The book Stumbling on Happiness looks at how one’s imagination about the future and illusions of foresight cause misconception in what makes us happy, what tomorrow will bring and what we want in actuality. Daniel Gilbert is Harvard College Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, therefore is able to go into the in depth of human nature and accurately describe the human ability to imagine the future and the capacity to like it when it happens. Daniel Gilbert uses the latest scientific research in psychology , cognitive neuroscience, behavioral economics and philosophy to explain this phenomenon and tries to capture all aspects of human capabilities.
The book is divided into six parts, Prospection, Subjectivity, Realism, Presentism, Rationalization and Corrigibility. The first …show more content…
Daniel Gilbert starts his book making the distinction between humans and animals. He states the two ways of prospection, first is “nexting” which is thinking about the immediate future and second is planning for the later future. He states the reason for this is that thinking about the future can be emotionally gratifying and pleasant, and imagining unpleasant scenarios reduce the possible negative impact. He also states that humans need to have a sense of control therefore think about the future. The second part is Subjectivity, which everyone experiences but is unobservable. In this part Gilbert explores what happiness is and look at the way people compare two types of happiness, either two past experiences or present happiness with past happiness. This is where faulty thinking comes in, as the brain fails to recognize differences. In this part he looks further into how situational aspects come into play in the way we interpret our feelings. Happiness can be hard to measure as it is a subjective feeling, but if we want to, it
The book is divided into six parts, Prospection, Subjectivity, Realism, Presentism, Rationalization and Corrigibility. The first …show more content…
Daniel Gilbert starts his book making the distinction between humans and animals. He states the two ways of prospection, first is “nexting” which is thinking about the immediate future and second is planning for the later future. He states the reason for this is that thinking about the future can be emotionally gratifying and pleasant, and imagining unpleasant scenarios reduce the possible negative impact. He also states that humans need to have a sense of control therefore think about the future. The second part is Subjectivity, which everyone experiences but is unobservable. In this part Gilbert explores what happiness is and look at the way people compare two types of happiness, either two past experiences or present happiness with past happiness. This is where faulty thinking comes in, as the brain fails to recognize differences. In this part he looks further into how situational aspects come into play in the way we interpret our feelings. Happiness can be hard to measure as it is a subjective feeling, but if we want to, it