And yet, every day, when I would leave my house, I found my spirits buoyed by the balmy weather and the clear blue sky. I moved from New York, NY to Berkeley, CA, earlier this year, and - having read Kahneman - I didn’t expect the climate to make a noticeable difference in my mood. What I *do* object to is the conclusion, which Kahneman implies and Big Think makes explicit, that “moving to california won’t make you happy.” So far, I have no beef with this interpretation. the Midwest stems from something called the “Focusing illusion,” Kahneman explains - a bias he sums up with the pithy, “Nothing in life is as important as you think it is when you are thinking about it.” The fact that it greatly influences people’s predictions of relative happiness in California vs. Climate just isn’t that important to happiness, it turns out. Yet despite that, the overall life satisfaction in the two regions turns out to be nearly identical, according to a 1998 survey by Kahneman. ![]() And on that dimension, California’s a pretty clear winner.Īnd indeed, Californians report loving their climate and Midwesterners loathing theirs. Most people (from both regions!) say, “Californians.” That’s because, Kahneman explains, the act of comparison highlights what’s saliently different between the two regions: their climate. ![]() I might have to disagree with a Nobel Laureate on this one.Īccording to Daniel Kahneman, Nobel prize-winning psychologist and author of the excellent Thinking Fast and Slow, the answer is “No.” A recent post on Big Think describes how Kahneman asked people to predict who’s happier, on average, Californians or Midwesterners. ![]() I pass dozens of brilliantly-colored flowers like this on my daily walk to work.
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