Person: Gilbert, Daniel
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Gilbert, Daniel
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Publication Buried by bad decisions(Springer Nature, 2011) Gilbert, DanielPublication Medial Prefrontal Cortex Predicts Intertemporal Choice(MIT Press - Journals, 2011) Mitchell, Jason; Schirmer, Jessica; Ames, Daniel L.; Gilbert, DanielPeople often make shortsighted decisions to receive small benefits in the present rather than large benefits in the future, that is, to favor their current selves over their future selves. In two studies using fMRI, we demonstrated that people make such decisions in part because they fail to engage in the same degree of self-referential processing when thinking about their future selves. When participants predicted how much they would enjoy an event in the future, they showed less activity in brain regions associated with introspective self-reference—such as the ventromedial pFC (vMPFC)—than when they predicted how much they would enjoy events in the present. Moreover, the magnitude of vMPFC reduction predicted the extent to which participants made shortsighted monetary decisions several weeks later. In light of recent findings that the vMPFC contributes to the ability to simulate future events from a first-person perspective, these data suggest that shortsighted decisions result in part from a failure to fully imagine the subjective experience of one's future self.Publication Consuming experience: Why affective forecasters overestimate comparative value(Elsevier BV, 2010) Morewedge, Carey K.; Gilbert, Daniel; Myrseth, Kristian Ove R.; Kassam, Karim Sadik; Wilson, Timothy D.The hedonic value of an outcome can be influenced by the alternatives to which it is compared, which is why people expect to be happier with outcomes that maximize comparative value (e.g., the best of several mediocre alternatives) than with outcomes that maximize absolute value (e.g., the worst of several excellent alternatives). The results of five experiments suggest that affective forecasters overestimate the importance of comparative value because forecasters do not realize that comparison requires cognitive resources, and that experiences consume more cognitive resources than do forecasts. In other words, because forecasters overestimate the extent to which they will be able to think about what they did not get while experiencing what they got.Publication A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind(American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 2010) Killingsworth, Matthew; Gilbert, DanielWe developed a smartphone technology to sample people’s ongoing thoughts, feelings, and actions and found (i) that people are thinking about what is not happening almost as often as they are thinking about what is and (ii) found that doing so typically makes them unhappy.Publication Would you fund this movie? A reply to Fox et al. (2014)(Frontiers Media S.A., 2014) Wilson, Timothy D.; Gilbert, Daniel; Reinhard, David A.; Westgate, Erin C.; Brown, Casey L.Publication The Unforeseen Costs of Extraordinary Experience(SAGE Publications, 2014-10-01) Cooney, Gus; Gilbert, Daniel; Wilson, Timothy D.People seek extraordinary experiences—from drinking rare wines and taking exotic vacations to jumping from airplanes and shaking hands with celebrities. But are such experiences worth having? We found that participants thoroughly enjoyed having experiences that were superior to those had by their peers, but that having had such experiences spoiled their subsequent social interactions and ultimately left them feeling worse than they would have felt if they had had an ordinary experience instead. Participants were able to predict the benefits of having an extraordinary experience but were unable to predict the costs. These studies suggest that people may pay a surprising price for the experiences they covet most.Publication Miswanting: Some Problems in the Forecasting of Future Affective States(Cambridge University Press, 2000) Gilbert, Daniel; Wilson, Timothy D.Publication Just think: The challenges of the disengaged mind(American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 2014-07-04) Wilson, Timothy D.; Reinhard, David A.; Westgate, Erin C.; Gilbert, Daniel; Ellerbeck, N.; Hahn, C.; Brown, Casey L.; Shaked, A.In 11 studies, we found that participants typically did not enjoy spending 6 to 15 minutes in a room by themselves with nothing to do but think, that they enjoyed doing mundane external activities much more, and that many preferred to administer electric shocks to themselves instead of being left alone with their thoughts. Most people seem to prefer to be doing something rather than nothing, even if that something is negative.Publication Winners Love Winning and Losers Love Money(SAGE Publications, 2011) Kassam, Karim Sadik; Morewedge, Carey K.; Gilbert, Daniel; Wilson, Timothy D.Salience and satisfaction are important factors in determining the comparisons that people make. We hypothesized that people make salient comparisons first, and then make satisfying comparisons only if salient comparisons leave them unsatisfied. This hypothesis suggests an asymmetry between winning and losing. For winners, comparison with a salient alternative (i.e., losing) brings satisfaction. Therefore, winners should be sensitive only to the relative value of their outcomes. For losers, comparison with a salient alternative (i.e., winning) brings little satisfaction. Therefore, losers should be drawn to compare outcomes with additional standards, which should make them sensitive to both relative and absolute values of their outcomes. In Experiment 1, participants won one of two cash prizes on a scratch-off ticket. Winners were sensitive to the relative value of their prizes, whereas losers were sensitive to both the relative and the absolute values of their prizes. In Experiment 2, losers were sensitive to the absolute value of their prize only when they had sufficient cognitive resources to engage in effortful comparison.Publication "He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not . . . ": Uncertainty Can Increase Romantic Attraction(SAGE Publications, 2010) Whitchurch, E. R.; Wilson, T. D.; Gilbert, DanielThis research qualifies a social psychological truism: that people like others who like them (the reciprocity principle). College women viewed the Facebook profiles of four male students who had previously seen their profiles. They were told that the men (a) liked them a lot, (b) liked them only an average amount, or (c) liked them either a lot or an average amount (uncertain condition). Comparison of the first two conditions yielded results consistent with the reciprocity principle. Participants were more attracted to men who liked them a lot than to men who liked them an average amount. Results for the uncertain condition, however, were consistent with research on the pleasures of uncertainty. Participants in the uncertain condition were most attracted to the men—even more attracted than were participants who were told that the men liked them a lot. Uncertain participants reported thinking about the men the most, and this increased their attraction toward the men.