----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, November 27, 2003 3:14
PM
Subject: RE: [Futurework]
Economic/psychological/emotional Choices
Selma,
As always with your posts - interesting.
However, I doubt that it is significant. That
doesn't mean they are wrong - simply that their research is stating the
obvious. So, it might be useful for those people who, for a fee, tell you what
is good for you.
It seems that everything they have done is covered
by the two assumptions that precede Political Economy.
"That people's desires are unlimited."
"That people seek to satisfy their desires with the
least exertion."
These assumptions were emphasized almost two
centuries ago - and they were only assumptions. That is, they were self
evident truths that helped the scientist to proceed in the study of human
behavior.
If they turned out to b e wrong, they could be
changed. If they seemed to be right, they were useful. The scientist should
not then be surprised by how people behaved.
Among the points I enjoyed (or looked askance at)
follow.
I chortled at:
'Worse, Gilbert has noted that these mistakes
of expectation can lead directly to mistakes in choosing what we think
will give us pleasure. He calls this ''miswanting.''
'
Wow! Another term to add to the other
nonsensicalities. Then there was:
"In this test, Gilbert's team asks members of Group
A to estimate how they'll feel if they receive negative personality
feedback. The impact bias kicks in, of course, and
they mostly predict they'll feel terrible, when in
fact they end up feeling O.K. But if Gilbert shows Group B that
others have gotten the same feedback and
felt O.K. afterward, then its members predict they'll feel
O.K. as well. The impact bias disappears, and the
participants in Group B make accurate predictions."
That "impact bias" comes and goes. Gilbert's team
had discovered that when you provide more information, people's decisions may
change. Wow! Further, they will make "accurate predictions".
How the heck is it known that they are "accurate"?
Accurate in terms of what?
Then, there was:
"''If people do not know what is going to make them
better off or give them pleasure,'' Daniel Kahneman says, ''then the
idea that you can trust people to do
what will give them pleasure
becomes questionable.''
This seems like the old (or not so old) idea that
people's happiness is a concern of government. Indeed, this is the concern of
the "political left" for:
"the data make it all too clear that boosting
the living standards of those already comfortable, such as through
lower taxes, does little to improve their levels
of well-being, whereas raising the living standards of the
impoverished makes an enormous difference."
However, Lowenstein thinks a little more on this.
He says:
''Just because we figure out that
X makes people happy and they're choosing Y, we don't want to
impose X on them. I have a discomfort with paternalism and
with using the results coming out of our field to impose decisions
on people.''
Bully for him! But is it not likely that such
results will be used to do just that.
Says Gilbert:
''Maybe it's important for there to be
carrots and sticks in the world, even if they are
illusions. They keep us moving towards carrots and away from
sticks.''
Those unlimited desires captured with the least
exertion keep intruding!
Harry
********************************************
Henry George School of Social Science
of Los Angeles
Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042
Tel: 818 352-4141 -- Fax: 818 353-2242
HYPERLINK
http://haledward.home.comcast.net http://haledward.home.comcast.net
********************************************
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