I ask him what was the most unexpected result of these searches. Lapidary, Kahneman sums it up: «The big surprise was double: the first is that the circumstances of life (whether or not to be married, to earn a lot or not, to be or not to be successful, to be or not in perfect health) count for very little. The second is that people are unaware that they matter very little».

A Survey Method for Characterizing Daily Life Experience: The Day Reconstruction Method

Daniel Kahneman, Alan B. Krueger, David A. Schkade, Norbert Schwarz, and Arthur A. Stone Science 3 December 2004; 306: 1776-1780