The Happiness Hypothesis

You leave the store less confident in your choice, more likely to feel regret, and more likely to think about the options you didn’t choose.

The more choices there are, the more you expect to find a perfect fit; yet, at the same time, the larger the array, the less likely it becomes that you picked the best item.

Good relationships make people happy, and happy people enjoy more and better relationships than unhappy people.44

Because whatever happens, you’re likely to adapt to it, but you don’t realize up front that you will. We are bad at “affective forecasting,” 5 that is, predicting how we’ll feel in the future.

psychologists find that the human mind reacts to bad things more quickly, strongly, and persistently than to equivalent good things.

After conducting several variations of this experiment with similar findings each time, Van Boven and Gilovich concluded that experiences give more happiness in part because they have greater social value: Most activities that cost more than a hundred dollars are things we do with other people, but expensive material possessions are often purchased

But Schwartz and his colleagues62 find that the paradox mostly applies to people they call “maximizers”—those who habitually try to evaluate all the options, seek out more information, and make the best choice (or “maximize their utility,” as economists would say). Other people—“satisficers”—are more laid back about choice. They evaluate an array o

three biggest decisions most of us make—what to do with our lives, where to live, and whom to marry—can all be influenced (even if only slightly) by something as trivial as the sound of a name. Life is indeed what we deem it, but the deeming happens quickly and unconsciously. The elephant reacts instinctively and steers the rider toward a new desti

We value choice and put ourselves in situations of choice, even though choice often undercuts our happiness.