Daniel Gilbert

Daniel Gilbert Profile

Harvard psychology professor Daniel Gilbert is famous for his intriguing research on how humans often misjudge what will make them happy and his animated way of presenting his findings to the public. A three-time TED speaker, his first TED talk on “The Surprising Science of Happiness” still remains one of the 15 most viewed TED talks of all time.

Gilbert’s award-winning best-seller Stumbling on Happiness has been translated into over 30 languages. He’s taken his leading-edge social psychology research on emotions and affective forecasting to a PBS series, The Today Show, Charlie Rose, 20/20, and The Colbert Report. In 2013, Gilbert teamed up with Prudential to do a series of television commercials to encourage Americans to plan for their futures and save for retirement. This advertising campaign has been one of the most successful in the history of the financial services industry.

In 2014, Science magazine named him one of the world’s 50 most-followed scientists on social media. Gilbert is a frequent contributor to The New York Times, Time, and NPR’s All Things Considered. He continues to conduct original studies at his Hedonic Psychology Laboratory at Harvard.

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  According to The Wall Street Journal, Daniel Gilbert is a world-renowned authority on how people predict their emotional reactions to future events. He is the author of the national bestseller Stumbling on Happiness, which spent 25 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, has being translated into 30 languages, and was awarded the Royal Society’s General Prize for best science book of the year. Time magazine called it “Fascinating,” The New York Times called it “Brilliant,” and Bloomberg News called it “the only truly useful book on psychology I’ve ever read.” Daniel’s groundbreaking research on how people make judgments, choices and decisions lies at the intersection of psychology and behavioral economics.

  Gilbert is a Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. He has won numerous awards for his research, including the American Psychological Association’s Distinguished Scientific Award for an Early Career Contribution to Psychology. He is the co-editor of The Handbook of Social Psychology and a co-author of the college textbook Psychology. In 2008 he was elected to the prestigious American Academy of Arts and
  Sciences.

  In addition to being a leading scientist and best-selling author, Gilbert is also an award winning teacher. He has received the President’s Associates Teaching Award and the Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Award, and year after year he is chosen by Harvard’s graduating seniors as one of the university’s Most Outstanding Professors.

  Gilbert is also a public intellectual. A regular contributor to The New York Times, has written for Time and Forbes, has been a guest on The Today Show, Charlie Rose, 20/20, and The Colbert Report, and is the host of the new PBS television series Secrets of Happiness.