Is Freedom Limiting our Happiness?

A year post-accident in the life of a paraplegic or a year post-win for a lottery winner - most people wouldn't think twice about which person would be happier 12 months after these major events in their respective lives.  Yet, those people couldn't be more wrong. Happiness in both cases were measured to be exactly the same! Gilbert argues that this is possible because synthetic happiness is in fact real.



This is his definition: "Natural happiness is what we get when we get what we wanted, and synthetic happiness is what we make when we don’t get what we wanted. In our society, we have a strong belief that synthetic happiness is of an inferior kind." 


According to Gilbert, freedom is the enemy of synthetic happiness and our psychological immune system runs best when we don't have the freedom of choice. Although this seems extreme, a study conducted at Harvard really puts things into the light.

This study was meant to explore the 'science of happiness.' Harvard students were allowed to photograph 12 objects/people they liked and choose 2 to enlarge and frame. This is where it gets interesting. After this, 1 group of students were told to choose 1 picture to keep although they could swap it in for the other one if they decided they like that one better. The other group was also told they could choose only 1 picture, but they were not given the option to reverse their choice at a later time. 3 and then 6 days later the happiness of both groups were measured. The results? The students who were NOT given the option to swap their picture were substantially more happy with their photo! What could the implications of such a controversial idea be for our society? Does happiness truly lie in not having a choice?

Source: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy.html

Authority: The speaker is Dan Gilbert, a Harvard psychologist and a best-selling author.
Accuracy: Gilbert cites recent and factual studies/experiments conducted in well-known universities, such as the Science of Happiness study conducted at Harvard University.
Timeliness: This video was filmed February 2004.