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Article Journal of Positive Psychology 2019 Preferences for Experienced Versus Remembered Happiness |
Consider two types of happiness: one experienced on a moment-to-moment basis, the other a reflective evaluation where people feel happy looking back. Though researchers have measured and argued the merits of each, we inquired into which happiness people say they want. In five studies (N = 3351), we asked people to choose between experienced happiness and remembered happiness—for shorter time frames (e.g., one’s next hour) and longer time frames (e.g., one’s lifetime). The results revealed a consistent pattern: most people choose experienced happiness for longer time frames but not for shorter time frames. Since people typically live hour-to-hour, these findings imply that people may end up living a different version of happiness than what they believe is a happy life.
Keywords: well-being; Life Satisfaction; experience; retrospective; time; Happiness; Satisfaction; Welfare or Wellbeing; Perception;
Mogilner, Cassie, and Michael I. Norton. "Preferences for Experienced Versus Remembered Happiness." Journal of Positive Psychology 14, no. 2 (2019): 244–251.
