How so? His claim was that people will not be happier in warmer climates. I’m making a counterclaim to the contrary, that the experiencing self can be significantly happier(or at least feel significantly better) in climates where there is enough UV-radiation as opposed to those where there isn’t like the Nordic countries and probably Alaska(in the case of the US).
It’s meant to be an example from a broader class: the class of large life changes that, contrary to expectation, do not lead to increased happiness reports from the experiencing self. (In his specific example, you only get increased happiness reports by asking people to compare their current warmer life with their past colder life, thereby engaging the remembering self.)
In any event, if you’re talking about seasonal affective disorder, it seems that dawn simulation works best, so it’s related to visible light, not UV radiation.
It’s meant to be an example from a broader class: the class of large life changes that, contrary to expectation, do not lead to increased happiness reports from the experiencing self.
So you don’t think that people suffering form seasonal affective disorder will be happier in a warmer climate where they won’t suffer from this disorder?
SAD is one of those labels that gets applied when a reasonably normal human phenomenon is expressed in an exaggerated or maladaptive way. I would expect some impact of climate on on reported happiness due to this mechanism even if SAD people were excluded from the sample.
On average, people are vitamin D deficient. Vitamin D influence mood. I would expect another (small) difference via this mechanism.
People do more exercise when it isn’t snowing. Exercise is one of the few things that can give a sustained mood benefit.
Even with these considerations in mind I more or less agree with the gist of the claim. I more or less assume it to be common knowledge by now.
I reject the claim but not what he was (I assume) trying to claim.
I expect people to benefit less from changes in circumstances than they expect. We tend towards emotional homeostasis. I wouldn’t have used weather as an example because there are confounding factors that I predict a sufficiently in depth study could identify. I don’t, however, think that average people would get the benefits they expect from a warmer climate just because it is more appealing.
If Kahneman was willing to weaken his claim to acknowledge the exceptions that you and I mention or, preferably, if he were to use a better example to illustrate the point then I would accept it. However, Kahneman has high status in the context so this makes it far less likely that he would be willing to make the obvious necessary corrections when prompted. So he would probably stay wrong.
It is important to compare different strands of happiness research to figure out if they are measuring the same thing. Kahneman’s talk was about how two fairly similar measures—both self-report—yield wildly different answers. Incapacitating depression and especially suicide are another rather different happiness measure. They are very coarse measures, but suicide is fairly objective and thus easy to compare across cultures. It has a clear polar trend, though not within the US. (finer world maps requested! also, cartograms—on the last map is SF deadly?)
We should compare different measures. This failure to match is a big red flag. Kahneman only mentioned weather data incidentally, but it’s important. Of course, there are many possibilities, such as SAD being a threshold effect—such a small part of the population should not affect polling. Cross-culturally, what are the self-reports of people with incapacitating depression or suicidal ideation?
Sure I have. First he made a general claim so I don’t think it is fair to exclude people who particularly suffer from the cold climate, especially since I guess those are the ones who are more probable to move to a warmer one.
Also SAD is only one example of many, in general it is simply a fact that warmer climates are much more friendly to life in several aspects than the colder ones. There is much more biodiversity in the tropics for a reason.
His larger claim was that there is a difference between experiencing self and remembering self. I agree with this. However in the case of warmer climates I think it is one of the cases where experiencing self agree with the remembering self and are happier.
I concede that the example may have been poorly chosen. He could have checked this in the original research but not bothered to talk about it during the presentation; or maybe he screwed up. In either case, the original paper is available at his website for your assessment.
The causal effects of UV radiation aren’t really relevant to his point—he’d still make the same claim even if both climes were equally UV-irradiated.
How so? His claim was that people will not be happier in warmer climates. I’m making a counterclaim to the contrary, that the experiencing self can be significantly happier(or at least feel significantly better) in climates where there is enough UV-radiation as opposed to those where there isn’t like the Nordic countries and probably Alaska(in the case of the US).
It’s meant to be an example from a broader class: the class of large life changes that, contrary to expectation, do not lead to increased happiness reports from the experiencing self. (In his specific example, you only get increased happiness reports by asking people to compare their current warmer life with their past colder life, thereby engaging the remembering self.)
In any event, if you’re talking about seasonal affective disorder, it seems that dawn simulation works best, so it’s related to visible light, not UV radiation.
So you don’t think that people suffering form seasonal affective disorder will be happier in a warmer climate where they won’t suffer from this disorder?
If you assume that he was talking only about people who do not have SAD, do you have any other concerns about the claim?
SAD is one of those labels that gets applied when a reasonably normal human phenomenon is expressed in an exaggerated or maladaptive way. I would expect some impact of climate on on reported happiness due to this mechanism even if SAD people were excluded from the sample.
On average, people are vitamin D deficient. Vitamin D influence mood. I would expect another (small) difference via this mechanism.
People do more exercise when it isn’t snowing. Exercise is one of the few things that can give a sustained mood benefit.
Even with these considerations in mind I more or less agree with the gist of the claim. I more or less assume it to be common knowledge by now.
How can you agree with the claim in spite of the counterarguments you presented? More at my comment above.
I reject the claim but not what he was (I assume) trying to claim.
I expect people to benefit less from changes in circumstances than they expect. We tend towards emotional homeostasis. I wouldn’t have used weather as an example because there are confounding factors that I predict a sufficiently in depth study could identify. I don’t, however, think that average people would get the benefits they expect from a warmer climate just because it is more appealing.
If Kahneman was willing to weaken his claim to acknowledge the exceptions that you and I mention or, preferably, if he were to use a better example to illustrate the point then I would accept it. However, Kahneman has high status in the context so this makes it far less likely that he would be willing to make the obvious necessary corrections when prompted. So he would probably stay wrong.
It is important to compare different strands of happiness research to figure out if they are measuring the same thing. Kahneman’s talk was about how two fairly similar measures—both self-report—yield wildly different answers. Incapacitating depression and especially suicide are another rather different happiness measure. They are very coarse measures, but suicide is fairly objective and thus easy to compare across cultures. It has a clear polar trend, though not within the US. (finer world maps requested! also, cartograms—on the last map is SF deadly?)
We should compare different measures. This failure to match is a big red flag. Kahneman only mentioned weather data incidentally, but it’s important. Of course, there are many possibilities, such as SAD being a threshold effect—such a small part of the population should not affect polling. Cross-culturally, what are the self-reports of people with incapacitating depression or suicidal ideation?
Sure I have. First he made a general claim so I don’t think it is fair to exclude people who particularly suffer from the cold climate, especially since I guess those are the ones who are more probable to move to a warmer one.
Also SAD is only one example of many, in general it is simply a fact that warmer climates are much more friendly to life in several aspects than the colder ones. There is much more biodiversity in the tropics for a reason.
And the larger claim that Kahneman was attempting to support with this example—how about that?
His larger claim was that there is a difference between experiencing self and remembering self. I agree with this. However in the case of warmer climates I think it is one of the cases where experiencing self agree with the remembering self and are happier.
I concede that the example may have been poorly chosen. He could have checked this in the original research but not bothered to talk about it during the presentation; or maybe he screwed up. In either case, the original paper is available at his website for your assessment.