In a February 20 talk at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography, titled "Happiness: What Your Mother Didn’t Tell You," IQSS faculty affiliate Daniel Gilbert compared maternal advice on happiness to his research findings. Gilbert, professor in the Department of Psychology, explained that his mother's formula for happiness—marriage, money, and children—was partially accurate. Research data, according to him, indicates a connection to increased happiness from both money and marriage, though happiness levels decrease at higher income levels and in cases of bad marriages. Interestingly, he went on to explain how the third ingredient in the formula, children, have a negative effect on happiness. More details on Gilbert's lecture can be found in the Harvard Gazette.
Daniel Gilbert's research on affective forecasting attempts to understand how and how well people predict their emotional reactions to future events.
