Stumbling on Happiness

A funny, careful book about why people are bad at predicting what will make them happy: we imagine the future with the details missing, and we underrate how quickly we adapt. Useful when a decision or a fear about the future feels bigger than it will turn out to be.

Worth knowing: Some studies it leans on are single experiments from the 1990s and early 2000s. The central finding, that we overestimate how long feelings will last, has held up well.

Find a copy · the research behind it: How wrong are you about how long something will hurt?