People are bad at predicting happiness
Example: paraplegic vs. lottery winner
After 1 year, people think paraplegic will be sadder than they actually are, think lottery winner will be happer than they actually are.
People's ratings of happiness are fickle:
Example: Randomly put a quarter in a telephone booth. Some people find it, others don't. Immediately afterwards, ask them to rate their satisfaction of their entire life, overall. People who found quarter give a higher overall life satisfaction.
People in California and places with worse climates think they have the same happiness. Happiness is about satisfaction, i.e. comparing what you have to a baseline, what you "expected yourself to have".
Even though California has better weather, doesn't really effect happiness.
People are optimistic. Overly so, sometimes.
People asked to rate their changes of success in life, of becoming a millionaire, being happy, etc. Then asked to rate chances of roommate. Seems that roommate will never do as well in life as self.
However, optimists are more happy in general. Even if deluded, are happy :).
Interestingly, the duration of pleasure/pain does not really matter in the overall rating of it.
Example:
Someone has a colonoscopy, a painful procedure. Person A has a buildup to piercing pain, then procedure is over.
Person B has the same buildup to piercing pain, then lessens to a smaller pain.
Person B is in pain longer, and suffered the same as A. Yet Person A rates a worse experience.
Interestingly: if you subject someone to both patterns of pain (such as dipping hand in cold water), and ask them to do one again...
-> People are more willing to undergo the "B" pattern than the A!
General finding: Rating of experience depends on average of (PEAK + ENDING value), and NOT duration.
Interesting philosophical point: we may have a "self" that experiences an event, and a "self" that remembers it.
After the event is done, we only have the memory left. We choose what events to do in future by our MEMORY of it, which may not be a good representation of the pain involved.
(Another point: if you went through months or seconds of torture, what does it matter if it's a memory? You are not experiencing it now. It should make a difference, but it doesn't.)
Widows: Happiness decreases up until time of death (spouse getting sick), then after about 3 years returns to nearly the previous level. Shape of a V.
Marriage: Happiness increases up until marriage, then decreases afterwards. Shape a mountain top: /\
Is happiness really changing? Or just satisfaction? What you expect vs. what you have?
People HATE commuting, rated as one of worst experiences in day.
Yet people may commute longer to get a better-paying job.
Does the increase in money lead to a higher life-satisfaction? Is the commute worth it?
Money not really correlated with satisfaction -- remember the "what you have" vs. "what you expect".
Although what was found: people who highly value money tend to get it (i.e., people asked how important money was to them at age 18... at age 35, those who valued it more had more). But not necessarily happier. Was what they had more than what they expected?
Was found that happy thoughts happen in one lobe, sad thoughts in another. Can be measured. People's happiness correlates to this, and distributed around a bell curve.
The outliers? Monks who meditated on compassion, controlling anger, etc. for hours a day. Had almost no activity for sadness.
Idea: happiness is a skill which can be developed. Monks work extrememly hard at it, meditation, etc. But happiness can be learned.
