How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life pdfdrive com

THE PEAK-END EFFECT (OR: WHY YOU SHOULD
ALWAYS END ON A HIGH NOTE)
If I ask how happy you are today, there are two types of happiness that you’ll
subconsciously evaluate. There’s instantaneous happiness—the experience of
how happy you are right now, as you answer the question. And then there’s
remembered happiness—your memory of what’s happened in the day so far, and
how it makes you feel as you look back on it. Of the two, research has found that
remembered happiness has the bigger impact on our sense of well-being—after
all, it’s the story we tell ourselves about our day.
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The edited sum of our
memories becomes our view of whether life is good, or not. So what we
remember matters.

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But what we remember about the quality of our day isn’t typically the sum of
everything
that’s happened. Instead, we tend to rate experiences as an average of
the most intense moment (the peak) and how it finishes (the end). That’s what
scientists call the 
peak-end effect.
That’s our brain’s automatic system
economizing on mental effort again, by creating a simple version of reality to
file away in our memory banks—one that relies on just a couple of data points,
rather than requiring us to recall and evaluate every single moment.
16
Daniel Kahneman, the eminent Princeton psychologist whose work spawned
the field of behavioral economics, demonstrated the peak-end effect by exposing
volunteers to a variety of disagreeable experiences. In one experiment, he made
them put their hands into uncomfortably cold water (14°C/57.2°F) for sixty
seconds—something chilly enough to make the average person wince and
squirm. Kahneman found that people rated this experience as less unpleasant if it
was followed by 
another
thirty seconds in just barely warmer water
(15°C/59°F).
17
Since 15°C still feels pretty bad, the upshot was this: people
preferred ninety seconds of discomfort to sixty seconds of discomfort, just
because the last part wasn’t quite as awful. And this is true in general. Research
finds that people rate unpleasant experiences (such as colonoscopies and loud
noise) as less unpleasant if a period of slightly milder discomfort is 
added
to the
end of the experience.
18
In other words, ending with something slightly less bad
makes people feel better about the whole thing.
Endings have a disproportionate effect on positive experiences, too. In another
study, people who had volunteered to do some fundraising for a nonprofit were
offered a free DVD to thank them for their time. They were given their choice of
movie from a list of highly rated films. For some, the offer stopped there, while
others were subsequently offered a second movie, from a slightly less well-
reviewed list of titles.
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Sure enough, those who got just one stellar DVD were
happier than those who got one stellar DVD and then one middling DVD.
So the peak-end effect provides us with some big pointers on how to boost our
overall sense that we’ve had a good day. First, we should keep trying to engineer
the kind of peaks described in the rest of this chapter. If we have one strikingly
good flashbulb moment in a humdrum meeting, it will help us remember the
whole thing more positively. But the bigger implication of the peak-end effect is
that it’s worth being more systematic about ending everything—each interaction,
each task, each day—on a high note. Here are some ways to do that:

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An evening routine that includes the “three good things” exercise is an
excellent way of changing the way that you remember the day.
You can end most conversations by recapping their most upbeat moment—
for example, say, “It was great to hear about your good news!” It brings the
positive stuff back to the front of the mind—yours and theirs.
In formal discussions, as you wrap up, you can also say: “So what worked
well for us today that we should do again?” It gives people a chance to review
what they found useful or interesting in the way a meeting was set up. If you
don’t have time to ask the question, you can simply comment on what you
liked about the discussion—for example, “That was a great discussion. It was
good to do some real problem solving together.”
Sabine is a senior editor at a newspaper, and she has an interesting take on this
“end on a high note” idea. Though she’s very highly rated at her job, her current
boss is not someone who gives a lot of praise. But Sabine found a way to finish
every day with a burst of appreciation. “I searched online for a photo of a wise,
friendly boss—just a stock photo, someone totally anonymous, someone who
looked like the sort of per son I’d enjoy working for—and then I stuck the photo
on the back of my door. Every time I leave the office, I see the photo and
imagine this perfect boss giving me feedback on the things I did well that day.
Obviously it’s funny, and the comic relief is good, but the process also gives me
distance—it makes me step back and remember achievements I might have
forgotten.” And, like clockwork, it delivers a reliable peak for Sabine every
evening.