Research has found that the first bite of something delicious is experienced as more pleasurable than the third or the tenth.The change in ability can be devastating at first, but people generally tend to return to their pre-accident levels of happiness after the habituation period. The same is true for those who are in major accidents and lose the use of their legs.(Some even end up less happy because of changes in relationships that can occur.) There is an initial influx of joy, of course, but after about a year, people in their day-to-day lives experience the same general sense of happiness. People who win the lottery tend to return to roughly their original levels of happiness after the novelty of the win has worn off.There are several different ways that this has been observed, and here are a few interesting examples: It is known as “the hedonic treadmill” because of the seeming cot “treading water” experience where we always end up where we started. Hedonic adaptation, also known as “the hedonic treadmill,” is a concept studied by positive psychology researchers and others who focus on happiness and well-being that refers to people’s general tendency to return to a set level of happiness despite life’s ups and downs. How Hedonic Adaptation Robs You of Happiness-and How to Change That I hope you find this article by Elizabeth Scott interesting and find ways to increase your set point. Basically, through life’s ups and downs, you have a set point for your level of happiness.
I found this term, hedonic adaptation, in notes I took for a class on The Science of Happiness through the Greater Good Science Center last year and decided to research it further.
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