哈佛教授TED演讲：关于什么让我们快乐，我们知道的都是错的（附视频&演讲稿）
你得到想要的东西所感受到的快乐，叫天然快乐；你得不到想要的东西也会感到快乐，那就叫做“人工”快乐。你觉得这是因为你开始自我安慰和调节，或对得不到的东西产生酸葡萄心理？不是的。“人工”快乐和天然快乐一样发生于无意识。所以结论是：人生无论如何是快乐的～
https://v.qq.com/txp/iframe/player.html?vid=o01463vh5lh&width=500&height=375&auto=0
哈佛大学心理学家Dan Gilbert说，关于什么让我们快乐，我们的想法往往是错误的。
他于2006年出版了《撞上快乐》，书名事实上就是他真实人生的写照：
他 19岁怀着成为科幻作家的梦想从高中辍学；
在写作课班满员的情况下参加了唯一可参加课程——心理学；
在那里，他发现了自己真正热爱的事业。在获得普林斯顿大学社会心理学博士学位后，他在哈佛大学授课，并开始了对“幸福”的研究。
我们中的大多数人，似乎打从娘胎里起，就被灌输要读更多的书、有更好的工作、挣更多的钱，这样才会幸福。
而在Ted演讲中， Gilbert讲述了幸福的秘密：
无论发生了什么，我们可以选择快乐。
https://v.qq.com/txp/iframe/player.html?vid=d0180chqbsn&width=500&height=375&auto=0
01
中三亿大奖和发生意外车祸
一年之后快乐程度几乎等同
试想一下，要是给你两个选择，一是买彩票中了三亿大奖，二是发生车祸高位截瘫。你选哪个？
答案不言自明。用不着真的体验，你都可以脑补出这两种经历是多么天壤之别。
不过，一年之后，中奖的人和意外致残的人，谁活得更快乐？
Gilbert的实验发现了一个惊人的结论：两者的快乐程度几乎等同。
这在学术上被称为“影响偏差”，即人脑的经验模拟器会夸大事物的不同。
结果，而这些结果实际上未必有多么的不同。
研究还表明，即使是发生了人生当中最重大的创伤，假如那是发生在三个月以前，这件事对于你今天的快乐感几乎不会发生影响。
教授本人就是很好的例子。
20年前Gilbert的人生遭受了重创：母亲和导师相继去世，他和妻子离了婚，和最好的朋友吵得不可开交，而儿子离家去读大学了。
一年后他和朋友说：“如果你一年前问我这些事情发生后，我感受如何？我一定会回答‘噢上帝啊，我生不如死’，但实际上，我现在感觉还好。”
为什么人们在遭受苦难后，痛苦不会如想象中持久呢？
他开始研究人们的情绪和幸福的来源。
然后发现：快乐是可以制造的。
英国哲学家托马斯·布朗曾说：
我是世界上最快乐的人。 我可以将贫穷变为富有，将逆境变为顺境。
听起来似乎这位哲学家似乎有着神一般的力量，但其实这种神奇的力量是我们每个人都有的。
人类具有 “心理防御系统”功能，这个系统让我们接受自己的优点与不足，潜移默化地让我们制造快乐，进而让自己活得更好。
02
天然的快乐和人为制造的快乐
没有区别
天然的快乐是指，我们得到了一直以来渴求的东西。
而人为制造的快乐则是在得不到我们渴求的东西时，自己制造出来的东西。
我们喜欢天然的东西，厌恶假花、假脸和假胸，所以我们认为，人为制造的快乐是次品。
但实际上，人为制造的快乐是真实而持久的，它和因为得到了我们渴求的东西而感受到的快乐一样。
50年前，科研人员针对患有健忘症的病人进行了一场名为“自由选择”的实验。
出于字数限制，我们只能描述实验的一个环节。如果你想详细了解实验，一定要看完整视频。
部分实验是这样的：
研究人员把莫奈的画拿到医院去，让病人们按照喜爱程度排序，并告诉他们，过几天他们会获赠其中的一幅。
半个小时后，研究人员重新回到病房，让他们重新选择他们最喜欢的一幅画，而这次健忘症患者居然选择了他们已经拥有的那幅画。
在无记忆干扰情况下，健忘症患者的喜好因为自己的选择发生了变化——他们更喜欢他们拥有的， 虽然他们并不知道自己拥有这个。
当人们制造快乐时，他们真真正正从感情上和审美上改变了对那幅画的看法。
你看到了吗？这种快乐就是人为制造的，和我们得到自己渴求的东西而获得的快乐并无区别。
03
如果没有选择
我们往往会更快乐
心理防御系统在我们没有其他选择时最有效。
自由选择、决断力和改变决定的能力是人为制造快乐的敌人。
这点在约会和婚姻的区别上体现得淋漓尽致。
你出去和一个男人约会， 他扣扣鼻孔，你就不会跟他再约会了。
可如果你们结婚了，他扣扣鼻孔，你会说：嗯，这就是生活，但拜托能别碰我的水果蛋糕吗？
你会自我开导，满于现状。
如果没有选择，我们就会产生快乐来接受所拥有的，而如果给了你选择，你反而会不那么喜欢已经选择的。
如果人们不了解自己，不知道自己有这个心理免疫系统，可能会做一些很错误的决定。
Gilbert用他在哈佛大学进行的实验更详细地说明了这一点。
他们开设了摄影课程，让哈佛的学生们在校园里采景。
他们从作品中挑出两张最好看的照片，让学生选一张自己留存。
学生们被分成两组，第一组被告知，未被选择的另一张照片要过四天后才会被送往英国，所以他们有四天的时间改变主意。
第二组被告知，一旦作出选择，另一张照片就马上送往英国，没有反悔的机会了。
三天后，他们重新调查了学生们对两张照片的喜爱程度，发现被告知没有交换权的学生更加喜欢已经选择的照片，而有交换权的学生则在深思熟虑后饱受折磨，并不是很喜欢现有的照片。
同样的选择，却形成了完全不同的看法，原因是，那些有选择权的学生想要的更多，妨碍了自己的心理防御系统去制造快乐。
合理地放弃一些过高的期望，以免陷入不必要的烦恼中。
这并不是让我们放弃对更有价值的东西的追求。因为生活中某些事物的确比别的事物更有价值，我们确实应该追求价值更高的东西。
但是，假如我们不过分看重不同选择之间的差异，当我们的追求有所节制的时候，我们反而会生活得更加快乐。
Dan Gilbert TED演讲稿双语对照版
When you have 21 minutes to speak, two million years seems like a really long time. But evolutionarily, two million years is nothing. And yet in two million years the human brain has nearly tripled in mass, going from the one-and-a-quarter pound brain of our ancestor here, Habilis, to the almost three-pound meatloaf that everybody here has between their ears. What is it about a big brain that nature was so eager for every one of us to have one?
Well, it turns out when brains triple in size, they don't just get three times bigger, they gain new structures. And one of the main reasons our brain got so big is because it got a new part, called the frontal lobe. And particularly, a part called the pre-frontal cortex. Now what does a pre-frontal cortex do for you that should justify the entire architectural overhaul of the human skull in the blink of evolutionary time?
Well, it turns out the pre-frontal cortex does lots of things, but one of the most important things it does is that it is an experience simulator. Flight pilots practice in flight simulators so that they don't make real mistakes in planes. Human beings have this marvelous adaptation that they can actually have experiences in their heads before they try them out in real life. This is a trick that none of our ancestors could do, and that no other animal can do quite like we can. It's a marvelous adaptation. It's up there with opposable thumbs and standing upright and language as one of the things that got our species out of the trees and into the shopping mall.
Now -- (Laughter) -- all of you have done this. I mean, you know, Ben and Jerry's doesn't have liver-and-onion ice cream. It's not because they whipped some up, tried it and went, "Yuck." It's because, without leaving your armchair, you can simulate that flavor and say yuck before you make it.
Let's see how your experience simulators are working. Let's just run a quick diagnostic before I proceed with the rest of the talk. Here's two different futures that I invite you to contemplate, and you can try to simulate them and tell me which one you think you might prefer. One of them is winning the lottery. This is about 314 million dollars. And the other is becoming paraplegic. So, just give it a moment of thought. You probably don't feel like you need a moment of thought.
Interestingly, there are data on these two groups of people, data on how happy they are. And this is exactly what you expected, isn't it? But these aren't the data. I made these up!
These are the data. You failed the pop quiz, and you're hardly five minutes into the lecture Because the fact is that a year after losing the use of their legs, and a year after winning the lotto, lottery winners and paraplegics are equally happy with their lives.
Now, don't feel too bad about failing the first pop quiz, because everybody fails all of the pop quizzes all of the time. The research that my laboratory has been doing, that economists and psychologists around the country have been doing, have revealed something really quite startling to us. Something we call the impact bias, which is the tendency for the simulator to work badly. For the simulator to make you believe that different outcomes are more different than in fact they really are.
From field studies to laboratory studies, we see that winning or losing an election, gaining or losing a romantic partner, getting or not getting a promotion, passing or not passing a college test, on and on, have far less impact, less intensity and much less duration than people expect them to have. In fact, a recent study -- this almost floors me -- a recent study showing how major life traumas affect people suggests that if it happened over three months ago, with only a few exceptions, it has no impact whatsoever on your happiness.
Why? Because happiness can be synthesized. Sir Thomas Brown wrote in 1642, "I am the happiest man alive. I have that in me that can convert poverty to riches, adversity to prosperity. I am more invulnerable than Achilles; fortune hath not one place to hit me." What kind of remarkable machinery does this guy have in his head?
Well, it turns out it's precisely the same remarkable machinery that all off us have. Human beings have something that we might think of as a psychological immune system. A system of cognitive processes, largely non-conscious cognitive processes, that help them change their views of the world, so that they can feel better about the worlds in which they find themselves. Like Sir Thomas, you have this machine. Unlike Sir Thomas, you seem not to know it.
We synthesize happiness, but we think happiness is a thing to be found. Now, you don't need me to give you too many examples of people synthesizing happiness, I suspect. Though I'm going to show you some experimental evidence, you don't have to look very far for evidence.
As a challenge to myself, since I say this once in a while in lectures, I took a copy of the New York Times and tried to find some instances of people synthesizing happiness. And here are three guys synthesizing happiness. "I am so much better off physically, financially, emotionally,mentally and almost every other way." "I don't have one minute's regret. It was a glorious experience." "I believe it turned out for the best."
Who are these characters who are so damn happy? Well, the first one is Jim Wright. Some of you are old enough to remember: he was the chairman of the House of Representatives and he resigned in disgrace when this young Republican named Newt Gingrich found out about a shady book deal he had done. He lost everything. The most powerful Democrat in the country, he lost everything. he lost his money, he lost his power, What does he have to say all these years later about it? "I am so much better off physically, financially, mentally and in almost every other way." What other way would there be to be better off? Vegetably? Minerally? Animally? He's pretty much covered them there.
Moreese Bickham is somebody you've never heard of. Moreese Bickham uttered these words upon being released. He was 78 years old. He spent 37 years in a Louisiana State Penitentiary for a crime he didn't commit. He was ultimately exonerated, at the age of 78, through DNA evidence. And what did he have to say about his experience? "I don't have one minute's regret. It was a glorious experience." Glorious! This guy is not saying, "Well, you know, there were some nice guys. They had a gym." It's "glorious," a word we usually reserve for something like a religious experience.
Harry S. Langerman uttered these words, and he's somebody you might have known but didn't, because in 1949 he read a little article in the paper about a hamburger stand owned by these two brothers named McDonalds. And he thought, "That's a really neat idea!" So he went to find them. They said, "We can give you a franchise on this for 3,000 bucks." Harry went back to New York, asked his brother who's an investment banker to loan him the 3,000 dollars, and his brother's immortal words were, "You idiot, nobody eats hamburgers." He wouldn't lend him the money, and of course six months later Ray Croc had exactly the same idea. It turns out people do eat hamburgers, and Ray Croc, for a while, became the richest man in America.
And then finally -- you know, the best of all possible worlds -- some of you recognize this young photo of Pete Best, who was the original drummer for the Beatles, until they, you know, sent him out on an errand and snuck away and picked up Ringo on a tour. Well, in 1994 when Pete Best was interviewed -- yes, he's still a drummer; yes, he's a studio musician -- he had this to say: "I'm happier than I would have been with the Beatles."
Okay. There's something important to be learned from these people, and it is the secret of happiness. Here it is, finally to be revealed. First: accrue wealth, power, and prestige, then lose it. (Laughter) Second: spend as much of your life in prison as you possibly can. (Laughter) Third: make somebody else really, really rich. (Laughter) And finally: never ever join the Beatles. (Laughter)
OK. Now I, like Ze Frank, can predict your next thought, which is, "Yeah, right." Because when people synthesize happiness, as these gentlemen seem to have done, we all smile at them, but we kind of roll our eyes and say, "Yeah right, you never really wanted the job." "Oh yeah, right. You really didn't have that much in common with her, and you figured that out just about the time she threw the engagement ring in your face."
We smirk because we believe that synthetic happiness is not of the same quality as what we might call natural happiness. What are these terms? 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. And in our society, we have a strong belief that synthetic happiness is of an inferior kind. Why do we have that belief? Well, it's very simple. What kind of economic engine would keep churning if we believed that not getting what we want could make us just as happy as getting it?
With all apologies to my friend Matthieu Ricard, a shopping mall full of Zen monks is not going to be particularly profitable because they don't want stuff enough. I want to suggest to you that synthetic happiness is every bit as real and enduring as the kind of happiness you stumble upon when you get exactly what you were aiming for. Now, I'm a scientist, so I'm going to do this not with rhetoric, but by marinating you in a little bit of data.
留言互动：你是否认为快乐也是可以人为制造的？为什么？
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