The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom

by Jonathan Haidt

When my father drove me and my refrigerator up to college that first year, he told me that the most important things I was going to learn I would not learn in the classroom, and he was right. It took many more years of living with roommates, but I finally realized what a fool I had made of myself that first year. Of course I thought I did more than my share. Although I was aware of every little thing I did for the group, I was aware of only a portion of everyone else’s contributions. And even if I had been correct in my accounting, I was self-righteous in setting up the accounting categories. I picked the things I cared about—such as keeping the refrigerator clean—and then gave myself an A-plus in that category. As with other kinds of social comparison, ambiguity allows us to set up the comparison in ways that favor ourselves, and then to seek evidence that shows we are excellent co-operators. Studies of such “unconscious overclaiming” show that when husbands and wives estimate the percentage of housework each does, their estimates total more than 120 percent.21 When MBA students in a work group make estimates of their contributions to the team, the estimates total 139 percent.22 Whenever people form cooperative groups, which are usually of mutual benefit, self-serving biases threaten to fill group members with mutual resentment.