Stumbling on Happiness by Gilbert: Social Cognition Review

Introduction: The Problem of Predicting Happiness

Do we understand what happiness is? Though this is a simple question to which most people would probably say "yes," it does not really seem so after reading Daniel Gilbert's Stumbling on Happiness. Gilbert argues that the main problem in understanding happiness is that people overestimate the impact of future events. For example, some people overestimate the impact of getting a promotion while others overestimate that of having children. Why is this the case? Gilbert says that thinking about the future is pleasurable, and even when we imagine the future to be grim, we try to control and change it. While we imagine the future, however, we keep making mistakes because our capacity to predict it is very limited. Very often, people imagine the future as they wish rather than as they should, because the human brain functions in such a way that certain key details in our imaginations are forgotten or sidelined while other details become important and influence those imaginations.

Gilbert concludes his book by suggesting that we might predict the future better by learning from the experiences of others who have already lived through similar events, rather than trying to understand it based on our subconscious linking of the future to the present.

In his book, Gilbert discusses many themes and concepts related to social cognition — the study of how we think about others and ourselves. In Chapter 1, Gilbert explains the power of perception in our minds and why we think about the future in a certain way. As noted in course discussion, people are naturally predisposed to like the feeling that they are in control of their social environment. Because of this feeling, people tend to categorize others using traits and continue such categorizations even when they are incorrect ("Person Perception"). Gilbert argues that a similarly perceptive attitude exists in our tendency to look at the future.

Desire for Control and Future Thinking

Gilbert says that the desire to control is one of two reasons why we imagine the future so often — around 12% of the day. The other reason is that thinking about the future optimistically is pleasurable in itself. We keep thinking about the future even when we realize that the impact of certain events is not going to be positive or pleasurable. We nevertheless keep imagining that future because we want to manage and take control of it. As Gilbert puts it, "our brains want to control the experiences we are about to have" (20; italics original).

Just as this feeling influences our categorization of other people, it shapes our prediction of the future. Because we want to control our future social world, we imagine it in a certain way — and we want to think about the future even when our imaginations may be a source of worry, anxiety, and fear. Our tendency to feel in control of the future makes us err in our predictions.

I find Gilbert's explanation of how our desire to control the social world influences our imaginations of the future helpful in understanding "control" in person perception because, in both cases, our natural characteristic — the desire to control — shapes our perception. In one case it shapes our perception of others; in the other, our perception of the future. And in both cases, this human characteristic limits our view of the social world around us.

Misattributed Arousal and the Unconscious Actor

In Chapter 2, Gilbert discusses an experiment conducted in Canada. An attractive young woman approached a group of young men crossing a bridge made of wooden boards and wire cables, suspended 230 feet above the Capilano River in North Vancouver. The woman asked the men to complete a survey and offered her telephone number in case they were interested in learning more about it. The researchers found that men who were approached while crossing the bridge were more likely to call her afterward than men whom the woman approached only after they had already crossed. The reason for this discrepancy was that the men still on the bridge were under intense physiological arousal — fear — which, upon seeing an attractive woman, they misidentified as sexual arousal (58).

This example illustrates the concept of the "activated actor" discussed in social cognition coursework. This concept suggests that our cognition is guided by unconscious processes. Our social environment can prompt concepts, cognitions, evaluations, emotions, motivations, and behavior — all without our awareness. In a certain sense, we behave like puppets ("Social Cognition"). The example given by Gilbert perfectly illustrates the power of this concept. The men crossing the bridge were most likely unaware that their inner fear of falling influenced their reactions to seeing an attractive woman.

Gilbert says this example shows how people can be wrong about their feelings. The concept of the "activated actor" suggests, however, that the men crossing the bridge may not necessarily be wrong about what they are feeling; rather, they are being guided by processes of which they are unaware.

Works Cited

"Constructing Reality: What is and What was," lecture notes.

Gilbert, Daniel. Stumbling on Happiness. New York: Random House, 2006.

"Killing Us Softly 4: Advertising's Image of Women," Media Education Foundation, 2010.

"Person Perception," lecture notes.

"Social Cognition," lecture notes.

"The Self," lecture notes.