I was recently reading Logan Ury’s How to Not Die Alone, and she had brought up an unsettling point: the idea that no matter what happens in our lives, we eventually return to a baseline level of happiness. While this idea seemed to make intuitive sense at first, it feels quite bleak, doesn’t it? Are we really centered around the same level of happiness regardless of highs and lows? I have my doubts.

What is Hedonic Adaptation?

Hedonic adaptation, more commonly known as the ‘hedonic treadmill’, is a theory first coined in 1971 by psychologists Brickman and Campbell1. Their theory is based off the idea that happiness is relative, and it posits that humans have a neutral happiness “set point” – a level of happiness that everyone tends to fluctuate around.

The theory is based off two key mechanisms: contrast and habituation.

  • Contrast: When people experience a life change, how they view their past pleasure may seem better or worse in comparison.
  • Habituation: Over time people adjust to their circumstances, which changes how much pleasure they experience from those circumstances.

Lottery Winners and Accident Victims

One of the most commonly cited papers in favor of this original theory is the famous 1978 study analyzing lottery winners and accident victims2. Researchers investigated 3 groups of individuals: lottery winners, accident victims (paraplegics and quadriplegics), and a control group. They then assessed each group’s past, present, and expected future happiness based on their enjoyment of mundane activities like eating breakfast or watching TV.

What they found was that lottery winners felt less pleasure from mundane activities than those in the control group. And despite the accident victims feeling less happy than the control, they were happier than what they predicted they’d be. They had also experienced a ‘nostalgia effect’, where they rated their past happiness higher than the controls.

These results suggest that humans are able to adapt to both good and bad situations, and generally reside at a stable happiness level.

Where Hedonic Adaptation Makes Sense

From an initial standpoint, certain elements of this phenomenon make sense. For example, that new shiny iPhone (not sponsored) that you’ve been excited about since Apple announced it. What level of excitement do you experience using it for the first week versus the 45th week?

The original 1971 paper that introduced hedonic adaptation only considered it from the aspect of how we respond to material possessions. This makes intuitive sense as the high of acquiring something new eventually fades.

This phenomenon also applies to how money affects emotional well-being. Money doesn’t create lasting happiness because of the human tendency to buy more and adjust to increases in income3 – this is also known as lifestyle creep.

Here’s where it falls short

However, this commonly cited 2010 paper by famous behavioral scientist Daniel Kahneman on the effects of money on emotional well-being falls short. It turns out in a follow-up paper4 that unhappiness decreases in a linear-log relationship when more money is made. And that’s because of the emotional struggles associated with poverty.

In addition, new research5 finds that people generally report well-being levels above neutral, that happiness is more common than originally expected. This idea also falls short because the human condition isn’t something that’s uniform. Individuals may have different set points, multiple set points, and different abilities to adapt to life changes. These vary based on their life satisfaction, positive or negative emotions, coping mechanisms, or personality traits (e.g. optimism, neuroticism). This theory attempts to fit everyone into a box, which over-generalizes.

Agency and the Power to Shift our Happiness

One of my biggest gripes with this theory is that it makes it seem that we are powerless to try to improve our happiness. This idea is quite deterministic when we often do have the ability to influence our levels of happiness.

Being intentional with your actions, whether through gratitude practices, mindfulness, or personal growth, can help to increase your overall happiness. This also plays into how a “set point” changes through improving your mindset or increasing your emotional resilience.

Involving yourself with someone with deeper meaning like building on relationships, having a sense of purpose, or connecting with community can also permanently shift your emotional well-being.

Conclusion

So, are we truly doomed to return to a baseline happiness? While the hedonic treadmill might suggest we’re stuck, research suggests there’s hope. By making conscious decisions about how we live, what we value, and how we manage our emotions, we can shift that baseline upwards.

References/Footnotes

  1. Brickman, P. (1971). Hedonic relativism and planning the good society. Adaptation level theory, 287-301. ↩︎
  2. Brickman, P., Coates, D., & Janoff-Bulman, R. (1978). Lottery winners and accident victims: Is happiness relative? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36(8), 917–927. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.36.8.917 ↩︎
  3. Kahneman, D. & Deaton, A. (2010). High income improves evaluation of life but not emotional well-being. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.107, 16489–16493. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1011492107 ↩︎
  4. Killingsworth, M.A., Kahneman, D., & Sellers, B. (2023). Income and emotional well-being: A conflict resolved. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2208661120 ↩︎
  5. Diener, E., Lucas, R. E., & Scollon, C. N. (2006). Beyond the hedonic treadmill: Revising the adaptation theory of well-being. American Psychologist, 61(4), 305–314. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.61.4.305  ↩︎