Why Am I Unhappy?
Shankar Vedantam speaks with psychologist George Loewenstein about the internal psychological mechanisms that undermine human happiness, including hedonic adaptation, evolutionary survival drives, and self-critical meta-emotions. Psychologist Alison Ledgerwood also joins to explain the asymmetric stickiness of negative framing and share actionable cognitive strategies for countering negativity bias.
- In experiments evaluating public policies framed around jobs saved versus jobs lost, psychologist Alison Ledgerwood discovered an asymmetric cognitive lock on negative frames. Read →
- Thought suppression backfires. Alison Ledgerwood explains that trying to crush anxious thoughts triggers the classic white bear effect, making negative emotions stickier. Read →
- Natural selection shaped the human mind to prioritize survival and reproduction, treating subjective contentment merely as temporary bait rather than a permanent destination. Read →
- Leo Tolstoy identified the root trap in Anna Karenina: people commit an "eternal error" by imagining happiness consists in the gratification of their wishes. Read →
- George Loewenstein adapts marital psychologist John Gottman's research to explain meta-emotions: the secondary judgments we direct at our own emotional reactions. Read →