The Different Forms of Mental Content That Make Us Feel Good

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

The more I learn about psychology, the more flexible that perspective taking is, right? How much maybe control isn't the right word, but how much malleability. So it feels to me that there's a bunch of different mental states that make us feel really good in a positive and non self-delusionary way. But I would predict that one of the largest differences between people who are really happy and people with bad life experiences will be sort of the nature of the mental content.

Read the full transcript here.

To increase our chances of success (in whatever domain and using definition of success), should we focus on boosting our strengths or shoring up our weaknesses? Are we harsher in our critiques of ourselves than in our critiques of others? What should an ideal inner monologue be like? What are some useful taxonomies of pain? Are there times when irrational, magical, emotionally-driven, and/or delusional types of thinking are useful?

Anna Paley is insatiably curious about how best to live our lives. She is a behavioral scientist and marketing professor at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. She received her PhD from New York University, Stern School of Business in 2017. You can reach her at a.paley@tilburguniversity.edu.

Staff