← Giant Brain Candy
Giant Brain Candy: The Joy of Not Knowing Why. People handed a dollar coin on a card that made it hard to work out why stayed in a better mood than those given an easy explanation. People asked to predict this guessed the opposite. Source: The pleasures of uncertainty.
Growing evidenceThe research
  1. Wilson, T. D., Centerbar, D. B., Kermer, D. A., & Gilbert, D. T. (2005). The pleasures of uncertainty: Prolonging positive moods in ways people do not anticipate. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88(1), 5–21.

Journey 7 · Uncertainty

The Joy of Not Knowing Why

People handed a dollar coin on a card that made it hard to work out why stayed in a better mood than those given an easy explanation. People asked to predict this guessed the opposite.

Source: The pleasures of uncertainty · Growing evidence

Share this card

Instagram or TikTok: download the picture and post it.

30 days of All-Access, free — every journey and every feature. No card.

Start free — 30 days of All-Access

More from Uncertainty

Giant Brain Candy: A Maybe Can Hurt More. People learning when painful shocks might come felt and showed the most stress when a shock was a 50/50 toss-up, not when it was certain to come. Source: Uncertainty and stress.
Giant Brain Candy: The Worries That Never Came. People treated for chronic worry logged their worries for ten days and checked back 20 days later: 91.4% of the worries had not come true. Source: How often worries come true.
Giant Brain Candy: Check Again, Trust Less. People who checked a virtual gas stove again and again grew less sure they had checked it, as their memories grew less vivid, though their memory stayed just as accurate. Source: Repeated checking and memory.
All of Uncertainty’s Brain Candy, and every other journey’s →