Happy Makers

A Lion from the lion park up maritzburg way wanted some fresh sea air and so trekked all the way down N3 to Crusaders. He forgot to pack any pad-kos and so was a little bit peckish, felt like a bite to eat and walked through the door right now. What would we do? Most likely we’d all move, very quickly, to the other end of the room holding chairs in front of us to keep from being eaten. Its not a hard situation to mentally picture. We don’t need to bring a lion in here to see what would happen because we are able to simulate our reaction to the situation. This ability to imagine simulations is one of the traits that sets us apart from all other animals. We’re gifted with an experience simulator called the pre-frontal cortex.

This prefrontal cortex also allows us to predict if certain situations will make us happier than others. For example which would you prefer? To win the lottery? Or to become paraplegic? It might seem like a silly question because you will say that winning the lottery will make you happier than becoming paraplegic. But there is actually data on the two groups of people. And much to the surprise of everyone, one year after the event lottery winners and paraplegics are both equally happy with their lives.

How can this be? The reason why this is, is that we are able to automatically simulate happiness with our situation. Not given a choice we are automatically happier with what we’ve got. You might not believe me and so I’d like to share and experiment that was carried out by researchers at Harvard called the Free Choice Paradigm. Volunteer subjects were brought into a room and asked to rank 6 art prints from most liked to least liked.

Which they did. They were then told that, as luck would have it the researchers had some extra prints of number three and four and as a reward they could choose a print to take with them. Naturally almost every one took their number 3. Two weeks passed and the volunteers were called back and asked again to rank the same art prints. Watch as happiness is synthesized. Number 3 moves up and 4 moves down the list. What they are saying is the one I’ve got is great the one I left behind’s horrible.

Your response is yeah right. They’re just telling themselves that they’re happy with what they’ve got. Let me show you now the second half of that experiment. The researchers then took their prints to hospitalized patients with anterograde amnesia. Basically these people could remember their childhood but could not form new memories. The prints were put in front of the patients and they were asked to rank them from most liked to least liked. And then again as before the researchers told the patients that they had extra prints of number 3 and 4 back at the office and they could choose which one would be mailed to them. As with the normal control group all the patients chose number 3. The researchers said great, we’ll send it to you in the post, gathered up all their things and waited outside for half an hour.
At the ping of the egg timer they walked back in and said hey remember us we were just here? And the patients would apologize profusely. I’m so sorry I don’t know who you are. I’ve got this memory problem. And the researchers would say not a problem we just want you to look at a few art prints. But firstly can you tell us which one is yours? The patients would look at the prints.
The normal control group responded with 90% accuracy which one they owned. The amnesiacs guessed. As a result their strike rate was 1 in 6 or about 15% chance of getting it right.

Then without being told which one was theirs they were again asked to rank the prints from most liked to least liked. And watch again as happiness is synthesized. Again they ranked the one they owned higher the second time around than one they didn’t own. They automatically changed their affective reaction to the prints without conscious knowledge. They’re not saying they liked it cos they were trying to make themselves feel better. They genuinely liked the one that they owned more without knowing that they owned it. They automatically were happier with their choice.

I recently lost my phone. When I went to get a new one I looked at all the different models and choices of contracts. And there are hundreds. I agonized over making the right decision. Would I need an mp3 player, would I need a 5 mega pixel vga camera? Would I need a phone that did everything including sending emails, doubling as a data projector and an espresso maker?

Finally I decided on a straight forward phone.
I chose a phone that was a phone. I remember saying to my friend Bryan who was with me when I was going through my ring tones trying to decide on the right one.

Why don’t they just have a simple ringing sound? Why can’t I get a phone that sounds like a phone when it rings. I don’t want the Ride of the Valkyries playing when someone calls me I’m not that much of a Wagner fan.
But ringtones aside, I’m very happy with my new phone. It looks nice, it sounds nice, it doesn’t have all the sliding, popping up, whizzing contraptions that can break and malfunction that the other phone that I didn’t choose had. And I know that my happiness with my phone is genuine because I know that my prefrontal cortex is able to synthesize my happiness with the choice that I make.

And so it boils down to the fact that you will be happy with the choice that you make because being human means that you are able to synthesize your own happiness.