Stumbling on Happiness

by Daniel Todd Gilbert

Rather than choosing the poster that had made them feel happy when they imagined hanging it in their homes, thinkers had ignored their prefeelings and had instead chosen posters that possessed the qualities of which a career counselor or financial advisor would approve (“The olive green in the Monet may clash with the drapes, whereas the Garfield poster will signal to visitors that I have a scintillating sense of humor”). Nonthinkers, on the other hand, trusted their prefeelings: They imagined the poster on their wall, noted how they felt when they did so, and assumed that if imagining the poster on their wall made them feel good, then actually seeing it on their wall would probably do the same. And they were right. Prefeeling allowed nonthinkers to predict their future satisfaction more accurately than thinkers did. Indeed, when people are prevented from feeling emotion in the present, they become temporarily unable to predict how they will feel in the future.22