I'd like to replicate an experiment I recently read about in Harvard Psychologist Daniel Gilbert's new book Stumbling On Happiness, a philosophical tract masquerading as a self-help book.
Despite residing in the nose bleed section of the ivory tower, Gilbert is a lucid, common-sense thinker with some truly worthwhile insights regarding the human temperament. We'll delve into some of them at a later date. In the meantime, I wanted to give you a taste of the kind of "AHA" moments the book delivers.
Here's what you have to do:
1) Imagine you're going to have a spaghetti dinner tomorrow night.
2) Now try to predict how much satisfaction you'll get from this dinner and rate it on a scale of 1-10.
3) Post your answers in the comment box.
I'll be contacting posters over the next couple of days with a follow up question.
Unless no one posts--in which case,you will be left entirely in the dark with your phantom spaghetti.
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Neurontic covers breakthroughs in neuroscience and psychology and is designed to give laypeople a window into the inner workings of the human mind. Orli Van Mourik is a freelance journalist in New York City. Her work has appeared in Psychology Today Magazine .
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Thought Experiment
Category: Psychology
Posted on: August 12, 2006 9:30 AM, by Neurontic
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