How to Not Die Alone: The Surprising Science of Finding Love

by Logan Ury

WHAT MATTERS LESS THAN WE THINK Not only do we undervalue the qualities that matter for long-term relationships, we overvalue irrelevant ones. In part, we can blame a cognitive error called the focusing illusion—our tendency to overestimate the importance of certain factors when anticipating outcomes, like our future happiness. Behavioral economists Daniel Kahneman and David Schkade explored this phenomenon. They asked people attending college in Michigan and Ohio who they thought were happier—Midwestern students, like themselves, or students in California. They asked students in Southern California the same questions. Both groups predicted that the California students were happier. Yet researchers found the overall life satisfaction for Californian and Midwestern students was nearly identical. It turned out that both sets of students overestimated the impact that living in a warmer climate has on daily satisfaction. That’s because the climate is an “easily observable and distinctive” difference between these two places. They ignored all the other factors that contribute to happiness, which both sets of students shared: concerns about grades, social status, family issues, money, career prospects, and more. Those things are the same no matter the weather. However, when asked to compare life in those two places, the students focused on the weather and assumed it had a greater impact than it really does.

This can be generalized to comparing products online and then focusing on the differences. You pay more attention to aspects that are presented to you even though they might not be that important.