The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos Why We're Better With Some Threats Than Others (An Earth Month Re-Run)
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Mar 17, 2025 
In this engaging conversation, Dan Gilbert, a Harvard psychology professor and happiness expert, discusses our human tendency to prioritize immediate threats over distant crises like climate change. He delves into societal biases that hinder proactive reactions, explaining how we react more strongly to threats we can see. The talk highlights strategies to harness psychological insights for environmental action, emphasizing the importance of framing and individual contributions. Gilbert encourages imagining positive futures to motivate change and emphasizes the urgency of tackling climate issues.
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Threat Perception Bias
- Humans react strongly to immediate threats like terrorism, prioritizing them over statistically more dangerous issues.
- This cognitive bias explains our disproportionate concern for certain threats while neglecting others like climate change.
Agentive Threats
- Humans are wired to respond to threats from individuals with intent, like a person with a weapon.
- Climate change lacks this personal agency, making it harder to perceive as an immediate, actionable threat.
Intentional Harm
- An fMRI study revealed that people experience more pain from intentional shocks than accidental ones.
- This highlights the importance of perceived intent in our emotional and physical responses to harm.