In someone else’s plate, a piece seems sweeter, and the grass in the neighbor’s garden, as usual, is greener.
The philosopher Charles-Louis Montesquieu described this paradox of consciousness in this way: “If you only wish to be happy, then this can be quite achieved. But people want to be happier than others – and this is impossible, because we always consider others to be happier than they really are. Psychologists from Stanford University (USA) decided to test this observation. They asked students to evaluate the positive and negative moments in their lives and those of their classmates. The life of others seemed more rosy to all participants in the experiment, and they underestimated other people’s sorrows**. This perceptual delusion gives us the impression that other people are happier than we are. But in reality, everything is about the same for them as for us – there are both joys and sorrows. Let’s try to avoid illusions that only complicate our lives.
* Ch.-L. Montesquieu “Thoughts” (Robert Laffont, 1991).
** Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, January 2011, 37 (1).