Word: gilbert
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Take the simple act of eating a potato chip. In a series of experiments, Gilbert invited Harvard undergraduates to a lab stocked with potato chips, along with either sardines or chocolate. To compare expected versus actual enjoyment of the experience, one group of students was asked to predict how much they would enjoy the chips compared to the relatively better food (chocolate) or the worse food (sardines); this forecasting group was asked to imagine eating the chips before, after or instead of the alternatives. Students in another "experience" group were instructed to eat the chips and the other foods. Turns...
...before or after sardines or chocolate, it made no difference. Rather, eating a potato chip was an experience unto itself. "It's the taste of that crackily, greasy, salty, crunchy, fried potato flavor - it's the consuming experience you're having and your attention collapses on this moment," says Gilbert...
...traveling as much as you? Probably not. The very fact that you'll be living with - and experiencing - one spouse and not the other means that the passed-over option will quickly fade in your mind. "The people you don't marry don't move in with you," says Gilbert...
Envisioning what life would have been like with an alternate spouse becomes difficult and increasingly irrelevant as you settle into the life you've selected. "Once you make a choice in life, the unchosen alternatives evaporate," he says. According to Gilbert's earlier research, which he featured in his 2006 book, Stumbling on Happiness, when faced with an irrevocable decision, people are happier with the outcome than when they have the opportunity to change their minds. "It's a very powerful phenomenon," he says. "This is really the difference between dating and marriage...
...Gilbert simulated that scenario with potato chips. As in the other experiments, one group of students was asked to eat the chips and other foods, and another was asked to imagine doing so. Only this time, two more groups were asked to eat - or imagine eating - to the beat of a metronome. Those who ate at a normal pace - one chip for every 15 seconds - came to the same misguided conclusions as other students: predictions did not correspond to their actual levels of enjoyment. Yet those who ate chips more slowly, one every 45 seconds, had very different results. Their...