Course Schedule Pieces

Pieces

Space, Time and Future Preferences

• Hedonic adaptation (also, hedonic treadmill) -- the declining marginal utility of addition units of consumption, all other factors being equal --

• We spatialize time because it's an abstract thing and thinking of its spatially helps make it concrete. But Gilbert thinks this leads to mistakes in "affect forecasting" - predicting how you will feel about a hedonic in the future.

• False prediction of future pleasure -- p. 130 study on snack predictions. (no variety condition happier)

• Gilbert's hedonic adaptation thought experiment -- Imagine you are preordering from a restaurant for the next few weeks.

• favoring assumption (how much you like each dish)
• habituation rate assumption (how quickly pleasure declines or habituates)
• consumption rate. (the time scale of the consumption)
• See diagrams

• Gilbert's partial point -- variety has a cost… [But it doesn't follow that it's not in your happiness-interest to pay it sometimes.]
• Slogan for the day: "Pleasure isn't linear."