Stumbling on Happiness

by Daniel Todd Gilbert

When college students hear persuasive speeches that demonstrably change their political opinions, they tend to remember that they always felt as they currently feel.5 When dating couples try to recall what they thought about their romantic partners two months earlier, they tend to remember that they felt then as they feel now.6 When students receive their grades on an exam, they tend to remember being as concerned about the exam before they took it as they currently are.7 When patients are asked about their headaches, the amount of pain they are feeling at the moment determines how much pain they remember feeling the previous day.8 When middle-aged people are asked to remember what they thought about premarital sex, how they felt about political issues, or how much alcohol they drank when they were in college, their memories are influenced by how they think, feel, and drink now.9 When widows and widowers are asked how much grief they felt when their spouse died five years earlier, their memories are influenced by the amount of grief they currently feel.10 The list goes on, but what’s important to notice for our purposes is that in each of these instances, people misremember their own pasts by recalling that they once thought, did, and said what they now think, do, and say.11