Dan Gilbert is a psychology professor at Harvard, and author of Stumbling on Happiness
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Transcript: Daniel Gilbert, TED2004
Daniel Gilbert: Why are we happy? Why aren’t we happy?
Playlist: The perfect back-to-school talks, from a TED internI’m an anthropology major gearing up for my senior year and all that comes with it — job applications, extracurricular responsibilities and my senior honors thesis. After a semester abroad, I’m looking forward to returning to the familiarity and challenges that my college, the University of Pennsylvania, presents while incorporating the new perspectives I gained […]
The power of daydreams: 4 studies on the surprising science of mind-wanderingWhat makes us happy? It’s one of the most complicated puzzles of human existence — and one that, so far, 87 speakers have explored in TEDTalks. In today’s talk, Matt Killingsworth (who studied under Dan Gilbert at Harvard) shares a novel approach to the study of happiness — an app, Track Your Happiness, which allows people to […]
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Nathali jensen commented on Jan 14 2012
He is so right
frisør booking commented on Jul 14 2011
Very interesting blog.
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Paul Herman commented on Jul 1 2010
The problem with the claim of the fellow who stood up at the end, is that though people may buy lottery tickets for the anticipatory illusion rather than the prize, they must believe they might win as a prerequisite to enjoying the illusion. Thereby committing the very miscalculation of risk (or mis-valuing of the ticket purchased) Gilbert claims originally.
Paul Herman commented on Jul 1 2010
The problem with the claim of the fellow who stood up at the end, is that though people may buy lottery tickets for the anticipatory illusion rather than the prize, they must believe they might win as a prerequisite to enjoying the illusion. Thereby committing the very miscalculation of risk (or mis-valuing of the ticket purchased) Gilbert claims originally.
ArthurSpiritSentient Hung commented on Jun 19 2010
Hey, I’d just like to make the comment, that while I agree that people can think things before they happen, unlike other animals…
I feel that with the comment about how paraplegics and lottery tickets winners have the same happiness after a few decades has absolutely no relevance on anything. Because first of all every individual’s happiness is subjective, so happiness can’t really be judged or compared, and secondly, real happiness is more about if people are living their lives in a creative contributing fashion to the best of their abilities. If they are, they are happy. If they aren’t, they won’t be. Just my 2 cents :)
Arthur
Spiritsentient.com
Dominic Ali commented on Jan 6 2010
This is one of my favorite talks. I’m looking forward to reading another book on happiness by a NYC writer Gretchen Rubin called “The Happiness Project”.
Vlad Dascalescu commented on Apr 8 2008
Actually Dan Gilbert was mistaken and the cost of the McDonald’s franchise was $35,000 to $50,000, according to NY Times.