Daniel Kahneman on two kinds of happiness

[ciphergoth]

Daniel Kahneman: The riddle of experience vs. memory at TED 2010. Video, 20 minutes, transcript to right of video.

Kahneman, one of the founders of behavioural economics, on how our remembered happiness correlates only weakly with our experienced moment-to-moment happiness, and the profound implications for the study of happiness and the pursuit of happiness. I'll find it hard to think about happiness the same way again.

Comments

[henry_the_cow]

That's interesting. He may very well be right in general and it's an interesting point to consider, but I have quibbles about some of his examples.

A symphony is more than the sum of the moments that comprise it. To suggest otherwise would be like saying that the music is no more than the sum of its individual notes - which is getting into Morecambe & Wise territory ("Listen sunshine, I am playing the right notes; just in the wrong order"). So a dreadful screeching sound at the end of a performance could indeed ruin the enjoyment of the piece as a whole.

The example about pain is well known. (It's relevant to experiences of childbirth as well). But it does not follow that lessons about the experience of pain necessarily apply to experience of happiness (for those cases where the pain is not itself part of the pleasure, I mean). Measuring the absence of pain is not measuring the presence of happiness, just as measuring wealth is not necessarily measuring happiness.

And I thought his examples about vacations were plain weird. In my experience, a fortnight's holiday is much better than one that lasts just a week. Maybe there is a length beyond which the happiness no longer increases; I just haven't met it yet...