Happiness by Design: Change What You Do, Not How You Think

by Paul Dolan, Daniel Kahneman (Foreword by)

Overview

This is not just another happiness book. In Happiness by Design, happiness and behavior expert Paul Dolan combines the latest insights from economics and psychology to illustrate that in order to be happy we must behave happy Our happiness is experiences of both pleasure and purpose over time and it depends on what we actually pay attention to. Using what Dolan calls deciding, designing, and doing, we can overcome the biases that make us miserable and redesign our environments to make it easier to experience happiness, fulfilment, and even health.  With uncanny wit and keen perception, Dolan reveals what we can do to find our unique optimal balance of pleasure and purpose, offering practical advice on how to organize our lives in happiness-promoting ways and fresh insights into how we feel, including why:

• Having kids reduces pleasure but gives us a massive dose of purpose
• Gaining weight won’t necessarily make us unhappier, but being too ambitious might
• A quiet neighborhood is more important than a big house

Vividly rendering intriguing research and lively anecdotal evidence, Happiness by Design offers an absorbing, thought-provoking, new paradigm for readers of Stumbling on Happiness and The How of Happiness.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780698156920
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/28/2014
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	964,276
File size:	1 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

PAUL DOLAN, PHD, is Professor of Behavioral Science at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He lives with his family in Brighton.

Table of Contents

Foreword vii

A note to the reader ix

A little warm-up xiii

Introduction: stuttering into happiness xv

Part 1 Developing Happiness

1 What is happiness? 3

Happiness as evaluation 3

Happiness as feelings 5

The pleasure-purpose principle 7

The PPP for life 18

2 What do we know about happiness? 23

Experience sampling 24

German days 25

American episodes 30

Other evidence on happiness 35

The measure matters 41

3 What causes happiness? 45

From widgets to happiness 45

Above and below the surface 51

Behavioral spillovers 56

The shifting sands of attention 60

Attending to happiness 68

4 Why aren't we happier? 71

Mistaken desires 72

Mistaken projections 82

Mistaken beliefs 92

Reallocating attention 99

Part 2 Delivering Happiness

5 Deciding happiness 103

Pay attention to your own feedback 103

Pay attention to the feedback of others 114

Don't try too hard 120

Happier by deciding 122

6 Designing happiness 125

Priming 127

Defaults 130

Commitments 131

Social norms 136

Designing habits 141

Happier by designing 143

7 Doing happiness 145

Pay attention to what you are doing 145

Pay attention to who you are doing it with 154

Don't get distracted 155

Happier by doing 167

8 Decide, design, and do 169

Dither less 170

Distribute more 176

Efficient production 188

Conclusion 189

Acknowledgments 195

Notes 199

Index 229

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Outstanding, cutting-edge, and profound.  If you’re going to read one book on happiness, this is the one.”
—Nassim Nicholas Taleb, bestselling author of The Black Swan and Antifragile 

“Happiness by Design is the best kind of psychology book: the ideas are fascinating, understanding them will make your life happier and more meaningful, and Dolan expresses them beautifully. Whether you’re a novice or a voracious consumer of happiness research, Happiness by Design hits all the right notes.”
—Adam Alter, bestselling author of Drunk Tank Pink
 
“Dolan gives a comprehensive overview of the science of happiness and useful tips to achieve it. In his quest to explain what makes us happy, Dolan touches on a powerful idea: happiness need not be pursued, simply rediscovered. In other words, sources of pleasure and purpose are all around us, if only one knows where to look.”
—Scientific American

Editorial Reviews

Outstanding, cutting-edge, and profound.  If you’re going to read one book on happiness, this is the one.”
—Nassim Nicholas Taleb, bestselling author of The Black Swan and Antifragile 

“Happiness by Design is the best kind of psychology book: the ideas are fascinating, understanding them will make your life happier and more meaningful, and Dolan expresses them beautifully. Whether you’re a novice or a voracious consumer of happiness research, Happiness by Design hits all the right notes.”
—Adam Alter, bestselling author of Drunk Tank Pink
 
“Dolan gives a comprehensive overview of the science of happiness and useful tips to achieve it. In his quest to explain what makes us happy, Dolan touches on a powerful idea: happiness need not be pursued, simply rediscovered. In other words, sources of pleasure and purpose are all around us, if only one knows where to look.”
—Scientific American

From the Publisher

Outstanding, cutting-edge, and profound. If you're going to read one book on happiness, this is the one.

bestselling author of The Black Swan and Antifragile - Nassim Nicholas Taleb