- In
Pursuit of Happiness: Empirical Answers to Philosophical Questions
- Pelin Kesebir and Ed Diener
- Perspectives on Psychological Science
- March 2008 - Vol. 3 Issue 2, pages 117–125
- Since the early studies showing that lottery winners were not happier
than controls and that even paralyzed accident victims revert
approximately to their initial levels of happiness (e.g., Brickman,
Coates, & Janoff-Bulman, 1978), the hedonic
treadmill theory—the idea that our emotional systems adjust to
almost anything that happens in our lives, good or bad—has been
embraced by psychologists as a guiding principle in happiness research.
In affiliation with the hedonic treadmill model,
the set-point theory posits that major life events, such as
marriage, the death of a child, or unemployment, affect a person’s
happiness only temporarily, after which the person’s happiness level
regresses to a default determined by genotype (Lykken & Tellegen,
1996). The implication of these assertions is that no matter how hard we
try to be happier, adaptation on the one hand and our temperament on the
other will ensure that our venture will remain just a futile rat race
with an illusory goal.
- Our conviction is that the time is ripe for a revision of hedonic
adaptation theories. Accumulating evidence reveals that, even though
adaptation undeniably occurs to some extent and personal aspirations do
rise and adjust, people do not adapt quickly and/or completely to
everything (Diener, Lucas, & Scollon, 2006). Lucas, Clark,
Georgellis, and Diener (2003, 2004), for example, have observed in a
15-year longitudinal study that individuals who experienced unemployment
or widowhood did not, on average, fully recover and return to their
earlier life satisfaction levels. Other studies have shown that people
hardly, if ever, adapt to certain elements in their lives such as noise,
long commutes, or interpersonal conflict (Haidt, 2006), whereas other
events such as plastic surgery may have long-lasting positive effects on
one’s psychological well-being (Rankin, Borah, Perry, & Wey,
1998).
Via
http://idiolect.org.uk/notes/?p=716 |
