People may believe it is relatively easy to predict what would make them happiest in certain circumstances. It should be a simple task given that one spends their whole life learning what makes them happy. However, in the essay, “Immune to Reality,” Daniel Gilbert demonstrates that people often fail to correctly predict one’s own happiness. Daniel Gilbert gives various examples expressing when people make incorrect predictions about their life and how that affects their knowledge, understanding, and behaviors. That is because the unconscious mind picks up factors that influence a person’s happiness, knowledge, and understanding. These influences cause the human mind to quickly produce inaccurate reasons for why they do what they do. …show more content…
The brain attempts to piece together the information it is aware of and creates a logical explanation. This happens because people’s unconscious minds want to alleviate any distress. The process in which unconscious factors affect people creates a false sense of knowledge and understanding. What one holds to be true, may, in fact, be a false reasoning created by one's mind to explain unexplainable events in one's life. Daniel Gilbert provides various examples in his essay, “Immune to Reality," demonstrating when the unconscious mind would create false reasoning.
For instances, in one study, volunteers were required to stare at a computer screen as different phrases quickly appeared and disappeared without their knowledge. These phrases such as “violent” and “elderly” influenced their minds when they complete different types of tasks, such as writing or walking. Their behaviors changed according to the flashing words because the unconscious mind was affected by it, even though they were unaware of these influences. Since their conscious minds were not able to pick up the words on the screen, they created reasoning with the knowledge they did have. As Daniel Gilbert stated, “ their brains quickly considered the facts they are aware and draw out the same kinds of plausible but mistaken inferences about themselves that an observer would probably draw about them” (131). Daniel Gilbert proves that the unconscious mind takes the knowledge one is aware of and creates a logical reasoning behind it, even if it is not true. When Daniel Gilbert says "mistaken inferences" he means that the person is unaware of the factors that influence one's behavior, thus creating a false sense of understanding. The volunteers believed their false reasoning, thus affecting the truth behind their
knowledge. Furthermore, these unconscious factors influence people’s knowledge as well as their happiness. Daniel Gilbert provides the example of volunteers interviewing for a job and how they would feel if the judge or jury did not hire them for the position. The researchers in this experiment asked the volunteers, prior to the interview and after the interview, which employer they would rather be rejected by. The volunteers believed regardless of the employer, they would be equally dissatisfied and unhappy if they were not hired. However, after the experiment, there was a disparity between getting rejected by a judge and a jury. As stated by Daniel Gilbert, “they did not go on to imagine how their brains might try to relieve that sting. Because they were unaware that they would alleviate their suffering by blaming those who caused it, it never occurred to them that they would be more successful if a single person were to blame rather than an entire group” (134). Daniel Gilbert explains the process of why one feels more upset if a jury instead of a judge did not hire them. Daniel Gilbert means that the brain attempts to alleviate the pain by blaming others instead of oneself. However, the reason all of the volunteers were more upset by getting rejected from the jury is because it is more difficult to believe that there is something wrong with everyone in the jury, while it is easier to believe and blame one person, the judge. By placing the blame on others, people’s truths about their judgments are put into question. Just like in the case of the volunteers and the flashing words, what people understand and hold true, are not necessarily a hundred percent true. Our unconscious mind makes connections, which influences one’s behavior as well as their knowledge. Subsequently, these influences also affect people’s judgment about what they believe they can predict. For example, in the case of losing money in the stock market, people regretted not making the move to earn more money rather than switching stocks causing one to lose money. Most people would judge that making impractical actions would cause more regret, however, these predictions are incorrect. As Daniel Gilbert states, “people of every age and in every walk of life seem to regret not having done things much more than they regret thing they did” (135). Daniel Gilbert explains that one’s inactions affect one more because of the missed unexplored opportunities. Even if one did lose money by making a “foolish action,” they regretted it less because they had seen an opportunity and ran with it. On the other hand, by becoming stagnant and not making an action, it affects the unconscious mind. The unconscious mind picks up the feeling of “what if,” of what one could have had, and it is that many people tend to regret more once they have seen the great opportunities they could have acquired. These influences one’s knowledge because it affects their emotions in what makes them happy as well affecting their judgments. In each case, there are external influences that affect how one’s knowledge and understanding is compromised. These influences affect one’s emotions and behavior throughout one’s life. Moreover, people have a tendency to want to increase their knowledge and understanding. The need of “wanting to know” and having everything explained, actually takes away from what makes one happy. One study told their volunteers the goods things people thought about them. Half of the volunteers knew who said what, while the other half did not know. As time passed, the people who did not know were still happy. This study demonstrated that by having unexplainable events, it could positively impact one’s happiness. As stated by Daniel Gilbert, “explanation robs events of their emotional impact because it makes them seem likely and allows us to stop thinking about them” (142)… To conclude, Daniel Gilbert explains and demonstrates how the unconscious mind affects and influences the process of happiness, knowledge, and understanding. These processes affect one’s knowledge and understanding because the conscious mind creates false reasoning to explain why we do the things we do. The conscious mind has to create these inaccurate explanations because people have a need to understand unexplainable events. The knowledge, one holds to be true, quickly becomes false when we realize we have created fictitious explanations. As Daniel Gilbert claims, “the process by which we discover those facts must feel like a discovery and not like a snow job” (132). This means that these influences must make one feel like it is a credible source so one can believe it. When Daniel Gilbert says, “we discover those facts must feel like a discovery,” he means that our mind generates fallacious explanations in order to create positive outcomes to mollify any distress. All of the cases were influenced by external factors that compromised one’s happiness, knowledge, and understanding. People are unaware of the influences that shape their lives and how these influences affect their behaviors in different circumstances.
When we go about our daily lives there are many things that go undetected. One such undetected event goes on inside our own head. Thinking without thinking, an idea brought forth in Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink, where your brain is processing information that you aren't even aware of yet. Some of the best outcomes are produced from this “idea”. Another huge topic in this novel is the idea of “thin slicing”. Where your brain can come to a conclusion within seconds of analyzing the situation. Thin slicing is proven in this book to be more resourceful than putting any length of thought into a situation. But in order for Gladwell to drive home his ideas, he is going to need the help of some psychologists tests to prove that he is right.
Society pressure themselves to be happy; they often ask questions like, “does that make you happy?” What they fail to understand is that sometimes doing the right thing, for the moment, might not seem to bring happiness in one’s life, but after trekking the ups and downs of life, happiness might be waiting on the other side. From time to time people also judge good and bad through happiness. “If something is good, we feel good. If something is
Oliver Burkeman, author of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking and column writer for The Guardian, explores the human need to seek for happiness and its connection to the Museum of Failures in his article Happiness is a Glass Half Empty. Burkeman’s purpose to writing this essay is to give readers a new view on how to seek happiness – embrace negativity and expect the worst. Burkeman’s use of a friendly, almost informal tone to help relate to his readers is a brilliant attempt to catch his reader’s attention and hold it, therefore enabling the delivery of logic seem almost effortless.
Ryan, Richard M., and Edward L. Deci. "On Happiness and Human Potentials: A Review of
Happiness plays an important and necessary role in the lives of people around the world. In America, happiness has been engrained in our national consciousness since Thomas Jefferson penned these famous words in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” (Jefferson). Since then, Americans have been engaged in that act: pursuing happiness. The problem however, as Ray Bradbury demonstrates in his novel Fahrenheit 451, is that those things which make us happy initially may eventually lead to our downfall. By examining Guy Montag, the protagonist in Fahrenheit 451, and the world he lives in we can gain valuable insights to direct us in our own pursuit of happiness. From Montag and other characters we will learn how physical, emotional, and spiritual happiness can drastically affect our lives. We must ask ourselves what our lives, words, and actions are worth. We should hope that our words are not meaningless, “as wind in dried grass” (Eliot).
Eagleman talks about unconscious learning, and explores how much of what we do daily is learned and directed by the unconscious mind. The first example is changing lanes: when we’re driving, we do it without thinking. However, when asked to describe how they change lanes, many people are flummoxed. Changing lanes is so automatic that when the conscious mind tries to take control, it confuses our brains and our gears become out of sync. The second example is chicken sexers: people who can sort chick hatching even though male and female chicks look exactly alike. The third example is plane spotters: people who could distinguish between enemy and ally planes thousands of feet in the air. In both cases, the people just knew! They couldn’t explain how they knew. Rather, after trial and error, their unconscious picked up on the slight cues that allowed to them tell the difference. The conscious mind, on the other hand, was unaware of this
People often underestimate how accurate their subconscious thoughts really are. How can one “think”, without actually thinking? An assistant psychologist at Princeton University, Alex Todorov, answers this question. Todrov agrees that as time passes and one becomes more acquainted with people, one would begin to make a more informed opinion about another that is most likely different than what their fist initial impression would have been, ho...
4. "Why Intelligent People Tend To Be Unhappy." Scribd. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Dec. 2013. .
Everyone wants to be “happy.” Everyone endeavors to fulfill their desires for their own pleasure. What makes this ironic is, the fact that most don‘t know what the actual definition of happiness is. “In Pursuit of Unhappiness” presents an argument, which states that not everyone will be happy. Darrin McMahon, the article’s author, explores the ways our “relentless pursuit of personal pleasure”(McMahon P.11;S.3) can lead to empty aspirations and impractical expectations, making us sad, and not happy. Rather than working to find the happiness of others, we should all focus on finding what makes ourselves happy. It is easier to find happiness in the little things
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Everyone chases after happiness. Everyone’s goal of life is being happy. Each of them chooses a variety of measures, such as earning money, to be happy. However, there are many people that are not happy. People always endeavor after happiness, but they never reach it. For what reason are they not able to fulfill their standards of happiness? What effort should they put into their lives to meet them? This essay will explain why people fail to be happy and what people are supposed to do in order to gain happiness.
The pursuit of happiness ultimately leads to disappointment and a lack of satisfaction because people’s cravings can never be entirely fulfilled. Dalai Lama once said “When you are discontent, you always want more, more, more. Your desire can never be satisfied. But when you practice contentment, you can say to yourself, ‘Oh yes – I already have everything that I really need.’” This quote shows that having high expectations of anything leads to disappointment when the expectation is not met. Also, having anticipations for what happiness is makes attained happiness irrelevant and inadequate relative to what one wanted to get
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Throughout history, philosophers and scientists of various kinds have been trying to define happiness, identify its causes and the obstacles to reaching it. According to Jon Gertner, psychologist Gilbert and economist Loewenstein have succeeded in pointing out several reasons why people are unhappy (pp: 444-6). It is important to note that according to Gilbert, it is not that people cannot g...