SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
Discussion Psychology
Watch the following TED Talk on Impact Bias, “the tendency to overestimate the hedonic impact of future events,” by Dan Gilbert (Why are we happy? Why aren’t we happy? | Dan Gilbert) (20 minutes).
The theme of this lecture is that we are not very good at predicting what will make us happy, an idea that you should recall was discussed at length in Chapter 2 of our text.
Text : Social Psychology (13th Ed.) David G. Myers, Jean Twenge
After watching it, give an example of something that has already happened in your life that you thought ahead of time would make you happy and comment on how you actually (remember) feeling afterwards (yes, I know, the phenomenon focused on in this talk/forum is predicting future happiness, so there is a bit of a “reconstruction” effect of you being asked to reflect ‘back’ to what you thought you would feel before something happened).
DISCUSS in terms of the video: Now comment on your example (memory) integrating one (or more) of the points made in the TED Talk.
Answer preview
Predicting future happiness has ever been a challenge throughout one`s life. In my case, since I was young, I aspired to get a good job and afford a happy life, spend on expensive vacations, eat all expensive meals, and drive the most expensive car. In me, I knew that it would give me happiness. Due to this reason I worked very hard from my first grade in school through to the college level. I sacrificed other activities such as time with friends and family members to have time and read. I did a lot of research to get concepts right and to maintain the first position up to the college level….
(350 words)