How happy are you? How good was your holiday? .....and what difference might it make to policymakers?
Daniel Kahneman's research has shown a difference between our real-time happiness, (experienced moment by moment), and how happy our memories make us feel.
Here is a video of his TED talk
and here is the transcript.
You will see that policy makers could definitely use this information in the realm of rewards and benefits.
This difference probably explains why "a sandwich approach" to feedback (the weaknesses upon which improvements can be made, sandwiched between two lots of strengths upon which to build!) is more palatable than just hearing the weaknesses alone.
I expect there are lots of other uses his findings can be put to.
Here are ways other eminent researchers have used his work:
Thought I'd share this as I enjoyed it :)
Alison
Replies
One of the questions raised in the above article was "if you knew you would not remember any moment of your holiday after you got back, would you still choose the same holiday?"
I enjoyed my holiday (a week in Dubrovnik) so much, minute by minute, that I would definitely do it again even if I couldn't remember it afterwards :)