Title
Stumbling on happiness / Daniel Gilbert.
Edition
1st Vintage Books ed.
ISBN
9781400077427 (pbk.)
1400077427 (pbk.)
Publication Details
New York : Vintage Books, 2007, c2005.
Language
English
Description
xvii, 310 p. : ill., 21 cm.
Call Number
BF575.H27 G55 2007
Dewey Decimal Classification
158
Summary
Why are lovers quicker to forgive their partners for infidelity than for leaving dirty dishes in the sink? Why do patients remember long medical procedures as less painful than short ones? Why do home sellers demand prices they wouldn't dream of paying if they were home buyers? Why does the line at the grocery store always slow down when we join it? In this book, Harvard psychologist Gilbert describes the foibles of imagination and illusions of foresight that cause each of us to misconceive our tomorrows and misestimate our satisfactions. Using the latest research in psychology, cognitive neuroscience, philosophy, and behavioral economics, Gilbert reveals what we have discovered about the uniquely human ability to imagine the future, our capacity to predict how much we will like it when we get there, and why we seem to know so little about the hearts and minds of the people we are about to become.--From publisher description.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Acknowledgments
Foreword
pt. 1. Prospection
1. Journey to Elsewhen
pt. 2. Subjectivity
2. The view from in here
3. Outside looking in
pt. 3. Realism
4. In the blind spot of the mind's eye
5. The hound of silence
pt. 4. Presentism
6. The future is now
7. Time bombs
pt. 5. Rationalization
8. Paradise glossed
9. Immune to reality
pt. 6. Corrigibility
10. Once bitten
11. Reporting live from tomorrow
Afterword
Notes
Index.
