#435: Professor George Loewenstein - Why You’re Not Designed to Be Happy

George Loewenstein is the Herbert A. Simon University Professor of Economics and Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University and one of the founders of behavioural economics and neuroeconomics. Across more than four decades of research, his work has transformed our understanding of how emotions, visceral states and psychological forces shape human judgement and behaviour. He has published more than 300 academic articles and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.Loewenstein argues that evolution is concerned with survival and reproduction, not our happiness, and that many of the emotions we most want to escape, such as anxiety, envy, loneliness, boredom, regret and misery, exist because they motivate behaviour. Happiness, by contrast, may be something we encounter rather than something we can successfully pursue.We explore why pursuing happiness can paradoxically make us less happy; why modern technology may be making us increasingly intolerant of boredom; and Professor Loewenstein’s influential theory of the hot-cold empathy gap. That is, why the person we become when angry, afraid, sexually aroused, addicted or distressed can behave in ways our calmer self struggles to predict or understand.We also discuss why misery can become self-reinforcing; loneliness, depression and mood-dependent memory; whether psychology has overestimated the power of self-awareness; why understanding ourselves does not necessarily change us; Loewenstein’s own experiences of low mood; and what hundreds of people revealed to him when he asked them about the sources of misery in their lives.Later, George reflects on being the great-grandson of Sigmund Freud, why he spent much of his career trying to escape that intellectual inheritance, and the strange ways in which Freud’s interests eventually resurfaced in his own experimental research. Timestamps:00:00 — Why evolution did not design us to be happy04:26 — Is happiness actually worth pursuing?07:46 — Happiness vs meaning: what should we pursue instead?09:36 — Why happiness never seems to last11:00 — Are smartphones making us more bored?13:38 — The empathy gap: why emotions transform our behaviour20:35 — Why heartbreak, grief and misery feel like they will last forever23:49 — Does understanding our emotions actually help us control them?28:08 — How to protect yourself from your future emotional self31:47 — Why misery becomes self-reinforcing32:44 — How loneliness and depression can trap us37:00 — Choking under pressure and becoming a victim of your own mind40:15 — Has psychology overestimated self-awareness?45:25 — Why George wrote The Opposite of Happiness48:55 — What 500+ people revealed in the “Misery Survey”52:06 — What George’s own experience of low mood taught him59:23 — Being Sigmund Freud’s great-grandson1:00:51 — Why George spent his career trying to escape Freud1:04:59 — How Isaac Newton became a victim of his emotions1:07:24 — Can hope actually make suffering worse?1:14:15 — Why giving up hope can sometimes be liberating1:16:13 — What does a well-lived life actually look like?1:18:54 — Where to find George LoewensteinConnect with us:https://freedompact.co.uk/newsletterhttps://www.instagram.com/freedompactpodhttps://www.twitter.com/freedompactpodEmail: freedompact@gmail.comhttps://www.tiktok.com/@personaldevelopmentConnect with Professor George Loewenstein:George’s website:https://oppositeofhappiness.com/George’s Carnegie Mellon University profile:https://www.heinz.cmu.edu/faculty-research/profiles/loewenstein-georgeGeorge’s academic page and research:https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/sds/people/faculty/george-loewenstein.htmlGeorge’s new book: The Opposite of Happiness: How Bad Feelings Make and Break Us:Official book website:https://oppositeofhappiness.com/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsmtcQ_39PQ&feature=youtu.be