![]() So it’s understandable that their climate doesn’t make a big impact on their happiness, because they have no standard of comparison. They grew up there they didn’t move from the Midwest (or Manhattan) to California. And then I realized: Most of those Californians in his study have always been Californians. I was a little surprised that my result was so different from Kahneman’s. It made a noticeable difference in my mood nearly every day, and continues to, six months after I moved. I noticed, multiple times daily, how beautiful the vegetation was and how fresh, fragrant, and - well - un-Manhattanlike the air smelled. 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.
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