Something I Learned While Writing This Book: The Science of First-World Problems
Every now and then, I’ll fill you in on some of the interesting stuff I’m picking up as I work on the book.
As a reminder, my book is about comfort and discomfort, and, let me tell you, too much comfort has a tendency to turn me into a sniveling baby who has about as much perspective as an earthworm. I recently became way too disgruntled when, in a movie theater that featured reclining and heated seats, I discovered that the reclining function on my seat didn’t work. This was a personal tragedy of the highest order—until after 10 minutes of frustration it occurred to me that I was in an air conditioned building, sitting on an overstuffed recliner, sipping soda and stuffing my face with popcorn, all while watching a multi million-dollar blockbuster with enough action to entertained even the most ADD-riddled eight-year old. I’d surely survive the experience with my back at a 10 rather than 25-degree angle.
Afterwards I called Harvard psychologist Daniel Levari. He studies “prevalence-induced concept change,” which is an overly-technical way of saying that he studies why people can always find something to bitch about now matter how good they have it.
“If you’re taking a historical view, most of us are far more comfortable, and things are much easier and better for us than at any point in history,” Levari told me. “You might imagine that because things are getting so much better, A. People would realize it; and B. People should be happier and be enjoying these comforts more. But this isn’t the case.”
In 2018 he published the results of a series of studies that confirmed what you might call “problem creep.” As we have fewer problems, we don’t become more satisfied or actually have fewer problems. We just lower our threshold for what we consider a problem, ending up with the same number of problems—except our new problems are dumber, progressively more hollow. Thus, he discovered a scientific basis for first-world problems.
“We think this is a low level feature of psychology,” he says. The human brain evolved to make these relative comparisons because doing so uses far less brain power than remembering every instance of a situation you’d seen or been in. As we evolved, the brain mechanism allowed us to safely navigate our environments while conserving precious energy. But today? “As people make all these relative judgments and become less and less satisfied than they used to be with the same thing, it can mask the progress we’re making,” Levari says. And that explains why, despite our incredible advances, most people think the world is getting worse.
Try to remember this next time you’re complaining. |
