Abstract
This article considers how desire leads to pleasure through choice. A typical assumption of rational choice models is that decision makers experience pleasure or utility primarily when their desires are satisfied by decision outcomes. This article proposes that, in addition to desire yielding pleasure through its satisfaction, desiring can also yield pleasure directly during choice. Beyond the pleasures of getting what we want, there may be pleasures in the wanting. In particular, four psychological and behavioral mechanisms through which desire can yield pleasure during choosing are identified: imagining the desired object, learning about the desired object, constructing one’s self while clarifying the desired object, and pursuing the desired object. This said, although desire may, through these mechanisms, offer considerable immediate pleasure, this article posits that indulging these pleasures tends to foster subsequent disappointment with decision outcomes. The article concludes by considering the implications for decision making of this expanded view of desire’s relationship to pleasure in choice.
Blessed be the longing that brought you here
And quickens your soul with wonder.
—John O’Donohue (2007)
Desire is a concept familiar to ordinary understanding, but largely ignored in the scientific study of choice. Humans recognize desire and can easily talk about it, and writers about humans often invoke the idea of desire; but for students of human decision making, desire is simply an unremarkable synonym for preferences, one of numerous words used to reflect objectives for action or measure the attractiveness of decision outcomes (Schroeder, 2017: 3.3). By equating desire to preferences, most rational choice models suggest that desire’s primary function in decision making is to guide the assessment and selection of decision alternatives (Kahneman and Thaler, 2006; March, 1994, Chapter 1; Mas-Colell et al., 1995; Samuelson, 1947; Simon, 1955; Von Neumann and Morgenstern, 1947/1953). In this way, desire is assumed to serve decision making’s over-arching objective: desire’s own fulfillment. The underlying assumption is that pleasure or utility in choice arises when decision outcomes satisfy a decision-maker’s desires (Kahneman and Thaler, 2006). Getting what we want is the virtue we esteem. Getting what we want is what gives pleasure.
This article does not dispute that decision outcomes that satisfy desires yield pleasure, or that desires help bring these outcomes about. However, along with guiding actions so that they may result in pleasurable outcomes, this article posits that desire during choice can also be a direct source of pleasure, in itself. Sometimes, it just feels good to want. This said, the joys of wanting may come at a cost. Indulging desiring’s immediate pleasures during choice may increase the chances of later finding decision outcomes disappointing. The more we relish the wanting, the more likely we may be to lament what follows.
This article examines these alternative attributes of desire in choice. It proceeds by describing the relationship between desire and pleasure in traditional models of rational choice—models in which desires are conceptualized as preferences and individuals are assumed to derive pleasure primarily from the satisfaction of their desires by decision outcomes. Next, the article considers desire as a particular subset of preferences that can function as a direct source of pleasure in choice, rather than solely as a mechanism for guiding the selection of decision alternatives so that they may result in pleasurable consequences. Viewing desire as a pleasure in itself, the article identifies four psychological and behavioral mechanisms through which this pleasure can be cultivated; through which the joys of desiring may be stoked and reaped. This then sets up a fundamental dilemma of desire: the more one cultivates desire as a source of immediate pleasure during choosing, the more likely one may be to experience disappointment from choice outcomes. The article concludes by considering implications for decision making of this proposed dynamic between desire and pleasure in decision making.
The role of desire and its relationship to pleasure in traditional models of rational choice
In line with the majority of decision research, this article focuses on intendedly rational, consequentialist choice (March, 1994, Chapter 1). According to James March, four questions are central to this choice process:
The question of alternatives: What actions are possible? The question of expectations: What future consequences might follow from each alternative? How likely is each possible consequence, assuming that alternative is chosen? The question of preferences: How valuable (to the decision maker) are the consequences associated with each of the alternatives? The question of the decision rule: How is a choice to be made among the alternatives in terms of the values of their consequences? (March, 1994: 2–3).
In purely rational choice models, a decision maker considers all possible decision alternatives, knows the consequences that would result from the selection of each alternative (or at least their probability distribution), and knows the value (in terms of subjective utility) of each potential consequence (March, 1994, Chapter 1; Samuelson, 1947; Von Neumann and Morgenstern, 1947/1953). A purely rational decision maker seeks to maximize their utility by selecting the decision alternative whose expected utility is highest.
In boundedly rational choice models, several assumptions of pure rationality are relaxed, reflecting limitations to decision makers’ time, attention, information, and cognitive abilities (Cyert and March, 1963/1992; March, 1994, Chapter 1; Simon, 1955). In particular, decision makers are no longer assumed to consider all possible decision alternatives simultaneously in order to pick the one whose expected consequences promise the highest utility. Instead, they consider only a subset of decision alternatives, and they consider them sequentially, selecting an alternative whose expected utility exceeds a predetermined aspiration level.
Although purely rational and boundedly rational models of choice differ in important ways, they both depend fundamentally on two guesses about the future (Kahneman and Thaler, 2006: 222; March, 1987). The first guess is what consequences will result from a certain course of action. The second guess is how a decision maker will value those consequences should they come to pass.
These predictions about outcomes and their utility are fundamental to rational choice because rational choice theory typically assumes that the outcomes of one’s actions are what supply a decision maker’s experienced utility, happiness, satisfaction, positive affect, or other form of pleasure. For instance, the decision trees of rational choice have branches representing possible paths from choices to outcomes, and the usual convention is to link values or payoffs entirely with the terminal outcomes. It is only after one chooses a decision alternative, implements it, and experiences its consequences that one experiences pleasure (or its lack). As Kahneman and Thaler (2006) write, “Experienced utility refers to the hedonic experience associated with an outcome” (pp. 221–222, second emphasis added; for the distinction between experienced utility and decision utility, see Kahneman et al., 1997; Kahneman and Thaler, 2006). Given this, intendedly rational actors make “hedonic forecasts” for the expected outcomes associated with each decision alternative so that they may choose the decision alternative whose expected outcomes are forecasted to provide the most positive hedonic experience (in the case of pure rationality), or a sufficiently positive hedonic experience (in the case of bounded rationality).
Within this consequentialist choice framework, the closest thing to a conceptualization of desire is preference. As the stand-in for desires, it is preferences that reflect a decision maker’s wants. It is therefore according to their preferences that decision makers evaluate the expected outcomes of possible alternatives in order to determine which alternative is likely to result in outcomes that are most or sufficiently pleasurable—and therefore which alternative to select (Kahneman and Thaler, 2006; March, 1994, Chapter 1; Mas-Colell et al., 1995). Since pleasures come from outcomes that satisfy preferences, the role of desire in theories of rational choice is to “optimize the experience of outcomes” (Kahneman and Thaler, 2006: 222). Put coarsely, we want things. We try to get them. When we do, we feel good.
Desire as pleasure
Given this model, it is unsurprising that most rational choice research assumes the primary route from desire to pleasure passes through decision outcomes. But despite the prominence of this outcome-focused view of pleasure and utility in choice, there exists a modest amount of decision scholarship highlighting the pleasures and pains of the decision-making process (e.g. Cyert and March, 1963/1992: 235–237; Iyengar and Lepper, 2000; Lerner et al., 2015 on integral emotion; Loewenstein and Lerner, 2003 on anticipatory influences; March, 1978; March and Olsen, 1984; Newark, 2014). This research does not deny that decision processes lead to decision consequences both disagreeable and enjoyable. But it also notes that the decision processes themselves may induce disagreeableness and enjoyment, that the acts of choosing may bring their own pleasures and pains separate from the pleasures and pains brought by the consequences of choices made, and that these pleasures and pains of the process are potentially important to the unfolding of choice. 1
Building on these models, this article proposes that desire, in addition to guiding choice toward the selection of alternatives expected to result in pleasurable outcomes, can also interact with the acts of choosing to yield significant pleasure or utility directly. 2 Therefore, if one seeks happiness from one’s decisions, it may make sense to focus not only on satisfying desires through choice but also on relishing them during choice. For many, to desire is a kind of blessing, and it may be a mistake to diminish it by deeming desire fruitful only when its object is attained. It may be a mistake to think that longing yields pleasure only when we get what we long for. Desires can be enjoyed for their own sake.
In addition to suggesting an alternative role of desire in choice, this view extends previous work on the pleasures and pains of choosing by specifying desire as a particular source of utility that both arises during, and is caused by, the decision-making process. Furthermore, the following section details four psychological and behavioral mechanisms through which desire may yield pleasure during choice, increasing our understanding of the psychological sources of emotions that arise while people make decisions.
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Before proceeding to these mechanisms, what, exactly, is desire? Different scholars have defined desire in numerous ways and compared it to numerous words and ideas, including need, want, longing, yearning, goal, objective, and preference (for a review of definitions of desire, see Belk et al., 2003). In this article, desire is intended to have three notable characteristics. First, desire refers to an activity or action, rather than an object or static state. Desire is something we do, not just something we have; more verb than noun. This draws a distinction between desire and nouns like “goal” or “motivation.” Given this view, “desire” and “desiring” are used here interchangeably. Second, to desire implies considerable intensity of both thought and emotion. As Belk et al. (2003) write, “Desire, then, directly addresses the interplay … of bodily passions and mental reflection” (p. 329). We spend considerable time thinking about the objects of our desire. We also feel intensely when we do (Belk et al., 2003; see also Davis, 1984 on “appetitive desire” and Vadas, 1984 on “affective desire”). Desiring is a strong, embodied act of thinking and feeling; it keeps one awake, it consumes, it impels to action (Belk et al., 2003). Third, desire is directed toward something craved but unpossessed, be it a material object one currently does not have or a future outcome or state one hopes to realize. This draws an important distinction between desire and a concept like passion, which tends to refer to an intensity of emotion separate from any particular subject or object (e.g. “She is a passionate person”), to be linked to a subject or object one may already experience or possess (e.g. “He is passionate about running”), or to be linked to a subject or object it does not make sense to wish to attain (e.g. “She is passionate about 18th century British architecture”) (Vallerand et al., 2003).
Particularly relevant for this article are the ways in which these attributes distinguish desire from preferences, desire’s supposed proxy in rational choice theory. Although there is overlap between the two concepts, the differences are significant enough that equating the two is likely to obscure desire’s potential to deliver joy during choosing. Often conceptualized as rank-orderings of decision alternatives or outcomes (Mas-Colell et al., 1995; Varian, 1984), to consider the pleasure of simply having preferences—separate from having those preferences satisfied by decision outcomes—is almost nonsensical. Preferring democracy to totalitarianism, lamb to risotto, starting one’s own business to working for someone else, or nature to the city tells you something about how a decision maker is likely to act and how much satisfaction they are likely to experience when the consequences of their actions materialize. But considering the impact of merely having these preferences on a decision maker’s well-being while they choose their course of action—and before the consequences of that action transpire—makes little sense.
Like a decision-maker’s preferences, a decision-maker’s desires also influence how they will act and how they will feel once the consequences of their actions transpire. But unlike preferences, the mere presence of desire—by being itself emotionally charged, by having cognitive depth, by often demanding action—carries implications for a decision maker’s hedonic state during the decision-making process, before decision outcomes have concretized or materialized.
For this reason, desire (rather than preferences) has been seen as an immediate source of pleasure and meaning by writers, artists, and scholars in a range of disciplines, including marketing (Belk et al., 2003), neuroscience (Berridge and Kringelbach, 2015), philosophy (Barthes, 1978; Morillo, 1990; Schroeder, 2004; Vadas, 1984), psychology (Treadway, 2015), and literature (Kraus, 1998). For example, in their study of desire, marketing scholars Belk et al. (2003) found it to be associated with “an overwhelmingly positive emotion” (p. 334), while literary theorist and philosopher Roland Barthes (1978) suggested that desiring is so esteemed that, in reality, it is the act of desiring we ultimately seek: “it is my desire I desire, and … I rejoice at the thought of such a great cause” (p. 31). Similarly, professor of psychology and philosophy Alison Gopnik referenced the fundamental value and joy of desiring in an article about her struggle with depression. As Gopnik put it, “When you’re young, you want things: work, love, children. When you reach middle age, you want to want things. When you’re depressed, you no longer want anything. Desire, hope, the future itself—all seem to vanish …” (Gopnik, 2015). Desiring is an act of vitality (Belk et al., 2003; Kraus, 1998; Treadway, 2015). To want, even to want to want, is to be engaged in the world, to be enlivened.
Four psychological and behavioral mechanisms through which desire can lead to pleasure during choice
This section attempts to clarify the ways in which desire yields pleasure during decision making by proposing four related mechanisms: imagining the desired object, learning about the desired object, constructing one’s self while clarifying the desired object, and pursuing the desired object. After detailing the four mechanisms through which desire can yield pleasure during choice, this section considers the possibility that these mechanisms, and desire itself, could instead yield negative affect, such as pain, frustration, fear, or anxiety.
Imagining the desired object
The ubiquity and joys of imagination and fantasy are well documented (Klinger, 1971, 2009; Oettingen, 1996). In daydreams and mental meanderings, longed-for lovers, social justice, a life of regular sleep and exercise, career advancement, or anything else one seeks can be ideal. Real life has its beauties and joys, to be sure, but they tend to be couched in stretches of considerable uneventfulness and be subject to natural laws. By contrast, our minds are free and well equipped to deliver only the best our imaginations can conjure. Moreover, it is an open question to what extent (or even whether) the fundamental unreality of imagined experiences detracts from their enjoyment. In many ways, we may experience things we know are not real as if they were (Bloom, 2010, Chapter 6; Gendler, 2008; Gendler and Kovakovich, 2005; Harris, 2000). Factor in that fantasy is considerably easier to control than reality (Klinger, 1971; Oettingen, 1996), and one sees how the bliss of imagined worlds can be formidable.
Imagination readily takes us to the places we crave, even if time will not. It lets us run our fingers over their textures and turn them over in our minds, revising and replaying at will. Although the joys of luxuriating in these imagined worlds are well known, the ways in which desiring can spark and shape these joys during choice have received less attention. Given that intendedly rational decision making depends on forecasts of possible consequences and their value, rational choice is inherently an exercise in imagination (Kahneman and Thaler, 2006; March, 1987). To decide rationally requires one to envision what might be and how one might feel about it, particularly when choice alternatives are being evaluated. This prodding to imagine future realities is a natural conduit to the pleasures of fantasy, as thoughts veer easily toward an imagined world in which desires are fulfilled (Loewenstein, 1987; Oettingen, 1996; Oettingen and Mayer, 2002). As a result, a primary mechanism through which desire can bring pleasure while choosing is imagination; in particular, imagining desire’s own satisfaction (Belk et al., 2003; Oettingen, 1996).
In addition to triggering the particular pleasures of imagining the realization of one’s desires, the specific context of decision making can also heighten these pleasures by offering the possibility (although not guarantee) of desire’s real-world fulfillment through one’s actions. Unlike imagining heroic feats during World War II or dinner with Shakespeare, desires tied to choice—a professional venture one is considering starting, a bottle of Montevertine Le Pergole Torte one is considering ordering, a romantic interest one is considering asking out—stand a better chance of being satisfied; they stand closer to reality if for no other reason than that their satisfaction would not require time travel or exemption from the laws of physics. This fortifies the joys of imagination with the joys of hope and potential (Knutson et al., 2001; Knutson and Peterson, 2005; Oettingen, 1996; Tormala et al., 2012), as what we desire and imagine could actually come to pass. At the same time, these outcomes are often not assured and depend to some extent on one’s actions. Unlike cases where one has no say or influence over what will be, in cases of choice the possible fulfillment of desire depends on what one does. It depends on choosing well.
Learning about the desired object
Rational choice processes suggest several instrumental reasons to learn or acquire information about the object of one’s desire (Laffont, 1989). For example, in the early stages of desire, learning can be a way of confirming that nascent desires are not misplaced. The more we know about a desired object or outcome, the more able we are to assess its value accurately. Better understanding the object of our desire can also help us acquire it. The more we know what, exactly, we are trying to achieve, the better able we are to evaluate decision alternatives and shape our strategies for realizing our desires.
But while serving these more instrumental functions, learning can also serve as a mechanism for desiring’s pleasures. Desire can trigger a fundamental approach impulse or curiosity toward the thing we want, and we can find enjoyment in satisfying that impulse through learning (Berlyne, 1960; Gopnik, 2000; Litman, 2005; Loewenstein, 1994; Mathwick and Rigdon, 2004). When we desire to be more mindful, bring about a more democratic governance structure, buy our dream camera, or raise capital to start our dream company, we can find it captivating and revelatory to learn how what we desire works, has been accomplished in the past, is made, or compares to possible alternatives. Beyond learning about what we want in order to make sure we actually want it or figure out how best to get it, learning about the things we desire can be a pleasure in itself; it can offer the delights, surprises, and satisfactions of growing intimacy with, and knowledge of, the things we crave.
This increased connection and awareness can also provide fodder for imaginings, offering new details to enrich and decorate one’s fantasies. Having done one’s homework as part of deciding whether or how to proceed with the purchase of a coveted watch, now when one imagines the watch one can imagine the process by which its hundreds of parts are put together, the workings of its tourbillon, all the signs of authenticity that separate originals from counterfeits and where those signs are hidden, the town where the watch is manufactured and the generations of people who have manufactured it there, and the historical events where a similar watch has been worn and the people who wore it. In addition to the enjoyment that comes from learning these details, the details themselves allow for greater vividness and texture of imagination, which in turn can yield greater pleasure (Loewenstein, 1987).
Constructing one’s self while clarifying the desired object
Advertising is quick to point out how almost everything we own or experience says something about who we are. The same could be said about the things we desire. In discovering and refining our desires, we discover and refine our sense of self. In claiming our desires, we assert our sense of self.
As individuals, we seek a self that is coherent, connected to others, distinctive, and authentic (Brewer, 1991; McAdams, 1993). Given the complexity and multi-facetedness of identity, creating and maintaining this sense of self takes work (Alvesson and Willmott, 2002). But the payoff to this work is considerable: developing this kind of well-defined and legitimate identity can result in a range of positive outcomes, including a sense of meaning and purpose (Baumeister, 1991), close connection to others (Beyers and Seiffge-Krenke, 2010), self-worth and dignity (Snow and Anderson, 1987), and ontological and existential security (Giddens, 1991).
In addition to imagining and learning, a third mechanism through which desiring can yield pleasure during decision making is by facilitating this kind of self-discovery and self-construction. To know what to do, rational choice models require that we know what we want. But often to know what we want, we must determine who we are. Our desires reflect our selves, if not constitute our very beings (e.g. see Barthes, 1978: 134; Lacan, 1992: 321). As a result, the process of identifying, examining, and clarifying our desires as part of decision making can trigger a gratifying process of identity creation, discovery, refinement, or affirmation (Newark, 2014).
This process occurs, in part, because the fundamental questions that accompany the clarification of what one desires are often questions of identity. As one works to make an object of desire more clear and specific, one often must answer any number of self-defining questions. For example, within a desire’s confines and possible manifestations, does one lean more toward narrowly defined self-interest or prosocial behavior? Enjoyment or prudence? Boldness or understatement? Thrift or extravagance? The present or the future? Comfort or sacrifice? Highbrow or low? Certainty or the unknown? Answering these questions often clarifies not only what, exactly, one wants but also who, exactly, one is.
Some of the pleasures and rewards of answering these types of questions—both alone through contemplation and in conversation with others—stem from arriving at and proclaiming a more cohesive and clear identity (Baumeister, 1991; Beyers and Seiffge-Krenke, 2010; Giddens, 1991). But the process of clarifying and refining one’s self also affords the pleasures of experimenting and playing with possible selves (Ibarra, 1999; Ibarra and Petriglieri, 2010). In determining what one wants—whether tickets to the Rolling Stones or Wagner’s Ring Cycle, to start a company that changes how food is delivered in the United States or an NGO that changes how clean water is delivered in Eritrea, the electric blue or the matte black, five children or one or none—one has the opportunity to draft and provisionally inhabit the version of oneself that desires the alternative. The self is a hypothesis, and figuring out what, exactly, we desire so that we may decide what course of action to pursue can be an enjoyable occasion to tinker, test, and refine.
Pursuing the desired object
Often when we want something, we try to get it. As the sayings “the thrill of the chase” and “it’s the journey, not the destination” suggest, this active pursuit, typically associated with decision implementation, can be enjoyable. There is pleasure that comes from working toward an objective and satisfying deep-seated needs for feelings of control, agency, progress, and purpose (Baumeister, 1991; Pittman, 1998; Ryan and Deci, 2000b; Ryff, 1989). Somewhat paradoxically, this active pursuit of desire’s satisfaction can inspire the pleasures of a state generally associated with intrinsic motivation (Ryan and Deci, 2000a) or flow (Nakamura and Csikszentmihalyi, 2014). Although ostensibly the motivation for these actions is the achievement of a particular decision outcome (an extrinsic motivation), one may experience the pursuit itself as “… intrinsically rewarding, such that often the end goal is just an excuse for the process” (Nakamura and Csikszentmihalyi, 2014: 90).
There are certain circumstances under which this pursuit is likely to be most enjoyable. In particular, chasing our desires may be most pleasurable when we sense that their satisfaction is neither impossible nor assured, but rather uncertain (Bar-Anan et al., 2009; Dai et al., 2014; Whitchurch et al., 2011). Especially if we already desire something, the right amount of scarcity or uncertainty can increase that desire (Belk et al., 2003) and intensify the pleasures of pursuit (Bar-Anan et al., 2009). This may be particularly true if we see the attainment of our desires as being meaningfully dependent on our efforts and capabilities (Abuhamdeh and Csikszentmihalyi, 2012; Gecas, 1989; Nakamura and Csikszentmihalyi, 2014), as well as when we can see, or at least imagine, the progress we are making toward desire’s satisfaction (Nakamura and Csikszentmihalyi, 2014).
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Thus far, this section has detailed four mechanisms through which desire yields pleasure during decision making—irrespective of whether one’s desires are ultimately satisfied by decision outcomes. One may, however, object that these mechanisms, and indeed desire itself, can lead to negative affect as readily as pleasure. For example, rather than envisioning idyllic futures, decision makers could imagine futures in which their desires are frustrated, causing anxiety or fear (Caplin and Leahy, 2001; Oettingen, 1996). They could learn information about the object of their desire that is disillusioning or off-putting. Identity work can be difficult and uncomfortable (Alvesson and Willmott, 2002). And the pursuit of desire through decision implementation can feel devastatingly slow or ineffective.
Clearly all this can happen, and often does. So where does that leave the claim that desiring can be a pleasure? There are at least three possibilities. One is to concede error, recant, and side with the Buddhists. A central tenet of Buddhism, along with several other religions, is the idea of non-attachment or renunciation (Suzuki, 2010). This idea holds that desire is a misguided form of clinging or grasping that is rooted in the ego and that leads to suffering (Pande and Naidu, 1992; Sahdra et al., 2010). In this regard, desire is a source of pain, not pleasure, and it is only by relinquishing or letting go of desire that we may find serenity and contentment. A second possibility is to trade the Buddhist’s perspective for the social scientists and claim contingency—to say that desire is only sometimes a pleasure, and when it is and when it is not (or to what extent it is, and to what extent it is not) will depend on myriad factors, including personality characteristics (e.g. tendency toward optimism or confidence vs pessimism, wariness, or fear) (John and Srivastava, 1999), the object of desire (e.g. moral or immoral, innocuous or harmful), decision characteristics (e.g. high vs low stakes, high vs low probability of success, imminent vs delayed outcomes), and their interactions. In this regard, desire can be a source of pleasure, but it need not be. It depends. A third possibility is to take leave of the Buddhists and social scientists to instead join the ranks of poets and romantics and defend the claim in near absolute terms—to say that the pleasures of desire may sometimes be easy and pure, and they may sometimes coexist with emotions like anxiety, nervousness, fear, or stress, but they are always present. For whether desire’s full hedonic impact is purely positive or mixed and motley, it always contains the pleasure of caring—to desire is to care what happens to, with, or in one’s life. To desire may be life. As a character in the play Angels in America puts it, “It’s animate, it’s what living things do. We desire. Even if all we desire is stillness, it’s still desire for” (Kushner, 2013: 275). If nothing else, to desire is to experience the pleasures of being enlivened and invested (Gopnik, 2015; Treadway, 2015), even if the pleasures of being enlivened and invested sometimes hurt.
A dilemma of desire: how experiencing the pleasures of desire during choice can negatively impact the hedonic experience of decision outcomes
Perversely, it is often more fun to want something than to have it.
—David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest (1996: 205)
This article has suggested that desire in the context of decision making can be not only a guide to action whose consequences would be pleasurable but also a direct source of pleasure in itself. However, indulging these pleasures may come at a price. The more we relish the pleasures of desire, the more likely it may be that we are then disappointed by decision outcomes, finding we have financed present joy with future sorrow.
There are two primary ways in which relishing the immediate pleasures of desire during choice can heighten subsequent outcome disappointment. The first is when decision outcomes fail to satisfy desires. The more time and energy one invests imagining, learning about, clarifying, and pursuing one’s wants, the more unpleasant it is to then fail to achieve them (Sevincer et al., 2019). Moreover, research has demonstrated that indulging in positive fantasizing about a future in which one’s desires are satisfied can decrease the likelihood of satisfying those desires—not simply make the failure to satisfy them more painful (Morewedge et al., 2010; Oettingen, 1996; Oettingen and Mayer, 2002).
But even when decision outcomes ostensibly satisfy desire, numerous observers of the human condition have noted that this ostensible satisfaction often brings disappointment rather than joy. For example, Simone De Beauvoir (1965) wrote, I’ve had what I wanted, and, when all is said and done, what one wanted was always something else. A woman psychoanalyst wrote me a very intelligent letter in which she said that “in the last analysis, desires always go far beyond the object of desire.” The fact is that I’ve had everything I desired, but the “far beyond” which is included in the desire itself is not attained when the desire has been fulfilled. I started out wanting to be a writer and wanting to get some attention and I got it really quick and realized it didn’t make me happy at all, in which case, “Hmm, why am I writing? What’s the purpose of this?” I don’t think it’s substantively different from the sort of thing, you know, somebody who wants to be a really successful cost accountant and be partner of his accounting firm and achieves that at 50 and goes into something like a depression. “The brass ring I’ve been chasing does not make everything okay.” So that’s why I’m embarrassed to talk about it, it’s just not particularly interesting. It’s … what it is, is very, very average. (30:40) Fulfillment of desire (simply getting what one was after) is no guarantee of satisfaction (pleasant feelings of gratification in the mind of the agent) … Indeed, it has been said that the characteristic psychological problem of our time is the dissatisfaction that attends the fulfilment of our very most powerful desires. (p. 504) People continue to pursue happiness because they incorrectly believe that greater happiness lies just around the corner in the next goal accomplished, the next social relationship obtained, or the next problem solved. Because new goals continually capture one’s attention, one constantly strives to be happy without realizing that in the long run such efforts are futile. (Diener et al., 2006, p. 305)
Indulging the pleasures of desire—investing time and effort imagining fulfillment of, learning about, clarifying, and pursuing one’s desire—is likely to drive up expectations of how much pleasure desire’s fulfillment will deliver. Even to the point that expectations may exceed anything reality can supply (Oettingen, 1996). As a result, even if we achieve our objectives and satisfy our desires, we may still feel disappointed.
Another way in which indulging the pleasures of desire may increase future disappointment is by triggering a kind of loss aversion (Tversky and Kahneman, 1991). To some extent, when we imagine desire’s fulfillment, we experience that imagined fulfillment as real (Gendler, 2008; Gendler and Kovakovich, 2005; Harris, 2000; Oettingen, 1996). This can augment disappointment, leaving us feeling—even if our desires are ostensibly realized—like not only did we not get what we desired but also like we used to have it and now it’s been taken away (Kahneman et al., 1991).
Finally, if the pleasures of desiring fail to be recognized by decision makers intent on desire’s satisfaction, then decision makers may routinely neglect to account for the loss of this pleasure when making hedonic forecasts. The joys of getting must be balanced against the joys of wanting, and failing to do so will bias hedonic forecasts upward. If decision makers neglect to factor in that once they have what they want they will no longer be able to enjoy wanting it, then the disappointment gap between their projected and actual hedonic states upon attaining their desires will widen.
Implications for decision making
Since their inception, models of intendedly rational choice have been concerned primarily with answering a single question: How can we satisfy our preferences? This article can be seen as posing a different question: How can we appreciate our preferences? An attempt to answer this question requires distinguishing between those preferences that are best seen as rank-orderings of potential decision consequences, and those that carry enough emotional and cognitive heft to warrant the label desires. It is the preferences that belong to this latter subset that may serve not only to guide choice so that its consequences may be pleasurable, but also as a source of immediate pleasure during choosing. This said, relishing those pleasures may increase disappointment with decision outcomes when they eventually transpire. These dynamics suggest some implications for how we take action in our lives. This section considers some of these, dividing them into two categories: increasing the pleasures of desire during choice and managing the dilemma of desire during choice.
Increasing the pleasures of desire during choice
The ways we act while making decisions can bring delights and sorrows separate from the delights and sorrows brought by the consequences of our decisions. If we take seriously the idea that deciding can be a pleasure along the lines of conversing, eating, or sex, then we might wonder why it is one of the few pleasures in which speed is considered a virtue. Just as we do not encourage conversation partners to rush to silence, diners to rush to an empty plate, or lovers to rush to the post-coital sigh or cigarette, we may do well not to encourage decision makers to rush to a decision. This has nothing to do with errors begot by haste. It concerns all there is to enjoy along the way.
This article has suggested that the desire that directs our choosing can be a substantial source of pleasure while we are choosing. If true, then traditional conceptions of intendedly rational choice should be viewed with some misgiving. Intendedly rational choice is a technology for eliminating or reducing desire through its satisfaction. If you do it right, you should cease to want. But if desires are something we wish to preserve so that we can enjoy them, then this technology is not all together attractive. A first step toward better enjoying the pleasures of desire is recognizing that they are there to be enjoyed and that they may require some protection.
Once we create space to delight in our desires, the mechanisms of desire’s pleasure suggest several ways to best enjoy our wants. Some of these are obvious: developing our capacities to imagine our desires and their realization, for instance. Also, learning about the things we want so that we may enjoy the intimacy and excitement that come from details and familiarity. Other strategies may be less obvious. For example, research on the pleasures of uncertainty suggests that there may be benefits to introducing unpredictability, randomness, or frustration into the process of trying to satisfy our desires. This could be done through the selection of what we desire, the beliefs we choose to have about the object of our desire, or the selection of the means by which we seek to satisfy our desires. There is a skill to maximizing the thrill of the chase, and that skill can reside in the person doing the chasing at least as much as it can reside in what or whom is being chased. Ratcheting up the drama of desire’s fulfillment by introducing suspense and uncertainty can be a way of increasing desire, as well as the pleasures of pursuit. In a world increasingly geared toward the immediate and effortless satisfaction of desire, learning to delay and complicate desire’s fulfillment is no easy feat.
Furthermore, in order to enjoy desires, one must first have them. This article has considered how desires can be relished in the decision-making process, but the origin and replenishment of desires, as well as the activation of latent desires, remain incompletely understood. We need a better understanding of seduction—the process of instilling and awakening desire. What causes us to want the things we want? How might we want more often or more deeply or longer? How can we help or hinder the world’s enchantment of us, making ourselves more or less susceptible to desiring? The fields of marketing and advertising certainly have important insights into these questions, but there are nuances to creating and evoking desire—not just goals or behaviors—that require further clarification (for one approach to this topic, see March, 1972, on the origins of preferences; see also Kappes et al., 2012, on the relationship between fantasy and need).
Managing the dilemma of desire
This final section considers five ways a decision maker may contend with the fact that indulging desire’s pleasures may lead to disappointment with decision outcomes. In the first two, this dynamic is assumed to be a matter of intertemporal choice, defined by Frederick et al. (2002) as “decisions involving tradeoffs among costs and benefits occurring at different times” (p. 351). However, the last three approaches suggest that the utility of desire during choice need not always come at the expense of the utility of decision outcomes. There may be ways to alter or break this apparent link, thereby reducing or eliminating the need to see the relationship as one of tradeoffs.
Stop wanting
If one does not want, one cannot be disappointed by what one did not get. Expunging desire protects against the disappointment that follows failed or even ostensibly successful attempts to satisfy desire.
Note that this rationale for stamping out desire is different from the Buddhist rationale mentioned earlier. It is not that desire itself is unpleasant. Rather, it is that pleasant desires leave one exposed and vulnerable to future pain once decision outcomes transpire. As a result, one makes a trade: one cedes the present joy of desire in exchange for immunity from the future pain of disappointment. Of course, this assumes that eliminating desire—not just repressing it—is within one’s control.
Stop getting
If disappointment is the difference between what one wanted and what one got, then one can eliminate disappointment by ceasing to want, as mentioned above, or by making sure one never actually gets. The idea is simple: if imagination bests reality, keep imagining. If the pleasures are in the wants, then the most sensible thing to do is remain in a perpetual state of wanting (Frederick et al., 2002: 371).
The poet Robert Frost employed this strategy to avoid ever reading his favorite book. As Frost put it, The book that influenced me most was Piers the Plowman, yet I never read it. When I realized how much the book had influenced me I felt I should read it. But after considering it I decided against reading it, fearing it might not be what I had thought … (Frost, 1984: 301–302) I had never attempted to initiate anything with Teresa, but this was in part because I always assumed … that keeping such a possibility alive was for both of us, at least for the moment, more exciting than any consummation … And if we never slept together or otherwise “realized” our relationship, I would leave Spain with this gorgeous possibility intact, and in my memory could always ponder the relationship I might have had in the flattering light of the subjunctive. (Lerner, 2011: 87–88)
It bears noting that, to be most effective, this tactic requires the attempted fulfillment of desire to be a credible threat, even if it is not fully pursued. Otherwise, desire slips from an experience reified and intensified by the context of choice and possible fulfillment, into the milder territory of pure and recognized fantasy. To benefit, one must be able to believe that one is pursuing or may pursue the satisfaction of one’s desires, while simultaneously ensuring that one ultimately never does.
Learn to value disappointment as an indicator of desire
Although disappointment is unappealing, it can be seen as an unappealing aspect of an appealing system. Even if strong desires lead to eventual disappointment, strong desires may also lead to people’s highest levels of immediate joy and objective accomplishment. Being disappointed that reality did not live up to desire may simply be the price to pay for getting the most out of desire and reality.
Viewed in this light, post-decision disappointment can be seen not only as something to be tolerated, but something to be prized. If intense desire is highly valued, then disappointment should be as well as a testament to one’s ability to want deeply and openly enough that one can be hurt by life. The opposite of pleasure is not pain, but apathy. The thing to be avoided is not sorrow or disappointment, but caring so little that one cannot feel either one.
The challenge is that maintaining the ability to desire so intensely that one can consistently feel disappointment is difficult. As one learns the lessons of experience, the instinct to crave and pursue a world different from the world in which one lives gives way. Each disappointment reduces the next round of hope as desires become smaller, more proportional to the realities of existence. Perhaps this is not all together bad. Understanding and accepting reality is a staple of maturity and sanity, and critical for making one’s way in the real world. There are costs to delusion. But there are costs to accepting reality, as well. In the end, one risks losing the capacity to desire much at all. As Proust (1998) put it, one risks finding oneself with a “ … longing which had itself become as inaccessible as the pleasure that it had once vainly pursued” (p. 605). Whatever its drawbacks, disappointment at least confirms that one still yearns. In this respect, it may merit some appreciation.
Decouple desire and disappointment
Another approach to managing the dilemma of desire is to decouple desire and disappointment. This means attenuating or severing the link between initial desire and subsequent disappointment, or the link between disappointment and subsequent desire.
One way to weaken the link between initial desire and subsequent disappointment is to learn to cultivate and enjoy desire for its own sake, rather than tying the pleasures of desire to expectations about the pleasure of desire’s fulfillment. Typically in rational choice theory, how much one desires (or “prefers”) correlates with how pleasurable one anticipates the attainment of one’s object of desire would be. But human beings are capable of having and enjoying desires out of proportion to, or irrespective of, their expectations of the amount of pleasure that satisfying those desires would yield. This capacity for disassociation is evidenced by modes of decision making such as the logic of appropriateness (March, 1994, Chapter 2; March and Olsen, 2006) and the logic of absurdity (Newark, 2018), in which commitment to action does not depend on anticipation of attractive consequences. Just as one can put great effort into a task without expecting or being particularly concerned by whether anything good will come of it, one can relish desiring without expecting or being particularly concerned by whether its fulfillment would be all that enjoyable. One can enjoy desiring just as deeply as those who believe that the fulfillment of their desire would bring bliss, without ever really thinking or caring whether it actually would.
As an alternative to making strong disappointment less likely to follow strong desire, one can instead decouple desire and disappointment by making diminished desire less likely to follow strong disappointment. As noted above, it would be natural for disappointment to weaken future wanting. To limit this, one can strive to be a bad learner, an affliction that often stems from a mix of intelligence, creativity, strategic obliviousness, motivated reasoning, and perhaps a touch of self-delusion, strong will, and naïveté. The reason to adopt such a stance is that, if one learns too quickly or too well, past disappointments are bound to lessen the intensity of future desires and, consequently, the pleasures that can accompany them. But if one can derail this learning a bit—if one can develop a memory biased or fallible enough to selectively forget certain lessons of experience, or an imagination creative enough to reinterpret the lessons of experience in a way that encourages unmerited optimism—then one may manage to protect future wants from the aggressions of past let-downs.
Dispense with disappointment through gratitude and savoring
A final way to manage the dilemma of desire is to dispatch disappointment quickly once decision outcomes engender it. Learnable practices like gratitude (Emmons and McCullough, 2003; Emmons and Shelton, 2002) and savoring (Bryant and Veroff, 2012) may be particularly helpful for this task. Desire or ambition can be seen as a form of dissatisfaction—to want something is to want the state of the world to be different than it is. This discontentment may be a useful source of motivation while one takes action to bring about the world one desires. But once the consequences of one’s decisions have revealed themselves, one may benefit from shifting one’s attitude from desire to thanks, regardless of whether the consequences were what one hoped they would be.
By turning one’s attention from all the things one wanted but did not get toward noticing and savoring myriad positive aspects of one’s experience (Bryant and Veroff, 2012; Emmons and McCullough, 2003; Emmons and Shelton, 2002), disappointment may dissipate. And research on “rosy retrospection” suggests that this process may accord well with people’s natural inclination to see an initially disappointing outcome as increasingly positive over time (Mitchell et al., 1997). Knowing when to focus on wanting something else and when to focus on appreciating what there is, and how best to do and alternate between each, can preserve the benefits of strong desires while minimizing the length of time that disappointment lingers.
Conclusion
In most models of rational choice, a good decision is one that results in consequences that satisfy desires; or at least one that was likely, a priori, to result in such consequences. And in Western cultures, the quality of decisions and the intelligence of decision makers are usually assessed accordingly (March, 1971, 1994). Within these models, the intended function of desire has been to direct decision makers to select decision alternatives that are likely to lead to these desire-satisfying outcomes.
The Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw saw desire differently. He claimed, “There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart’s desire. The other is to gain it” (Shaw, 1903: 208). The observation points to the privileged place of desiring. Lose the capacity to desire, and you lose one of life’s great potential pleasures and invigorators. Have your desires ostensibly satisfied, and you may be disappointed. A more ample understanding of desire’s role in choice may help us relish the joys of wanting, while simultaneously helping to mitigate the disappointments that sometimes come to those who love and dare to want.
