---

Title: Daniel Kahneman on the Science of Happiness: From Experience to Memory and Back Again

In a conversation as illuminating as it was honest, Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman sat down to reflect on his decades of groundbreaking work—not just in behavioral economics and decision-making, but in the complex world of human well-being. Best known for his bestselling book Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman’s influence extends deeply into the study of happiness, where he introduced the concept of “experienced utility”—a counterpoint to the traditional economic focus on “decision utility.”

Kahneman recounted how this line of thought began with a seemingly simple question: How would someone value reducing pain over time? If a person had to receive a painful injection every day, would reducing it from 20 to 15 be as valuable as reducing it from 10 to 5? Traditional economic thinking suggested the same value reduction—but people clearly experience the first scenario as more painful. This discrepancy between lived experience and rational decision-making sparked his long-term interest in how we experience versus how we evaluate happiness.

He delved into one of his most famous contributions—the “peak-end rule.” In a series of experiments, including the well-known colonoscopy study, Kahneman and his colleagues discovered that people remember experiences not based on duration but on how they felt at the peak and at the end. An unpleasant experience that ends more gently can be remembered more favorably than a shorter, but more abruptly painful one. In other words, memory and experience aren’t just different—they can be opposites.

Initially, Kahneman viewed experienced utility—the moment-to-moment feelings we have—as the “real” happiness. Life satisfaction, he thought, was just a biased memory. But over time, his stance evolved. People, he realized, don’t necessarily pursue moment-to-moment joy; they pursue meaning. They seek the story of a good life, not just pleasurable moments. That narrative—what he calls the “remembering self”—guides long-term choices, such as career decisions or family planning.

So which should we value more? Momentary happiness or life satisfaction? Kahneman confessed he still doesn’t know. He admitted that this conflict, between experience and evaluation, eventually pushed him to step back from the well-being field for a time—not because it wasn’t important, but because he couldn’t reconcile the two.

Still, his impact is undeniable. He helped pioneer the Day Reconstruction Method (DRM), a tool to measure daily emotional experiences retrospectively but with precision. He also had a hand in shaping Gallup’s World Poll questions, influencing how emotional states are tracked globally. He emphasized that who we spend time with is one of the most powerful predictors of happiness, a theme that resonated throughout the talk. Even spending time in nature, as attendees noted, has powerful emotional benefits—a fact well-documented in recent experience sampling studies.

On a more sobering note, Kahneman acknowledged a global rise in negative emotions like stress, worry, and anger—especially pronounced over the past decade. The data, especially from Gallup, shows that despite economic growth, more people are reporting daily unhappiness. This growing “misery index” is alarming and, to Kahneman, should be a primary target for public policy.

And here, he made a crucial point: policymakers should aim not just to increase happiness but to reduce misery. While it might be easier to frame everything around “happiness,” he argued that focusing too narrowly on happiness risks ignoring the suffering at the bottom of the well-being scale. It’s an insight that cuts through the optimism of many well-being conversations with a dose of pragmatic compassion.

When asked where well-being research should go next, Kahneman humbly deferred. “Prophecy is for fools,” he said with a smile. But he acknowledged the potential in wearables, real-time emotion tracking, and genetics. More importantly, he encouraged young researchers to follow their curiosity—choosing their own problems rather than following trends.

In a field brimming with big data and big ambitions, Kahneman reminded everyone that the biggest breakthroughs often begin with a simple question. Whether it’s why people value a less painful ending, or how we can use memory to inform meaning, his work continues to inspire scholars across disciplines.

At the close of the session, the room honored Kahneman with a Distinguished Career Award in well-being science. Though it may not rival the Nobel Prize, it represented deep appreciation from a field he helped shape—and from the many lives his work continues to touch.

Credits:
Based on an interview and Q&A with Daniel Kahneman at a well-being science conference.
Moderator: Dr. Jan-Emmanuel De Neve
Participants: Various attendees including Paul Dolan, John Clifton, and others.