ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T HIS IS THE PART OF THE BOOK in which the author typically claims that nobody writes a book by himself and then names all the people who presumably wrote the book for him. It must be nice to have friends like that. Alas, all the people who wrote this book are me, so let me instead thank those who by their gifts enabled me to write a book without them.

First and foremost, I thank the students and colleagues who did so much of the research described in these pages and let me share in the credit. They include Danny Axsom, Mike Berkovits, Stephen Blumberg, Ryan Brown, David Centerbar, Erin Driver-Linn, Liz Dunn, Jane Ebert, Mike Gill, Sarit Golub, Karim Kassam, Debbie Kermer, Boaz Keysar, Jaime Kurtz, Matt Lieberman, Jay Meyers, Carey Morewedge, Kristian Myrseth, Becca Norwick, Kevin Ochsner, Liz Pinel, Jane Risen, Todd Rogers, Ben Shenoy, and Thalia Wheatley. How did I get lucky enough to work with all of you?

I owe a very special debt of gratitude to my friend and longtime collaborator Tim Wilson of the University of Virginia, whose creativity and intelligence have been constant sources of inspiration, envy, and research grants. The previous sentence is the only one in this book that I could possibly have written without him.

Several colleagues read chapters, made suggestions, provided information or in some other way spared the wild geese a good chasing. They include Sissela Bok, Allan Brandt, Patrick Cavanagh, Nick Epley, Nancy Etcoff, Tom Gilovich, Richard Hackman, John Helliwell, Danny Kahneman, Boaz Keysar, Jay Koehler, Steve Kosslyn, David Laibson, Andrew Oswald, Steve Pinker, Rebecca Saxe, Jonathan Schooler, Nancy Segal, Dan Simons, Robert Trivers, Dan Wegner, and Tim Wilson. Thank you all.

My agent, Katinka Matson, dared me to stop yapping about this book and to start writing it, and although she isn’t the only person who ever told me to stop yapping, she’s the only one I still like. My editor at Knopf, Marty Asher, has a beautiful ear and a big blue pencil, and if you don’t think this book is a pleasure to read, then you should have seen it before he got ahold of it.

I wrote much of this book while on sabbatical leaves that were subsidized by the President and Fellows of Harvard College, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the James McKeen Cattell Foundation, the American Philosophical Society, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. I thank these institutions for investing in my disappearance.

And finally, the mush. I am grateful for the coincidence of having a wife and a best friend who are both named Marilynn Oliphant. No one should have to pretend to be interested in every half-baked thought that pops into my head. No one should, but someone does. The members of the Gilbert and Oliphant clans—Larry, Gloria, Sherry, Scott, Diana, Mister Mikey, Jo, Danny, Shona, Arlo, Amanda, Big Z, Sarah B., Wren, and Daylyn—share joint custody of my heart, and I thank them all for giving that heart a home. Finally, allow me to remember with gratitude and affection two souls whom even heaven does not deserve: my mentor, Ned Jones, and my mother, Doris Gilbert.

Now let’s go stumbling.

July 18, 2005
Cambridge, Massachusetts