In 1978, a study set out to understand the happiness levels of people who won the lottery and compared them to both ordinary people and accident survivors. At the time, the results of the study were surprising. The lottery winners were no happier than the ordinary people, and in some cases, were less happy. Most people would have expected the lottery winners to be far happier.
Since that original study, a number of studies have been conducted that challenged this finding (this Vox article is a great overview of many of them). However, the lottery is a very specific (and a very rare) thing to study. There are many challenges that are specific to wining the lottery, such as the stress of people wanting hand-outs, the public attention, the feeling that you didn’t really earn the money, etc.
That’s why the more interesting question is whether a positive event has a lasting impact on a person’s happiness. And on this point, there is a psychological theory that over time, after a positive event, people’s levels of happiness return to where they were prior to the event.
This theory has came to be known as the hedonic treadmill.
The hedonic treadmill (originally referred to as hedonic adaptation) arises from the human ability to adapt to our circumstances. The idea is that regardless of our circumstances, humans will quickly adapt to it, and it will become our new baseline. And so, even if you get the bigger house, fancier car, and expensive wardrobe, after some period of time, this will become your new normal, and you’ll be no happier than you were before you got those things.
This was the proposed explanation for why, over time, lottery winners returned to average levels of happiness.
Well, that kind of sucks. What a useless personality trait. Right?
The Flip-Side of the Hedonic Treadmill
Up until now, we’ve been focusing on the lottery winners in that 1978 study, but what about the accident victims? It turns out that the accident victims were NOLESS happy than the ordinary people.
Wait… what?
This counter-intuitive results flies in the face of every instinct of sympathy (or pity) we would normally have for these people.
However, this return to the baseline stems from the same trait that underlies the hedonic treadmill: an ability to adapt.
The same trait that prevents us from becoming eternally happy, also saves us from being eternally sad when our circumstances get worse. The flip side of the hedonic treadmill is resilience.
Defence mechanisms
This example of the hedonic treadmill is just one way that a seemingly negative human trait is actually rooted in some form of useful defence mechanism. It’s similar to the way that we classify many of our fears as irrational, and treat them as a nuisance. However, looking at it from this perspective, fear is the warning system that allowed humanity to survive and thrive to the point where we are the dominant species on the planet. As such, a system designed to protect us from being eaten by a lion is no longer super useful, and so we think of fear as a negative trait.
The fact that humans are resilient enough to maintain hope after a major setback is an important asset that — for the benefit of the species — outweighs the downside that we can never truly be satisfied.
So, achieving that next big milestone may not make you any happier in the long run, but that also means that the next time something bad happens, things will probably end up being okay.
There’s something strangely comforting about that.