How do we make decisions? From the TED archives, Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert says our beliefs about what will make us happy are often wrong, a premise he supports with intriguing research. he shares surprising tests and experiments that you can also try on yourself. His talk touches on decisions that we make and why we make them. He looks at how we assess risks and opportunities rand why the way we assess those risks is often very flawed. He talks about why we are so bad at assessing the real risks we face. While he uses terrorism as an example, it isn’t hard to think of comparable “outsized” fears today, such as Ebola.
It’s an entertaining, thought-provoking talk on human motivation and how we arrive at decisions. You’ll need to set aside the time because the video is a little over a half hour.
If you need an alternate to the YouTube video, there is an alternate video on the TED page with transcript.
For more, see his book Stumbling on Happiness, his home page and his Twitter feed.