The happiness hypothesis

The second truth in this part of the story is that we are all, by nature, hypocrites, and this is why it is so hard for us to follow the Golden Rule faithfully.

The first truth is the foundational idea of this book: The mind is divided into parts that sometimes conflict.

Over and over again, studies show that people set out on a cognitive mission to bring back reasons to support their preferred belief or action

Concession leads to concession

fact, happiness is one of the most highly heritable aspects of personality. Twin studies generally show that from 50 percent to 80 percent of all the variance among people in their average levels of happiness can be explained by differences in their genes rather than in their life experiences.

In financial transactions and gambles, the pleasure of gaining a certain amount of money is smaller than the pain of losing the same amount.15

See Steven Pinker12 on how natural selection designs without a designer

Clinical psychologists sometimes say that two kinds of people seek therapy: those who need tightening, and those who need loosening.

Lasting change can come only by retraining the elephant, and that’s hard to do.

Dan Wegner, one of the most perverse and creative social psychologists, has dr