Hedonic treadmill

The tendency for happiness to return toward a personal baseline after positive or negative life changes, as expectations and desires adapt.

Hedonic adaptation: The process by which emotional responses to a changed circumstance diminish over time. The treadmill describes hedonic adaptation as a pattern in overall happiness.
Lottery winners and accident victims study: A 1978 study comparing reported happiness among lottery winners, accident victims, and control participants. Its findings became a widely cited illustration of adaptation after dramatic gains and losses.
Hedonic adaptation prevention model: A model proposing that varied, surprising, and ongoing positive experiences can slow adaptation to them. It identifies conditions under which the treadmill may be slowed.
Subjective well-being: A broad construct covering people’s evaluations of their lives and their positive and negative feelings. Different measures of well-being can show different patterns of adaptation.
Set-point theory of happiness: The hypothesis that people tend to return to a relatively stable level of subjective well-being after life events. It proposes the baseline toward which happiness returns.
Marriage and subjective well-being: Research on changes in life satisfaction and emotional well-being associated with marriage. Longitudinal findings show that responses to marriage can change over time.
Set-point theory: The broader hypothesis that enduring individual traits anchor a person’s well-being around a stable level. This stronger account of stability is often conflated with the treadmill’s tendency.
Longitudinal study: A research design that repeatedly measures the same participants over time. Longitudinal evidence is needed to distinguish adaptation from differences between people.
Social comparison theory: The theory that people evaluate themselves partly by comparing their abilities and circumstances with those of others. Comparisons can reset what feels like an adequate level of success or comfort.
Unemployment and subjective well-being: Research on how unemployment relates to life satisfaction and emotional well-being over time. Unemployment can have lasting effects that challenge a simple return-to-baseline account.

Linked from 10 pages