Summary of The Futile Pursuit of Happiness
In Jon Gertner’s article, “The Futile Pursuit of Happiness”, the author studies the idea that humans wrongly predict their emotions towards certain future events. This is called affective forecasting and proves to be the center of the article. The theories of impact bias, adapting to happiness, and empathy gap relate to the idea of affective forecasting, and provide valuable insight and understanding on its effects on happiness. Daniel Gilbert, psychology professor at Harvard University, diligently researches the concept of impact bias: “ “impact” meaning the errors we make in estimating both the intensity and duration of our emotions and “bias” our tendency to err” (Gertner 445). Therefore, …show more content…
The gap between the two states is called the empathy gap created by George Lowenstein, the economist of Carnegie Mellon. In the “hot” state our emotions are in state of “anxiety, courage, fear, drug craving, sexual excitations, and the like,” while the second state is known as the “cold” state of “rational calm” (Gertner 448). According to Lowenstein’s research, one cannot predetermine their actions or behaviors in “hot” states no matter the circumstance. The way humans think they will act in the “heat of the moment situations,” usually does not reveal their true actions and cannot be predicted in a “cold” state (Gertner 449). Once in the “hot” state, one does not think about the consequences of their actions; as a result, the “cold” state materializes the consequences at hand and happiness declines. A recurring example proves to be the activity of unprotected sex (Gertner 449). In Loewenstein’s experiment over the idea, it was evident that the subjects would not perform unprotected sex “in moments of cool calculations” (Gertner 449). Hence, by forecasting one’s happiness, only despair and confusion are the outcome when dealing with one’s
In Jon Gertner’s article, “The Futile Pursuit of Happiness”, the author studies the idea that humans wrongly predict their emotions towards certain future events. This is called affective forecasting and proves to be the center of the article. The theories of impact bias, adapting to happiness, and empathy gap relate to the idea of affective forecasting, and provide valuable insight and understanding on its effects on happiness. Daniel Gilbert, psychology professor at Harvard University, diligently researches the concept of impact bias: “ “impact” meaning the errors we make in estimating both the intensity and duration of our emotions and “bias” our tendency to err” (Gertner 445). Therefore, …show more content…
The gap between the two states is called the empathy gap created by George Lowenstein, the economist of Carnegie Mellon. In the “hot” state our emotions are in state of “anxiety, courage, fear, drug craving, sexual excitations, and the like,” while the second state is known as the “cold” state of “rational calm” (Gertner 448). According to Lowenstein’s research, one cannot predetermine their actions or behaviors in “hot” states no matter the circumstance. The way humans think they will act in the “heat of the moment situations,” usually does not reveal their true actions and cannot be predicted in a “cold” state (Gertner 449). Once in the “hot” state, one does not think about the consequences of their actions; as a result, the “cold” state materializes the consequences at hand and happiness declines. A recurring example proves to be the activity of unprotected sex (Gertner 449). In Loewenstein’s experiment over the idea, it was evident that the subjects would not perform unprotected sex “in moments of cool calculations” (Gertner 449). Hence, by forecasting one’s happiness, only despair and confusion are the outcome when dealing with one’s