HCR Update from Mark Sanna: Everyday Experiences Bring Unexpected Joy

Doing the housework or chatting with a work colleague over lunch are unlikely to be events you go out of your way to capture as a memory. But a new study suggests such everyday experiences that we overlook may bring us pleasure in the future. For this latest study, recently published in the journal Psychological Science, the team conducted a series of experiments to further investigate how we underestimate the joy day-to-day experiences may bring us through memories. We generally do not think about today's ordinary moments as experiences that are worthy of being rediscovered in the future. However, our studies show that we are often wrong. What is ordinary now actually becomes more extraordinary in the future, and more extraordinary than we might expect.