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The hedonic treadmill, also known as hedonic adaptation, is the observed tendency of
human Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, an ...
s to quickly return to a relatively stable level of
happiness Happiness, in the context of mental or emotional states, is positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. Other forms include life satisfaction, well-being, subjective well-being, flourishing and eudaimonia. Sin ...
despite major positive or negative events or life changes. According to this theory, as a person makes more money, expectations and desires rise in tandem, which results in no permanent gain in happiness. Philip Brickman and
Donald T. Campbell Donald Thomas Campbell (November 20, 1916 – May 6, 1996) was an American social scientist. He is noted for his work in methodology. He coined the term ''evolutionary epistemology'' and developed a selectionist theory of human creativity. A ''R ...
coined the term in their essay "Hedonic Relativism and Planning the Good Society" (1971). The hedonic treadmill viewpoint suggests that wealth does not increase the level of happiness.


Overview

Hedonic adaptation is a process or mechanism that reduces the affective impact of emotional events. Generally, hedonic adaptation involves a happiness "set point", whereby humans generally maintain a constant level of happiness throughout their lives, despite events that occur in their environment. in M. H. Apley, ed., ''Adaptation Level Theory: A Symposium,'' New York: Academic Press The process of hedonic adaptation is often conceptualized as a treadmill, since no matter how hard one tries to gain an increase in happiness, one will remain in the same place. Hedonic adaptation can occur in a variety of ways. Generally, the process involves cognitive changes, such as shifting values, goals, attention and interpretation of a situation. Further, neurochemical processes desensitize overstimulated hedonic pathways in the brain, which possibly prevents persistently high levels of intense positive or negative feelings. The process of adaptation can also occur through the tendency of humans to construct elaborate rationales for considering themselves deprived through a process social theorist
Gregg Easterbrook Gregg Edmund Easterbrook (born March 3, 1953) is an American writer and a contributing editor of both ''The New Republic'' and ''The Atlantic Monthly''. He has authored ten books (six nonfiction, one of humor, and three literary novels), and wr ...
calls "abundance denial".


Major theoretical approaches


Behavioral/psychological approach

"Hedonic treadmill" is a term coined by Brickman and Campbell in their article, "Hedonic Relativism and Planning the Good Society" (1971), describing the tendency of people to keep a fairly stable baseline level of happiness despite external events and fluctuations in demographic circumstances. The idea of relative happiness had been around for decades when in 1978 Brickman, et al., began to approach hedonic pleasure within the framework of Helson's adaptation level theory, which holds that perception of stimulation is dependent upon comparison of former stimulations. The hedonic treadmill functions similarly to most
adaptation In biology, adaptation has three related meanings. Firstly, it is the dynamic evolutionary process of natural selection that fits organisms to their environment, enhancing their evolutionary fitness. Secondly, it is a state reached by the po ...
s that serve to protect and enhance perception. In the case of hedonics, the sensitization or desensitization to circumstances or environment can redirect motivation. This reorientation functions to protect against complacency, but also to accept unchangeable circumstances, and redirect efforts towards more effective goals. Frederick and Lowenstein classify three types of processes in hedonic adaptation: shifting adaptation levels, desensitization, and
sensitization Sensitization is a non-associative learning process in which repeated administration of a stimulus results in the progressive amplification of a response. Sensitization often is characterized by an enhancement of response to a whole class of st ...
. Shifting adaptation levels occurs when a person experiences a shift in what is perceived as a "neutral" stimulus, but maintains sensitivity to stimulus differences. For example, if Sam gets a raise he will initially be happier, and then habituate to the larger salary and return to his happiness set point. But he will still be pleased when he gets a holiday bonus. Desensitization decreases sensitivity in general, which reduces sensitivity to change. Those who have lived in war zones for extended periods of time may become desensitized to the destruction that happens on a daily basis, and be less affected by the occurrence of serious injuries or losses that may once have been shocking and upsetting. Sensitization is an increase of hedonic response from continuous exposure, such as the increased pleasure and selectivity of connoisseurs for wine, or food. Brickman, Coates, and Janoff-Bulman were among the first to investigate the hedonic treadmill in their 1978 study, "Lottery Winners and Accident Victims: Is Happiness Relative?". Lottery winners and
paraplegics Paraplegia, or paraparesis, is an impairment in motor or sensory function of the lower extremities. The word comes from Ionic Greek () "half-stricken". It is usually caused by spinal cord injury or a congenital condition that affects the neural ...
were compared to a control group and as predicted, comparison (with past experiences and current communities) and
habituation Habituation is a form of non-associative learning in which an innate (non-reinforced) response to a stimulus decreases after repeated or prolonged presentations of that stimulus. Responses that habituate include those that involve the intact or ...
(to new circumstances) affected levels of happiness such that after the initial impact of the extremely positive or negative events, happiness levels typically went back to the average levels. This interview-based study, while not longitudinal, was the beginning of a now large body of work exploring the relativity of happiness. Brickman and Campbell originally implied that everyone returns to the same neutral set point after a significantly emotional life event. In the literature review, "Beyond the Hedonic Treadmill, Revising the Adaptation Theory of Well-Being" (2006), Diener, Lucas, and Scollon concluded that people are not hedonically neutral, and that individuals have different set points which are at least partially heritable. They also concluded that individuals may have more than one happiness set point, such as a
life satisfaction Life satisfaction is a measure of a person's well-being, assessed in terms of mood, relationship satisfaction, achieved goals, self-concepts, and self-perceived ability to cope with life. Life satisfaction involves a favorable attitude towards on ...
set point and a
subjective well-being Subjective well-being (SWB) is a self-reported measure of well-being, typically obtained by questionnaire. Ed Diener developed a tripartite model of subjective well-being in 1984, which describes how people experience the quality of their lives ...
set point, and that because of this, one's level of happiness is not just one given set point but can vary within a given range. Diener and colleagues point to longitudinal and cross-sectional research to argue that happiness set point can change, and lastly that individuals vary in the rate and extent of adaptation they exhibit to change in circumstance.


Empirical studies

In a longitudinal study conducted by Mancini, Bonnano, and Clark, people showed individual differences in how they responded to significant life events, such as marriage, divorce and widowhood. They recognized that some individuals do experience substantial changes to their hedonic set point over time, though most others do not, and argue that happiness set point can be relatively stable throughout the course of an individual's life, but the life satisfaction and subjective well-being set points are more variable. Similarly, the longitudinal study conducted by Fujita and Diener (2005) described the life satisfaction set point as a "soft baseline". This means that for most people, this baseline is similar to their happiness baseline. Typically, life satisfaction will hover around a set point for the majority of their lives and not change dramatically. However, for about a quarter of the population this set point is not stable, and does indeed move in response to a major life event. Other longitudinal data has shown that subjective well-being set points do change over time, and that adaptation is not necessarily inevitable. In his archival data analysis, Lucas found evidence that it is possible for someone's subjective well-being set point to change drastically, such as in the case of individuals who acquire a severe, long term disability. However, as Diener, Lucas, and Scollon point out, the amount of fluctuation a person experiences around their set point is largely dependent on the individual's ability to adapt. After following over a thousand sets of twins for 10 years, Lykken and Tellegen (1996) concluded that almost 50% of our happiness levels are determined by genetics. Headey and Wearing (1989) suggested that our position on the spectrum of the stable
personality traits In psychology, trait theory (also called dispositional theory) is an approach to the study of human personality. Trait theorists are primarily interested in the measurement of ''traits'', which can be defined as habitual patterns of behaviour, tho ...
( neuroticism, extraversion, and openness to experience) accounts for how we experience and perceive life events, and indirectly contributes to our happiness levels. Research on happiness has spanned decades and crossed cultures in order to test the true limits of our hedonic set point. In large panel studies, divorce, death of a spouse, unemployment, disability, and similar events have been shown to change the long-term subjective well-being, even though some adaptation does occur and inborn factors affect this. In the aforementioned Brickman study (1978), researchers interviewed 22 lottery winners and 29
paraplegics Paraplegia, or paraparesis, is an impairment in motor or sensory function of the lower extremities. The word comes from Ionic Greek () "half-stricken". It is usually caused by spinal cord injury or a congenital condition that affects the neural ...
to determine their change in happiness levels due to their given event (winning lottery or becoming paralyzed). The event in the case of lottery winners had taken place between one month and one and a half years before the study, and in the case of paraplegics between a month and a year. The group of lottery winners reported being similarly happy before and after the event, and expected to have a similar level of happiness in a couple of years. These findings show that having a large monetary gain had no effect on their baseline level of happiness, for both present and expected happiness in the future. They found that the paraplegics reported having a higher level of happiness in the past than the rest (due to a nostalgia effect), a lower level of happiness at the time of the study than the rest (although still above the middle point of the scale, that is, they reported being more happy than unhappy) and, surprisingly, they also expected to have similar levels of happiness than the rest in a couple of years. One must note that the paraplegics did have an initial decrease in life happiness, but the key to their findings is that they expected to eventually return to their baseline in time. In a newer study (2007), winning a medium-sized lottery prize had a lasting mental wellbeing effect of 1.4 GHQ points on Britons even two years after the event. Some research suggests that resilience to suffering is partly due to a decreased fear response in the amygdala and increased levels of BDNF in the brain. New genetic research have found that changing a gene could increase intelligence and resilience to depressing and traumatizing events. This could have crucial benefits for those with anxiety and
PTSD Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental and behavioral disorder that can develop because of exposure to a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions, child abuse, domestic violence, or other threats on ...
. Recent research reveals certain types of brain training can increase brain size. The hippocampus volume can affect mood, hedonic setpoints, and some forms of memory. A smaller hippocampus has been linked to depression and dysthymia. Certain activities and environmental factors can reset the hedonic setpoint and also grow the hippocampus to an extent. London taxi drivers' hippocampi grow on the job, and the drivers have a better memory than those who did not become taxi drivers. In particular, the posterior hippocampus seemed to be the most important for enhanced mood and memory. Lucas, Clark, Georgellis, and Diener (2003) researched changes in baseline level of
well-being Well-being, or wellbeing, also known as wellness, prudential value or quality of life, refers to what is intrinsically valuable relative ''to'' someone. So the well-being of a person is what is ultimately good ''for'' this person, what is in th ...
due to changes in marital status, the birth of first child, and the loss of employment. While they found that a negative life event can have a greater impact on a person's psychological state and happiness set point than a positive event, they concluded that people completely adapt, finally returning to their baseline level of well-being, after divorce, losing a spouse, the birth of a child, and for women losing their job. They did not find a return to baseline for marriage or for layoffs in men. This study also illustrated that the amount of adaptation depends on the individual. Wildeman, Turney, and Schnittker (2014) studied the effects of
imprisonment Imprisonment is the restraint of a person's liberty, for any cause whatsoever, whether by authority of the government, or by a person acting without such authority. In the latter case it is "false imprisonment". Imprisonment does not necessari ...
on one's baseline level of well-being. They researched how being in jail affects one's level of happiness both short term (while in prison) and long term (after being released). They found that being in prison has negative effects on one's baseline well-being; in other words one's baseline of happiness is lower in prison than when not in prison. Once people were released from prison, they were able to bounce back to their previous level of happiness. Silver (1982) researched the effects of a traumatic accident on one's baseline level of happiness. Silver found that accident victims were able to return to a happiness set point after a period of time. For eight weeks, Silver followed accident victims who had sustained severe
spinal cord injuries A spinal cord injury (SCI) is damage to the spinal cord that causes temporary or permanent changes in its function. Symptoms may include loss of muscle function, sensation, or autonomic function in the parts of the body served by the spinal co ...
. About a week after their accident, Silver observed that the victims were experiencing much stronger negative emotions than positive ones. By the eighth and final week, the victims' positive emotions outweighed their negative ones. The results of this study suggest that regardless of whether the life event is significantly negative or positive, people will almost always return to their happiness baseline. Fujita and Diener (2005) studied the stability of one's level of subjective well-being over time and found that for most people, there is a relatively small range in which their level of satisfaction varies. They asked a panel of 3,608 German residents to rate their current and overall satisfaction with life on a scale of 0–10, once a year for seventeen years. Only 25% of participants exhibited shifts in their level of life satisfaction over the course of the study, with just 9% of participants having experienced significant changes. They also found that those with a higher mean level of life satisfaction had more stable levels of life satisfaction than those with lower levels of satisfaction.


Applications


Happiness set point

The concept of the happiness set point (proposed by
Sonja Lyubomirsky Sonja Lyubomirsky (russian: Соня Любомирская, born December 14, 1966) is a Russian-born American professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Riverside and author of the ''The How of Happiness: A Scie ...
) can be applied in clinical psychology to help patients return to their hedonic set point when negative events happen. Determining when someone is mentally distant from their happiness set point and what events trigger those changes can be extremely helpful in treating conditions such as depression. When a change occurs, clinical psychologists work with patients to recover from the depressive spell and return to their hedonic set point more quickly. Because acts of kindness often promote long-term well-being, one treatment method is to provide patients with different altruistic activities that can help a person raise his or her hedonic set point. This can in turn be helpful in reducing reckless habits in the pursuit of well-being. Further, helping patients understand that long-term happiness is relatively stable throughout one's life can help to ease anxiety surrounding impactful events.


Resilience research

Hedonic adaptation is also relevant to resilience research. Resilience is a "class of phenomena characterized by patterns of positive adaptation in the context of significant adversity or risk," meaning that resilience is largely the ability for one to remain at their hedonic setpoint while going through negative experiences. Psychologists have identified various factors that contribute to a person being resilient, such as positive attachment relationships (see
Attachment Theory Attachment theory is a psychological, evolutionary and ethological theory concerning relationships between humans. The most important tenet is that young children need to develop a relationship with at least one primary caregiver for normal ...
), positive self-perceptions, self-regulatory skills (see
Emotional self-regulation Emotional self-regulation or emotion regulation is the ability to respond to the ongoing demands of experience with the range of emotions in a manner that is socially tolerable and sufficiently flexible to permit spontaneous reactions as well as ...
), ties to prosocial organizations (see
prosocial behavior Prosocial behavior, or intent to benefit others, is a social behavior that "benefit other people or society as a whole", "such as helping, sharing, donating, co-operating, and volunteering". Obeying the rules and conforming to socially accepted beh ...
), and a positive outlook on life.Masten, A. S., Cutuli, J. J., Herbers, J. E., & Reed, M.-G. J. (2009). Resilience in development. In C. R. Snyder & S. J. Lopez (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology, 2nd ed. (pp. 117–131). New York: Oxford University Press.


Critical views

One critical point made regarding humans’ individual set point is to understand it may simply be a genetic tendency and not a completely determined criterion for happiness, and it can still be influenced. In a study on moderate to excessive drug intake on rats, Ahmed and Koob (1998) sought to demonstrate that the use of mind-altering drugs such as cocaine could change an individual's hedonic set point. Their findings suggest that drug usage and addiction lead to neurochemical adaptations whereby a person needs more of that substance to feel the same levels of pleasure. Thus, drug abuse can have lasting impacts on one's hedonic set point, both in terms of overall happiness and with regard to pleasure felt from drug usage. Genetic roots of the hedonic set point are also disputed. Sosis (2014) has argued the "hedonic treadmill" interpretation of twin studies depends on dubious assumptions. Pairs of identical twins raised apart are not necessarily raised in substantially different environments. The similarities between twins (such as intelligence or beauty) may invoke similar reactions from the environment. Thus, we might see a notable similarity in happiness levels between twins even though there are no happiness genes governing affect levels. Further, hedonic adaptation may be a more common phenomenon when dealing with positive events as opposed to negative ones.
Negativity bias The negativity bias,Kanouse, D. E., & Hanson, L. (1972). Negativity in evaluations. In E. E. Jones, D. E. Kanouse, S. Valins, H. H. Kelley, R. E. Nisbett, & B. Weiner (Eds.), ''Attribution: Perceiving the causes of behavior.'' Morristown, NJ: Gene ...
, where people tend to focus more on negative emotions than positive emotions, can be an obstacle in raising one's happiness set point. Negative emotions often require more attention and are generally remembered better, overshadowing any positive experiences that may even outnumber negative experiences. Given that negative events hold more psychological power than positive ones, it may be difficult to create lasting positive change. Headey (2008) concluded that an internal
locus of control Locus of control is the degree to which people believe that they, as opposed to external forces (beyond their influence), have control over the outcome of events in their lives. The concept was developed by Julian B. Rotter in 1954, and has since ...
and having "positive" personality traits (notably low
neuroticism In the study of psychology, neuroticism has been considered a fundamental personality trait. For example, in the Big Five approach to personality trait theory, individuals with high scores for neuroticism are more likely than average to be moody ...
) are the two most significant factors affecting one's subjective well-being. Headey also found that adopting "non-zero sum" goals, those which enrich one's relationships with others and with society as a whole (i.e. family-oriented and altruistic goals), increase the level of subjective well-being. Conversely, attaching importance to zero-sum life goals (career success, wealth, and social status) will have a small but nevertheless statistically significant negative impact on people's overall subjective well-being (even though the size of a household's
disposable income Disposable income is total personal income minus current income taxes. In national accounts definitions, personal income minus personal current taxes equals disposable personal income. Subtracting personal outlays (which includes the major ...
does have a small, positive impact on subjective well-being). Duration of one's education seems to have no direct bearing on life satisfaction. And, contradicting set point theory, Headey found no return to homeostasis after sustaining a disability or developing a chronic illness. These disabling events are permanent, and thus according to
cognitive model A cognitive model is an approximation of one or more cognitive processes in humans or other animals for the purposes of comprehension and prediction. There are many types of cognitive models, and they can range from box-and-arrow diagrams to a set o ...
of depression, may contribute to depressive thoughts and increase neuroticism (another factor found by Headey to diminish subjective well-being). Disability appears to be the single most important factor affecting human subjective well-being. The impact of disability on subjective well-being is almost twice as large as that of the second strongest factor affecting life satisfaction -— the personality trait of neuroticism.


See also

*
Biohappiness Biohappiness, or bio-happiness, is the elevation of wellbeing in humans through biological methods, including germline engineering through screening embryos with genes associated with a high level of happiness, or the use of drugs intended to raise ...
*
Epicureanism Epicureanism is a system of philosophy founded around 307 BC based upon the teachings of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus. Epicureanism was originally a challenge to Platonism. Later its main opponent became Stoicism. Few writings by Epi ...
*
Giffen good In economics and consumer theory, a Giffen good is a product that people consume more of as the price rises and vice versa—violating the basic law of demand in microeconomics. For any other sort of good, as the price of the good rises, the su ...
*
Happiness economics The economics of happiness or happiness economics is the theoretical, qualitative and quantitative study of happiness and quality of life, including positive and negative affects, well-being, life satisfaction and related concepts – typically t ...
*
Induced demand In economics, induced demand – related to latent demand and generated demandSchneider, Benjamin (September 6, 2018"CityLab University: Induced Demand"'' CityLab'' – is the phenomenon whereby an increase in supply results in a decline ...
*
Leisure satisfaction "Leisure refers to activities that a person voluntarily engages in when they are free from any work, social or familial responsibilities."Joudrey, A. D., & Wallace, J.E. (2009) Leisure as a Coping Resource: A Test of the Job Demand-Control-Support M ...
* Lifestyle creep * Opponent-process theory *
Paradox of hedonism The paradox of hedonism, also called the pleasure paradox, refers to the practical difficulties encountered in the pursuit of pleasure. For the hedonist, constant pleasure-seeking may not yield the most actual pleasure or happiness in the long te ...
*
Positivity offset In psychology, the positivity offset is a phenomenon where people tend to interpret neutral situations as mildly positive, and rate their lives as good, most of the time. The positivity offset stands in notable asymmetry to the negativity bias. S ...
*
Say's law In classical economics, Say's law, or the law of markets, is the claim that the production of a product creates demand for another product by providing something of value which can be exchanged for that other product. So, production is the sourc ...
* Snackwell effect


References


Further reading

* * * ''The Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don't Need'' by Juliet B. Schor * *{{Cite book , last=Kahneman , first=Daniel , url=https://www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty/keith.chen/negot.%20papers/Kahneman_ExperiencedUtility00.pdf , title=Choices, Values and Frames , publisher=Cambridge University Press , year=2000 , isbn=978-0521627498 , editor-last=Kahneman , editor-first=Daniel , page=673 , chapter=Experienced utility and objective happiness: a moment-based approach , author-link=Daniel Kahneman , editor-last2=Tversky , editor-first2=Amos , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141123111300/http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty/keith.chen/negot.%20papers/Kahneman_ExperiencedUtility00.pdf , archive-date=2021-11-16 , url-status=live Wealth Hedonism Happiness Positive psychology Suffering