“Thinking Fast and Slow,” by Daniel Kahneman, hypothesizes that the brain has two systems. The Fast system evolved in many animals because it’s needed for survival. Many (if not most) survival situations happen over and over again so the Fast system provides an intuitive answer that has worked before.
This is good until an unusual situation arises that requires careful analysis, not fast gut reactions. The Slow system is uniquely human.
The process of problem solving is called “heuristics.” Hahnemann writes, “This is the essence of intuitive heuristics: when faced with a difficult question, we often answer an easier one instead, usually without noticing the substitution.”
A new book by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, called “Don’t Trust Your Gut,” argues that our “gut” — what Kahneman would call the Fast System — is usually wrong. And it’s wrong because our intuitions are often influenced by false impressions or dubious conventional wisdom.
https://www.vox.com/even-better/23338680/instincts-happiness…
**Want to be happy? Don’t follow your gut.**
**A data scientist on what truly makes us happy.**
**By Sean Illing, Vox, Sep 7, 2022**
**...**
**Stephens-Davidowitz is an economist and a former Google data scientist. This book, like his last one, "Everybody Lies," [** A fascinating and very fun book! - W] **isn’t preachy. He’s not telling people what to value or what’s worth wanting. He just looks at the enormous amount of data we now have about virtually everything and tells you what it says, and how it squares with what we think we know....**
**The Mappiness Project [more than 46,000 people across Britain and the world who submitted more than 3 million answers] asked people on their iPhones: Who are you with? What are you doing? And how happy are you, 0 to 100? And they built this chart, a happiness activity chart. So the happiest activity, according to Mappiness — and actually every experience sampling project has landed on the same exact finding — is that sex and intimacy and making love are the happiest activity, which is not so surprising. Gardening ranks really high. Theater, dance shows, sports, running, exercise, singing, performing — so karaoke, really good — talking, chatting, socializing, bird-watching, nature-watching, walking, hiking, hunting, and fishing. Another interesting thing about a lot of those activities near the top is that they don’t require a lot of money. A lot of them you can do for free. You just have to make time to do them. Other ones near the top are going to a museum or an exhibition. ...**
**There’s no point at which money stops giving people happiness. But it levels off. So it’s always going up, but it’s going up at a smaller and smaller rate.**
**So going from $40,000 to $80,000 of income gives you the same happiness boost as going from $80,000 to $160,000 of income, which gives you the same happiness boost of going from $160,000 to $320,000 of income. So basically you have to keep on doubling your income to get the same happiness boost....** [end quote]
This is obviously a particular subset of people who are rich enough to own iPhones and educated enough to want to participate in a scientific study. You would think that they would report happiness when browse the internet, or go on social media or play an iPhone game. And the data, when you actually ask people doing that, they tend to say they’re not particularly happy doing that.
On a personal note: Last night, DH and I hosted two friends for dinner, both highly educated, athletic men of around age 60. The Seahawks game was on but I adamantly refused to turn on the TV because TV noise (or any background noise but especially sports) drives me crazy from stress. So, instead of vegging in front of the TV, we all sat around the table and had a fun conversation during dinner. Good, old-fashioned conversation like in Grandma’s day.
A real pleasure.
Wendy