Warning: Don’t miss Thanksgiving dinner, it’s more meaningful than you think
Book the flight home for Thanksgiving, go to that party even though you’re tired, and write that thank you note. You may feel these experiences are not that significant in your busy life today, but according to Erin Westgate, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology at the University of Florida, you are likely wrong.
Westgate and her team of researchers at the Florida Social Cognition and Emotion Lab recently received a grant from the National Science Foundation to investigate the factors that lead people to underestimate the meaningfulness of future life experiences.
“This started a long time ago when I was in grad school where I was talking to another student who asked me if we know how meaningful events will be in the future,” Westgate said. That was in the fall, just before the Thanksgiving holiday.
