Science of Well Being

Annoying Feature #1

Our minds’ strongest intuitions are often totally wrong

Gilbert & Wilson (2000). ”Miswanting: Some problems in the forecasting of future affective states.” In Thinking and feeling: The role of affect in social cognition. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Pages 178-197.

This book excerpt defines miswanting which is the act of being mistaken about what and how much you will like something in the future

Annoying Feature #2

Our minds don’t think in terms of absolutes; our minds judge to relative reference points

Medvec et al. (1995). When less is more: Counterfactual thinking and satisfaction among Olympic medalists. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69(4), 603–610.

This paper tells us due to the power of salient reference points, bronze winners tend to be happier than silver medal winners

Lyubomirsky (2007). The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want. New York, NY: Penguin Books. Page 44.

This book tells us salary goals rise as salary rises, which may be due to changing reference points

van Praag and Frijters (1999). "The measurement of welfare and well-being: the Leyden approach." In Well-Being: The foundation of hedonic psychology. New York: Russel Sage Foundation. Pages 413-433.

This book excerpt tells us reference points mess up good salaries - for every $1.00 increase in your actual income, your “required income” increases by $1.40

Clark and Oswald (1996). Satisfaction and comparison income. Journal of Public Economics, 61(3) 359-381.

This paper tells us reference points mess up good salaries - if your coworkers make more money than you do, then you will be less satisfied with your job

Solnick and Hemenway (1997). Is more always better?: A survey on positional concerns. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 37, 373-383.

This paper tells us reference points mess up good salaries - in a hypothetical earnings situation people would prefer to make less money if their coworkers make less rather than make more money if their coworkers make more

Clark (2003). Unemployment as a social norm: Psychological evidence from panel data. Journal of Labor Economics, 21(2), 323-351.

This paper tells us those who are unemployed tend to be happier if the unemployment rate in their area is high

O’Guinn and Shrum (1997). The role of television in the construction of consumer reality. Journal of Consumer Research, 23(4), 278-294.

This paper tells us television programs - featuring products and activities associated with an affluent lifestyle - act as a harmful social comparison skewing perception of others’ wealth and our own wealth

Schor (1999). The Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don't Need. New York: NY: Harper Perennial.

This book tells us watching television programs act as a harmful social comparison and increases spending - you can also read an excerpt from the introduction here

Kuhn et al. (2011). The effects of lottery prizes on winners and their neighbors: Evidence from the Dutch Postcode Lottery. American Economic Review, 101(5), 2226-2247.

This paper tells us social comparisons influence our spending - people that live next door to lottery winners are more likely to buy a new car

Burleigh and Meegan (2013). Keeping Up with the Joneses affects perceptions of distributive justice. Social Justice Research, 26(2), 120-131.

This paper tells us social comparisons mess up good grades - students would rather miss out on a potential grade increase just so that others in the class don’t get an increase, too

Kenrick et al. (1993). Effects of physical attractiveness on affect and perceptual judgments: When social comparison overrides social reinforcement. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 19(2), 195-199.

This paper tells us social comparisons mess up our perceptions of physical appearance - looking at models make us feel bad

Kenrick et al. (1989). Influence of popular erotica on judgments of strangers and mates. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 25(2), 159-167

This paper tells us social comparisons mess up our perceptions of physical appearance - looking at models leads to lower ratings of our partners’ attractiveness

Vogel et al. (2014). Social comparison, social media, and self-esteem. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 3(4), 206-222.

This paper tells us use of social media makes us compare ourselves to others which lowers our self-esteem - even a manipulated facebook feed featuring people that are worse off than we are does not lead to much higher self-esteem ratings

Annoying Feature #3

Our minds are built to get used to stuff

Di Tella et al. (2010). Happiness adaptation to income and to status in an individual panel. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 76, 834–852.

This paper tells us that we adapt to earning more money (although we don’t adapt to increases in social status as quickly)

Brickman et al. (1978). Lottery winners and accident victims: Is happiness relative? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36(8), 917-927

This paper tells us we adapt to having more money - even in extreme cases of lottery winners

Lucas et al. (2003). Reexamining Adaptation and the Set Point Model of Happiness: Reactions to Changes in Marital Status. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(3), 527-539.

Remember this paper from last week? This paper tells us we adapt to marriage after a few years and happiness returns to baseline

Gilbert (2007). Stumbling on Happiness. Gilbert (2007) New York; NY: Vintage Books.

This book states, “wonderful things are especially wonderful the first time they happen, but their wonderfulness wanes with repetition”

Annoying Feature #4

We don’t realize that our minds are built to get used to stuff

Levine et al. (2012). Accuracy and artifact: Reexamining the intensity bias in affective forecasting. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103(4), 584-605.

Remember this paper from last week? This paper tells us we overestimate our emotions and getting bad grades won’t make us feel as bad as we think they will - we adapt to bad events, too

Dunn et al. (2002). Location, location, location: The misprediction of satisfaction in housing lotteries. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29(11),1421-1432.

This paper tells us our predictions are worse for negative events - when you think about the future, you tend to focus on the wrong features and overestimate their importance (as seen in adaption to “bad” dorms)

Gilbert et al. (1998). Immune neglect: A source of durability bias in affective forecasting. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 617-638.

This paper tells us people are generally unaware of their the psychological immune system which is why they tend to overestimate their emotional reactions to negative events - example in lecture highlights professors getting tenure or not

Eastwick et al. (2008). Mispredicting distress following romantic breakup: Revealing the time course of the affective forecasting error. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44, 800-807.

This paper tells us we mispredict how we will feel if we break up with a significant other - we think we will feel much worse than we actually do

Sieff et al. (1999). Anticipated versus actual reaction to HIV test results. The American Journal of Psychology, 112(2), 297-31.

This paper tells us people getting an HIV test anticipate more distress given a positive result and anticipate less distress given a negative result which is more extreme than what they experience when they get their results back

Ayton et al. (2007). Affective forecasting: Why can't people predict their emotions? Thinking & Reasoning, 13, 62-80.

This paper tells us affective forecasts (predicting our emotional response given a certain outcome) are too extreme and greater previous experience of an emotional event does not lead to any greater accuracy of the predictions - highlighted in drivers test candidate

Gilbert (2007). Stumbling on Happiness. Gilbert (2007) New York; NY: Vintage Books.

This book also outlines some of cognitive biases covered in lecture such as focalism (the tendency to think just about one event and forget about the other things that happen) and immune neglect (unawareness of our tendency to adapt to and cope with negative events).