Dan Gilbert: Why are we happy? (2004)

Pre frontal cortex: experiance things in your head before you do them.

Why don't they make liver and onions ice cream?

Winning the lottery vs being a parapalegic, after one year seem to equally happy.

Impact Bias - the tendency to overestimate the impact of future events. (Romance, Promotions, Tests, Sporting Events, Gambling, Weight Loss)

Major life trauma past three months has little impact on hapiness.

We synthesize hapiness but believe we have to find it.

Sythesized Hapiness - We make due with what we have.
Natural Hapiness - The hapiness we get when we get what we want.

If we believed not getting stuff would make us just as happy as getting stuff could the economic engine continue churning.

Experiment 1: Monet Prints ranked from the one liked most to least, the subject is told they will be given print three or four, they choose three. Later they are asked to reorganize the prints, Print 3 becomes 2, print 4 becomes 6. (Amnesia Patients - 12:36)

"Freedom is the enemy of synthetic hapiness." (Date vs marry a guy who picks his nose)

Experiment 2: Photography course where students are given time to take as many pictures as they want and learn how to use the darkroom to make two 8 x 10's. They then are asked to give one up. One group of subjects is allowed to change the photo they keep, the other group may not (they must keep the photo they originally choose). The group that must keep their original picture is much more satisfied (17:42)
Given the above options (18:30)