wedrifid comments on TED Talks: Daniel Kahneman - Less Wrong

18 Post author: Cyan 06 March 2010 01:45AM

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Comment author: wedrifid 09 March 2010 02:02:36AM 2 points [-]
  • SAD is one of those labels that gets applied when a reasonably normal human phenomenon is expressed in an exaggerated or maladaptive way. I would expect some impact of climate on on reported happiness due to this mechanism even if SAD people were excluded from the sample.
  • On average, people are vitamin D deficient. Vitamin D influence mood. I would expect another (small) difference via this mechanism.
  • People do more exercise when it isn't snowing. Exercise is one of the few things that can give a sustained mood benefit.

Even with these considerations in mind I more or less agree with the gist of the claim. I more or less assume it to be common knowledge by now.

Comment author: roland 09 March 2010 02:14:19AM 2 points [-]

Even with these considerations in mind I more or less agree with the gist of the claim. I more or less assume it to be common knowledge by now.

How can you agree with the claim in spite of the counterarguments you presented? More at my comment above.

Comment author: wedrifid 09 March 2010 03:14:30AM *  1 point [-]

I reject the claim but not what he was (I assume) trying to claim.

I expect people to benefit less from changes in circumstances than they expect. We tend towards emotional homeostasis. I wouldn't have used weather as an example because there are confounding factors that I predict a sufficiently in depth study could identify. I don't, however, think that average people would get the benefits they expect from a warmer climate just because it is more appealing.

If Kahneman was willing to weaken his claim to acknowledge the exceptions that you and I mention or, preferably, if he were to use a better example to illustrate the point then I would accept it. However, Kahneman has high status in the context so this makes it far less likely that he would be willing to make the obvious necessary corrections when prompted. So he would probably stay wrong.

Comment author: Douglas_Knight 09 March 2010 08:24:26AM *  1 point [-]

It is important to compare different strands of happiness research to figure out if they are measuring the same thing. Kahneman's talk was about how two fairly similar measures - both self-report - yield wildly different answers. Incapacitating depression and especially suicide are another rather different happiness measure. They are very coarse measures, but suicide is fairly objective and thus easy to compare across cultures. It has a clear polar trend, though not within the US. (finer world maps requested! also, cartograms - on the last map is SF deadly?)

We should compare different measures. This failure to match is a big red flag. Kahneman only mentioned weather data incidentally, but it's important. Of course, there are many possibilities, such as SAD being a threshold effect - such a small part of the population should not affect polling. Cross-culturally, what are the self-reports of people with incapacitating depression or suicidal ideation?

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