
2000
10:12
and one in which you're getting a salary increase,
198
594000
2000
10:14
people like the second job better than the first, despite the fact
199
596000
4000
10:18
they're all told they make much less money. Why?
200
600000
3000
10:21
Because they had the sense that declining wages are worse
201
603000
4000
10:25
than rising wages, even when the total amount of wages is higher
202
607000
4000
10:29
in the declining period. Here's another nice example.
203
611000
4000
10:33
Here's a $2,000 Hawaiian vacation package; it's now on sale for 1,600.
204
615000
5000
10:38
Assuming you wanted to go to Hawaii, would you buy this package?
205
620000
3000
10:41
Most people say they would. Here's a slightly different story:
206
623000
4000
10:45
$2,000 Hawaiian vacation package is now on sale for 700 dollars,
207
627000
4000
10:49
so you decide to mull it over for a week.
208
631000
2000
10:51
By the time you get to the ticket agency, the best fares are gone --
209
633000
2000
10:53
the package now costs 1,500. Would you buy it? Most people say, no.
210
635000
5000
10:58
Why? Because it used to cost 700, and there's no way I'm paying 1,500
211
640000
4000
11:02
for something that was 700 last week.
212
644000
3000
11:05
This tendency to compare to the past
213
647000
2000
11:07
is causing people to pass up the better deal. In other words,
214
649000
4000
11:11
a good deal that used to be a great deal is not nearly as good
215
653000
3000
11:14
as an awful deal that was once a horrible deal.
216
656000
4000
11:18
Here's another example of how comparing to the past
217
660000
2000
11:20
can befuddle our decisions.
218
662000
4000
11:24
Imagine that you're going to the theater.
219
666000
2000
11:26
You're on your way to the theater.
220
668000
1000
11:27
In your wallet you have a ticket, for which you paid 20 dollars.
221
669000
2000
11:29
You also have a 20-dollar bill.
222
671000
2000
11:31
When you arrive at the theater,
223
673000
2000
11:33
you discover that somewhere along the way you've lost the ticket.
224
675000
3000
11:36
Would you spend your remaining money on replacing it?
225
678000
3000
11:39
Most people answer, no.
226
681000
3000
11:42
Now, let's just change one thing in this scenario.
227
684000
3000
11:45
You're on your way to the theater,
228
687000
1000
11:46
and in your wallet you have two 20-dollar bills.
229
688000
2000
11:48
When you arrive you discover you've lost one of them.
230
690000
2000
11:50
Would you spend your remaining 20 dollars on a ticket?
231
692000
2000
11:52
Well, of course, I went to the theater to see the play.
232
694000
3000
11:55
What does the loss of 20 dollars along the way have to do?
233
697000
3000
11:58
Now, just in case you're not getting it,
234
700000
3000
12:01
here's a schematic of what happened, OK?
235
703000
2000
12:03
(Laughter)
236
705000
1000
12:04
Along the way, you lost something.
237
706000
2000
12:06
In both cases, it was a piece of paper.
238
708000
2000
12:08
In one case, it had a U.S. president on it; in the other case it didn't.
239
710000
4000
12:12
What the hell difference should it make?
240
714000
2000
12:14
The difference is that when you lost the ticket you say to yourself,
241
716000
3000
12:17
I'm not paying twice for the same thing.
242
719000
2000
12:19
You compare the cost of the play now -- 40 dollars --
243
721000
3000
12:22
to the cost that it used to have -- 20 dollars -- and you say it's a bad deal.
244
724000
5000
12:27
Comparing with the past causes many of the problems
245
729000
4000
12:31
that behavioral economists and psychologists identify
246
733000
3000
12:34
in people's attempts to assign value.
247
736000
2000
12:36
But even when we compare with the possible, instead of the past,
248
738000
5000
12:41
we still make certain kinds of mistakes.
249
743000
2000
12:43
And I'm going to show you one or two of them.
250
745000
2000
12:45
One of the things we know about comparison:
251
747000
3000
12:48
that when we compare one thing to the other, it changes its value.
252
750000
3000
12:51
So in 1992, this fellow, George Bush, for those of us who were
253
753000
4000
12:55
kind of on the liberal side of the political spectrum,
254
757000
3000
12:58
didn't seem like such a great guy.
255
760000
2000
13:00
Suddenly, we're almost longing for him to return.
256
762000
4000
13:04
(Laughter)
257
766000
3000
13:07
The comparison changes how we evaluate him.
258
769000
3000
13:10
Now, retailers knew this long before anybody else did, of course,
259
772000
4000
13:14
and they use this wisdom to help you --
260
776000
2000
13:16
spare you the undue burden of money.
261
778000
2000
13:18
And so a retailer, if you were to go into a wine shop
262
780000
3000
13:21
and you had to buy a bottle of wine,
263
783000
1000
13:22
and you see them here for eight, 27 and 33 dollars, what would you do?
264
784000
4000
13:26
Most people don't want the most expensive,
265
788000
2000
13:28
they don't want the least expensive.
266
790000
2000
13:30
So, they will opt for the item in the middle.
267
792000
2000
13:32
If you're a smart retailer, then, you will put a very expensive item
268
794000
3000
13:35
that nobody will ever buy on the shelf,
269
797000
2000
13:37
because suddenly the $33 wine doesn't look as expensive in comparison.
270
799000
6000
13:43
So I'm telling you something you already knew:
271
805000
1000
13:44
namely, that comparison changes the value of things.
272
806000
4000
13:48
Here's why that's a problem:
273
810000
1000
13:49
the problem is that when you get that $33 bottle of wine home,
274
811000
6000
13:55
it won't matter what it used to be sitting on the shelf next to.
275
817000
4000
13:59
The comparisons we make when we are appraising value,
276
821000
5000
14:04
where we're trying to estimate how much we'll like things,
277
826000
4000
14:08
are not the same comparisons we'll be making when we consume them.
278
830000
3000
14:11
This problem of shifting comparisons can bedevil
279
833000
4000
14:15
our attempts to make rational decisions.
280
837000
3000
14:18
Let me just give you an example.
281
840000
1000
14:19
I have to show you something from my own lab, so let me sneak this in.
282
841000
4000
14:23
These are subjects coming to an experiment to be asked
283
845000
2000
14:25
the simplest of all questions:
284
847000
2000
14:27
How much will you enjoy eating potato chips one minute from now?
285
849000
4000
14:31
They're sitting in a room with potato chips in front of them.
286
853000
3000
14:34
For some of the subjects, sitting in the far corner of a room
287
856000
3000
14:37
is a box of Godiva chocolates, and for others is a can of Spam.
288
859000
5000
14:42
In fact, these items that are sitting in the room change
289
864000
4000
14:46
how much the subjects think they're going to enjoy the potato chips.
290
868000
3000
14:49
Namely, those who are looking at Spam
291
871000
2000
14:51
think potato chips are going to be quite tasty;
292
873000
2000
14:53
those who are looking at Godiva chocolate
293
875000
2000
14:55
think they won't be nearly so tasty.
294
877000
2000
14:57
Of course, what happens when they eat the potato chips?
295
879000
2000
14:59
Well, look, you didn't need a psychologist to tell you that
296
881000
3000
15:02
when you have a mouthful of greasy, salty, crispy, delicious snacks,
297
884000
4000
15:06
what's sitting in the corner of the room
298
888000
1000
15:07
makes not a damn bit of difference to your gustatory experience.
299
889000
5000
15:12
Nonetheless, their predictions are perverted by a comparison
300
894000
4000
15:16
that then does not carry through and change their experience.
301
898000
4000
15:20
You've all experienced this yourself, even if you've never come
302
902000
2000
15:22
into our lab to eat potato chips. So here's a question:
303
904000
3000
15:25
You want to buy a car stereo.
304
907000
2000
15:27
The dealer near your house sells this particular stereo for 200 dollars,
305
909000
5000
15:32
but if you drive across town, you can get it for 100 bucks.
306
914000
3000
15:35
So would you drive to get 50 percent off, saving 100 dollars?
307
917000
3000
15:38
Most people say they would.
308
920000
2000
15:40
They can't imagine buying it for twice the price
309
922000
2000
15:42
when, with one trip across town, they can get it for half off.
310
924000
4000
15:46
Now, let's imagine instead you wanted to buy a car that had a stereo,
311
928000
4000
15:50
and the dealer near your house had it for 31,000.
312
932000
2000
15:52
But if you drove across town, you could get it for 30,900.
313
934000
5000
15:57
Would you drive to get it? At this point, 0.003 savings -- the 100 dollars.
314
939000
4000
16:01
Most people say, no, I'm going to schlep across town
315
943000
2000
16:03
to save 100 bucks on the purchase of a car?
316
945000
3000
16:06
This kind of thinking drives economists crazy, and it should.
317
948000
4000
16:10
Because this 100 dollars that you save -- hello! --
318
952000
4000
16:14
doesn't know where it came from.
319
956000
2000
16:16
It doesn't know what you saved it on.
320
958000
2000
16:18
When you go to buy groceries with it, it doesn't go,
321
960000
2000
16:20
I'm the money saved on the car stereo, or,
322
962000
3000
16:23
I'm the dumb money saved on the car. It's money.
323
965000
4000
16:27
And if a drive across town is worth 100 bucks, it's worth 100 bucks
324
969000
3000
16:30
no matter what you're saving it on. People don't think that way.
325
972000
3000
16:33
That's why they don't know whether their mutual fund manager
326
975000
2000
16:35
is taking 0.1 percent or 0.15 percent of their investment,
327
977000
5000
16:40
but they clip coupons to save one dollar off of toothpaste.
328
982000
3000
16:43
Now, you can see, this is the problem of shifting comparisons,
329
985000
3000
16:46
because what you're doing is, you're comparing the 100 bucks
330
988000
3000
16:49
to the purchase that you're making,
331
991000
2000
16:51
but when you go to spend that money you won't be making that comparison.
332
993000
4000
16:55
You've all had this experience.
333
997000
2000
16:57
If you're an American, for example, you've probably traveled in France.
334
999000
4000
17:01
And at some point you may have met a couple
335
1003000
2000
17:03
from your own hometown, and you thought,
336
1005000
1000
17:04
"Oh, my God, these people are so warm. They're so nice to me.
337
1006000
5000
17:09
I mean, compared to all these people who hate me
338
1011000
2000
17:11
when I try to speak their language and hate me more when I don't,
339
1013000
3000
17:14
these people are just wonderful." And so you tour France with them,
340
1016000
3000
17:17
and then you get home and you invite them over for dinner,
341
1019000
2000
17:19
and what do you find?
342
1021000
1000
17:20
Compared to your regular friends,
343
1022000
2000
17:22
they are boring and dull, right? Because in this new context,
344
1024000
4000
17:26
the comparison is very, very different. In fact, you find yourself
345
1028000
4000
17:30
disliking them enough almost to qualify for French citizenship.
346
1032000
3000
17:34
Now, you have exactly the same problem when you shop for a stereo.
347
1036000
3000
17:37
You go to the stereo store, you see two sets of speakers --
348
1039000
3000
17:40
these big, boxy, monoliths, and these little, sleek speakers,
349
1042000
4000
17:44
and you play them, and you go, you know, I do hear a difference:
350
1046000
2000
17:46
the big ones sound a little better.
351
1048000
2000
17:48
And so you buy them, and you bring them home,
352
1050000
2000
17:50
and you entirely violate the décor of your house.
353
1052000
3000
17:53
And the problem, of course, is that this comparison you made in the store
354
1055000
4000
17:57
is a comparison you'll never make again.
355
1059000
2000
17:59
What are the odds that years later you'll turn on the stereo and go,
356
1061000
2000
18:01
"Sounds so much better than those little ones,"
357
1063000
3000
18:04
which you can't even remember hearing.
358
1066000
2000
18:06
The problem of shifting comparisons is even more difficult
359
1068000
3000
18:09
when these choices are arrayed over time.
360
1071000
3000
18:12
People have a lot of trouble making decisions
361
1074000
3000
18:15
about things that will happen at different points in time.
362
1077000
3000
18:18
And what psychologists and behavioral economists have discovered
363
1080000
2000
18:20
is that by and large people use two simple rules.
364
1082000
3000
18:23
So let me give you one very easy problem, a second very easy problem
365
1085000
4000
18:27
and then a third, hard, problem.
366
1089000
1000
18:28
Here's the first easy problem:
367
1090000
3000
18:31
You can have 60 dollars now or 50 dollars now. Which would you prefer?
368
1093000
3000
18:34
This is what we call a one-item IQ test, OK?
369
1096000
3000
18:37
All of us, I hope, prefer more money, and the reason is,
370
1099000
3000
18:40
we believe more is better than less.
371
1102000
3000
18:43
Here's the second problem:
372
1105000
1000
18:44
You can have 60 dollars today or 60 dollars in a month. Which would you prefer?
373
1106000
4000
18:48
Again, an easy decision,
374
1110000
2000
18:50
because we all know that now is better than later.
375
1112000
4000
18:54
What's hard in our decision-making is when these two rules conflict.
376
1116000
3000
18:57
For example, when you're offered 50 dollars now or 60 dollars in a month.
377
1119000
4000
19:01
This typifies a lot of situations in life in which you will gain
378
1123000
3000
19:04
by waiting, but you have to be patient.
379
1126000
3000
19:07
What do we know? What do people do in these kinds of situations?
380
1129000
3000
19:10
Well, by and large people are enormously impatient.
381
1132000
4000
19:14
That is, they require interest rates in the hundred
382
1136000
3000
19:17
or thousands of percents in order to delay gratification
383
1139000
4000
19:21
and wait until next month for the extra 10 dollars.
384
1143000
4000
19:25
Maybe that isn't so remarkable, but what is remarkable is
385
1147000
3000
19:28
how easy it is to make this impatience go away by simply changing
386
1150000
4000
19:32
when the delivery of these monetary units will happen.
387
1154000
4000
19:36
Imagine that you can have 50 dollars in a year -- that's 12 months --
388
1158000
3000
19:39
or 60 dollars in 13 months.
389
1161000
3000
19:42
What do we find now?
390
1164000
1000
19:43
People are gladly willing to wait: as long as they're waiting 12,
391
1165000
3000
19:46
they might as well wait 13.
392
1168000
2000
19:48
What makes this dynamic inconsistency happen?
393
1170000
3000
19:51
Comparison. Troubling comparison. Let me show you.
394
1173000
4000
19:55
This is just a graph showing the results that I just suggested
395
1177000
3000
19:58
you would show if I gave you time to respond, which is,
396
1180000
2000
20:00
people find that the subjective value of 50 is higher
397
1182000
3000
20:03
than the subjective value of 60 when they'll be delivered in now
398
1185000
4000
20:07
or one month, respectively -- a 30-day delay --
399
1189000
2000
20:09
but they show the reverse pattern when you push the entire decision
400
1191000
4000
20:13
off into the future a year.
401
1195000
3000
20:16
Now, why in the world do you get this pattern of results?
402
1198000
4000
20:20
These guys can tell us.
403
1202000
1000
20:21
What you see here are two lads,
404
1203000
3000
20:24
one of them larger than the other: the fireman and the fiddler.
405
1206000
3000
20:27
They are going to recede towards the vanishing point in the horizon,
406
1209000
3000
20:30
and I want you to notice two things.
407
1212000
2000
20:32
At no point will the fireman look taller than the fiddler. No point.
408
1214000
6000
20:38
However, the difference between them seems to be getting smaller.
409
1220000
3000
20:41
First it's an inch in your view, then it's a quarter-inch,
410
1223000
3000
20:44
then a half-inch, and then finally they go off the edge of the earth.
411
1226000
4000
20:48
Here are the results of what I just showed you.
412
1230000
3000
20:51
This is the subjective height --
413
1233000
2000
20:53
the height you saw of these guys at various points.
414
1235000
3000
20:56
And I want you to see that two things are true.
415
1238000
2000
20:58
One, the farther away they are, the smaller they look;
416
1240000
3000
21:01
and two, the fireman is always bigger than the fiddler.
417
1243000
2000
21:03
But watch what happens when we make some of them disappear. Right.
418
1245000
6000
21:09
At a very close distance, the fiddler looks taller than the fireman,
419
1251000
3000
21:12
but at a far distance
420
1254000
2000
21:14
their normal, their true, relations are preserved.
421
1256000
3000
21:17
As Plato said, what space is to size, time is to value.
422
1259000
5000
21:22
These are the results of the hard problem I gave you:
423
1264000
5000
21:27
60 now or 50 in a month?
424
1269000
2000
21:29
And these are subjective values,
425
1271000
1000
21:30
and what you can see is, our two rules are preserved.
426
1272000
2000
21:32
People always think more is better than less:
427
1274000
2000
21:34
60 is always better than 50,
428
1276000
2000
21:36
and they always think now is better than later:
429
1278000
2000
21:38
the bars on this side are higher than the bars on this side.
430
1280000
3000
21:41
Watch what happens when we drop some out.
431
1283000
3000
21:44
Suddenly we have the dynamic inconsistency that puzzled us.
432
1286000
3000
21:47
We have the tendency for people to go for 50 dollars now
433
1289000
4000
21:51
over waiting a month, but not if that decision is far in the future.
434
1293000
3000
21:54
Notice something interesting that this implies -- namely, that
435
1296000
4000
21:58
when people get to the future, they will change their minds.
436
1300000
4000
22:02
That is, as that month 12 approaches, you will say,
437
1304000
3000
22:05
what was I thinking, waiting an extra month for 60 dollars?
438
1307000
3000
22:08
I'll take the 50 dollars now.
439
1310000
3000
22:11
Well, the question with which I'd like to end is this:
440
1313000
3000
22:14
If we're so damn stupid, how did we get to the moon?
441
1316000
3000
22:17
Because I could go on for about two hours with evidence
442
1319000
3000
22:20
of people's inability to estimate odds and inability to estimate value.
443
1322000
6000
22:26
The answer to this question, I think, is an answer you've already heard
444
1328000
2000
22:28
in some of the talks, and I dare say you will hear again:
445
1330000
2000
22:30
namely, that our brains were evolved for a very different world
446
1332000
4000
22:34
than the one in which we are living.
447
1336000
2000
22:36
They were evolved for a world
448
1338000
2000
22:38
in which people lived in very small groups,
449
1340000
2000
22:40
rarely met anybody who was terribly different from themselves,
450
1342000
3000
22:43
had rather short lives in which there were few choices
451
1345000
3000
22:46
and the highest priority was to eat and mate today.
452
1348000
5000
22:51
Bernoulli's gift, Bernoulli's little formula, allows us, it tells us
453
1353000
5000
22:56
how we should think in a world for which nature never designed us.
454
1358000
5000
23:01
That explains why we are so bad at using it, but it also explains
455
1363000
4000
23:05
why it is so terribly important that we become good, fast.
456
1367000
5000
23:10
We are the only species on this planet
457
1372000
2000
23:12
that has ever held its own fate in its hands.
458
1374000
4000
23:16
We have no significant predators,
459
1378000
2000
23:18
we're the masters of our physical environment;
460
1380000
2000
23:20
the things that normally cause species to become extinct
461
1382000
3000
23:23
are no longer any threat to us.
462
1385000
3000
23:26
The only thing -- the only thing -- that can destroy us and doom us
463
1388000
5000
23:31
are our own decisions.
464
1393000
2000
23:33
If we're not here in 10,000 years, it's going to be because
465
1395000
4000
23:37
we could not take advantage of the gift given to us
466
1399000
4000
23:41
by a young Dutch fellow in 1738,
467
1403000
3000
23:44
because we underestimated the odds of our future pains
468
1406000
4000
23:48
and overestimated the value of our present pleasures.
469
1410000
4000
23:52
Thank you.
470
1414000
1000
23:53
(Applause)
471
1415000
10000
24:03
Chris Anderson: That was remarkable.
472
1425000
3000
24:06
We have time for some questions for Dan Gilbert. One and two.
473
1428000
5000
24:11
Bill Lyell: Would you say that this mechanism
474
1433000
3000
24:14
is in part how terrorism actually works to frighten us,
475
1436000
4000
24:18
and is there some way that we could counteract that?
476
1440000
4000
24:22
Dan Gilbert: I actually was consulting recently
477
1444000
1000
24:23
with the Department of Homeland Security, which generally believes
478
1445000
3000
24:26
that American security dollars should go to making borders safer.
479
1448000
4000
24:30
I tried to point out to them that terrorism was a name
480
1452000
3000
24:33
based on people's psychological reaction to a set of events,
481
1455000
4000
24:37
and that if they were concerned about terrorism they might ask
482
1459000
2000
24:39
what causes terror and how can we stop people from being terrified,
483
1461000
3000
24:42
rather than -- not rather than, but in addition to
484
1464000
3000
24:45
stopping the atrocities that we're all concerned about.
485
1467000
3000
24:48
Surely the kinds of play that at least American media give to --
486
1470000
6000
24:54
and forgive me, but in raw numbers these are very tiny accidents.
487
1476000
5000
24:59
We already know, for example, in the United States,
488
1481000
2000
25:01
more people have died as a result of not taking airplanes --
489
1483000
4000
25:05
because they were scared -- and driving on highways,
490
1487000
2000
25:07
than were killed in 9/11. OK?
491
1489000
2000
25:09
If I told you that there was a plague
492
1491000
2000
25:11
that was going to kill 15,000 Americans next year,
493
1493000
3000
25:14
you might be alarmed if you didn't find out it was the flu.
494
1496000
3000
25:17
These are small-scale accidents, and we should be wondering
495
1499000
3000
25:20
whether they should get the kind of play,
496
1502000
2000
25:22
the kind of coverage, that they do.
497
1504000
2000
25:24
Surely that causes people to overestimate the likelihood
498
1506000
3000
25:27
that they'll be hurt in these various ways,
499
1509000
2000
25:29
and gives power to the very people who want to frighten us.
500
1511000
2000
25:31
CA: Dan, I'd like to hear more on this. So, you're saying
501
1513000
2000
25:33
that our response to terror is, I mean, it's a form of mental bug?
502
1515000
4000
25:37
Talk more about it.
503
1519000
1000
25:38
DG: It's out-sized. I mean, look.
504
1520000
3000
25:41
If Australia disappears tomorrow,
505
1523000
2000
25:43
terror is probably the right response.
506
1525000
2000
25:45
That's an awful large lot of very nice people. On the other hand,
507
1527000
5000
25:50
when a bus blows up and 30 people are killed,
508
1532000
3000
25:53
more people than that were killed
509
1535000
2000
25:55
by not using their seatbelts in the same country.
510
1537000
3000
25:58
Is terror the right response?
511
1540000
1000
25:59
CA: What causes the bug? Is it the drama of the event --
512
1541000
4000
26:03
that it's so spectacular?
513
1545000
1000
26:04
Is it the fact that it's an intentional attack by, quote, outsiders?
514
1546000
3000
26:07
What is it?
515
1549000
1000
26:08
DG: Yes. It's a number of things, and you hit on several of them.
516
1550000
3000
26:11
First, it's a human agent trying to kill us --
517
1553000
2000
26:13
it's not a tree falling on us by accident.
518
1555000
3000
26:16
Second, these are enemies who may want to strike and hurt us again.
519
1558000
3000
26:19
People are being killed for no reason instead of good reason --
520
1561000
3000
26:22
as if there's good reason, but sometimes people think there are.
521
1564000
3000
26:25
So there are a number of things that together
522
1567000
2000
26:27
make this seem like a fantastic event, but let's not play down
523
1569000
3000
26:30
the fact that newspapers sell when people see something in it
524
1572000
4000
26:34
they want to read. So there's a large role here played by the media,
525
1576000
3000
26:37
who want these things to be
526
1579000
2000
26:39
as spectacular as they possibly can.
527
1581000
4000
26:43
CA: I mean, what would it take to persuade our culture to downplay it?
528
1585000
6000
26:49
DG: Well, go to Israel. You know,
529
1591000
1000
26:50
go to Israel. And a mall blows up,
530
1592000
2000
26:52
and then everybody's unhappy about it, and an hour-and-a-half later --
531
1594000
3000
26:55
at least when I was there, and I was 150 feet from the mall
532
1597000
3000
26:58
when it blew up -- I went back to my hotel
533
1600000
2000
27:00
and the wedding that was planned was still going on.
534
1602000
3000
27:03
And as the Israeli mother said,
535
1605000
1000
27:04
she said, "We never let them win by stopping weddings."
536
1606000
4000
27:08
I mean, this is a society that has learned --
537
1610000
1000
27:09
and there are others too -- that has learned to live
538
1611000
2000
27:11
with a certain amount of terrorism and not be quite as upset by it,
539
1613000
5000
27:16
shall I say, as those of us who have not had many terror attacks.
540
1618000
3000
27:19
CA: But is there a rational fear that actually,
541
1621000
3000
27:22
the reason we're frightened about this is because we think that
542
1624000
3000
27:25
the Big One is to come?
543
1627000
1000
27:26
DG: Yes, of course. So, if we knew that this was the worst attack
544
1628000
4000
27:30
there would ever be, there might be more and more buses of 30 people --
545
1632000
4000
27:34
we would probably not be nearly so frightened.
546
1636000
2000
27:36
I don't want to say -- please, I'm going to get quoted somewhere
547
1638000
2000
27:38
as saying, "Terrorism is fine and we shouldn't be so distressed."
548
1640000
4000
27:42
That's not my point at all.
549
1644000
2000
27:44
What I'm saying is that, surely, rationally,
550
1646000
2000
27:46
our distress about things that happen, about threats,
551
1648000
4000
27:50
should be roughly proportional to the size of those threats
552
1652000
3000
27:53
and threats to come.
553
1655000
2000
27:55
I think in the case of terrorism, it isn't.
554
1657000
3000
27:58
And many of the things we've heard about from our speakers today --
555
1660000
2000
28:00
how many people do you know got up and said,
556
1662000
2000
28:02
Poverty! I can't believe what poverty is doing to us.
557
1664000
4000
28:06
People get up in the morning; they don't care about poverty.
558
1668000
2000
28:08
It's not making headlines, it's not making news, it's not flashy.
559
1670000
2000
28:10
There are no guns going off.
560
1672000
2000
28:12
I mean, if you had to solve one of these problems, Chris,
561
1674000
2000
28:14
which would you solve? Terrorism or poverty?
562
1676000
2000
28:16
(Laughter)
563
1678000
4000
28:20
(Applause)
564
1682000
2000
28:22
That's a tough one.
565
1684000
2000
28:24
CA: There's no question.
566
1686000
1000
28:25
Poverty, by an order of magnitude, a huge order of magnitude,
567
1687000
4000
28:29
unless someone can show that there's, you know,
568
1691000
3000
28:32
terrorists with a nuke are really likely to come.
569
1694000
4000
28:36
The latest I've read, seen, thought
570
1698000
2000
28:38
is that it's incredibly hard for them to do that.
571
1700000
4000
28:42
If that turns out to be wrong, we all look silly,
572
1704000
2000
28:44
but with poverty it's a bit --
573
1706000
2000
28:46
DG: Even if that were true, still more people die from poverty.
574
1708000
3000
28:53
CA: We've evolved to get all excited
575
1715000
1000
28:54
about these dramatic attacks. Is that because in the past,
576
1716000
3000
28:57
in the ancient past, we just didn't understand things like disease
577
1719000
3000
29:00
and systems that cause poverty and so forth,
578
1722000
2000
29:02
and so it made no sense for us as a species to put any energy
579
1724000
4000
29:06
into worrying about those things?
580
1728000
2000
29:08
People died; so be it.
581
1730000
2000
29:10
But if you got attacked, that was something you could do something about.
582
1732000
2000
29:12
And so we evolved these responses.
583
1734000
2000
29:14
Is that what happened?
584
1736000
1000
29:15
DG: Well, you know, the people who are most skeptical
585
1737000
3000
29:18
about leaping to evolutionary explanations for everything
586
1740000
2000
29:20
are the evolutionary psychologists themselves.
587
1742000
2000
29:22
My guess is that there's nothing quite that specific
588
1744000
3000
29:25
in our evolutionary past. But rather, if you're looking for
589
1747000
2000
29:27
an evolutionary explanation, you might say
590
1749000
2000
29:29
that most organisms are neo-phobic -- that is, they're a little scared
591
1751000
4000
29:33
of stuff that's new and different.
592
1755000
1000
29:34
And there's a good reason to be,
593
1756000
2000
29:36
because old stuff didn't eat you. Right?
594
1758000
1000
29:37
Any animal you see that you've seen before is less likely
595
1759000
3000
29:40
to be a predator than one that you've never seen before.
596
1762000
3000
29:43
So, you know, when a school bus is blown up and we've never seen this before,
597
1765000
3000
29:46
our general tendency is to orient towards
598
1768000
2000
29:48
that which is new and novel is activated.
599
1770000
5000
29:53
I don't think it's quite as specific a mechanism
600
1775000
2000
29:55
as the one you alluded to, but maybe a more fundamental one underlying it.
601
1777000
2000
30:01
Jay Walker: You know, economists love to talk about
602
1783000
5000
30:06
the stupidity of people who buy lottery tickets. But I suspect
603
1788000
4000
30:10
you're making the exact same error you're accusing those people of,
604
1792000
3000
30:13
which is the error of value.
605
1795000
1000
30:14
I know, because I've interviewed
606
1796000
1000
30:15
about 1,000 lottery buyers over the years.
607
1797000
2000
30:17
It turns out that the value of buying a lottery ticket is not winning.
608
1799000
4000
30:21
That's what you think it is. All right?
609
1803000
2000
30:23
The average lottery buyer buys about 150 tickets a year,
610
1805000
3000
30:26
so the buyer knows full well that he or she is going to lose,
611
1808000
4000
30:30
and yet she buys 150 tickets a year. Why is that?
612
1812000
3000
30:33
It's not because she is stupid or he is stupid.
613
1815000
4000
30:37
It's because the anticipation of possibly winning
614
1819000
3000
30:40
releases serotonin in the brain, and actually provides a good feeling
615
1822000
4000
30:44
until the drawing indicates you've lost.
616
1826000
2000
30:46
Or, to put it another way, for the dollar investment,
617
1828000
3000
30:49
you can have a much better feeling than flushing the money
618
1831000
3000
30:52
down the toilet, which you cannot have a good feeling from.
619
1834000
3000
30:55
Now, economists tend to --
620
1837000
2000
30:57
(Applause)
621
1839000
3000
31:00
-- economists tend to view the world
622
1842000
1000
31:01
through their own lenses, which is:
623
1843000
2000
31:03
this is just a bunch of stupid people.
624
1845000
2000
31:05
And as a result, many people look at economists as stupid people.
625
1847000
4000
31:09
And so fundamentally, the reason we got to the moon is,
626
1851000
3000
31:12
we didn't listen to the economists. Thank you very much.
627
1854000
3000
31:15
(Applause)
628
1857000
5000
31:20
DG: Well, no, it's a great point. It remains to be seen
629
1862000
3000
31:23
whether the joy of anticipation is exactly equaled
630
1865000
4000
31:27
by the amount of disappointment after the lottery. Because remember,
631
1869000
3000
31:30
people who didn't buy tickets don't feel awful the next day either,
632
1872000
3000
31:33
even though they don't feel great during the drawing.
633
1875000
2000
31:35
I would disagree that people know they're not going to win.
634
1877000
2000
31:37
I think they think it's unlikely, but it could happen,
635
1879000
3000
31:40
which is why they prefer that to the flushing.
636
1882000
3000
31:43
But certainly I see your point: that there can be
637
1885000
3000
31:46
some utility to buying a lottery ticket other than winning.
638
1888000
4000
31:50
Now, I think there's many good reasons not to listen to economists.
639
1892000
3000
31:53
That isn't one of them, for me, but there's many others.
640
1895000
3000
31:56
CA: Last question.
641
1898000
2000
31:58
Aubrey de Grey: My name's Aubrey de Grey, from Cambridge.
642
1900000
3000
32:01
I work on the thing that kills more people than anything else kills --
643
1903000
4000
32:05
I work on aging -- and I'm interested in doing something about it,
644
1907000
2000
32:07
as we'll all hear tomorrow.
645
1909000
1000
32:08
I very much resonate with what you're saying,
646
1910000
3000
32:11
because it seems to me that the problem
647
1913000
2000
32:13
with getting people interested in doing anything about aging
648
1915000
3000
32:16
is that by the time aging is about to kill you it looks like cancer
649
1918000
3000
32:19
or heart disease or whatever. Do you have any advice?
650
1921000
3000
32:22
(Laughter)
651
1924000
3000
32:25
DG: For you or for them?
652
1927000
1000
32:26
AdG: In persuading them.
653
1928000
1000
32:27
DG: Ah, for you in persuading them.
654
1929000
2000
32:29
Well, it's notoriously difficult to get people to be farsighted.
655
1931000
3000
32:32
But one thing that psychologists have tried that seems to work
656
1934000
4000
32:36
is to get people to imagine the future more vividly.
657
1938000
3000
32:39
One of the problems with making decisions about the far future
658
1941000
3000
32:42
and the near future is that we imagine the near future
659
1944000
3000
32:45
much more vividly than the far future.
660
1947000
2000
32:47
To the extent that you can equalize the amount of detail
661
1949000
4000
32:51
that people put into the mental representations
662
1953000
2000
32:53
of near and far future, people begin to make decisions
663
1955000
2000
32:55
about the two in the same way.
664
1957000
2000
32:57
So, would you like to have an extra 100,000 dollars when you're 65
665
1959000
5000
33:02
is a question that's very different than,
666
1964000
1000
33:03
imagine who you'll be when you're 65: will you be living,
667
1965000
4000
33:07
what will you look like, how much hair will you have,
668
1969000
2000
33:09
who will you be living with.
669
1971000
1000
33:10
Once we have all the details of that imaginary scenario,
670
1972000
3000
33:13
suddenly we feel like it might be important to save
671
1975000
2000
33:15
so that that guy has a little retirement money.
672
1977000
3000
33:18
But these are tricks around the margins.
673
1980000
2000
33:20
I think in general you're battling a very fundamental human tendency,
674
1982000
3000
33:23
which is to say, "I'm here today,
675
1985000
2000
33:25
and so now is more important than later."
676
1987000
3000
33:28
CA: Dan, thank you. Members of the audience,
677
1990000
2000
33:30
that was a fantastic session. Thank you.
678
1992000
1000
33:31
(Applause)
679
1993000
2000
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Dan Gilbert - Psychologist; happiness expertHarvard psychologist Dan Gilbert says our beliefs about what will make us happy are often wrong -- a premise he supports with intriguing research, and explains in his accessible and unexpectedly funny book, Stumbling on Happiness.
Why you should listen
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.
Dan Gilbert | Speaker | TED.com