![]() ![]() The researched revealed that, in the long term, neither group appeared to be happier than the other. In 1987, Brickman, Coates, & Janoff-Bulman published research, “Lottery winners and accident victims: is happiness relative?” One of the most notable examples of the hedonic treadmill is a study that examined people who won the lottery for a large amount of money and victims in accidents that resulted in paralysis including quadriplegic and paraplegic victims. However, that’s not what the research says. If you’re fortunate enough to experience an abundance of positive events in a spaced out, but relatively short period of time, the constant influx of happiness may lead a person to believe that their general happiness has increased. (See graphic to the right for a visual)Ī possible misattribution of this theory could be the relation of the amount of good things happening in a period of time and positive emotions that are experienced. After some time has passed, you are back at the level of happiness that you were at before. There is the initial spike in happiness, or sadness however, as time goes on, the feeling of happiness or sadness caused by an event starts to dissipate. Instead, applying the concept of the hedonic treadmill would be more like this. ![]() ![]() Similarly, if the person that you’ve been romancing after agrees to be official, The Hedonic Treadmill does not say you will not be happy with that person. This does not mean that if you get promoted at work that you won’t celebrate or feel good. The Hedonic Treadmill states that regardless of what happens to a person, their level of happiness will return to their baseline after the event. It was not until twenty years later that Michael Eysenck likened hedonic adaptation to that of a treadmill a more modern and understandable example. During the 70’s, the concept was known as hedonic adaptation. Two psychologists, Brickman and Campbell, first published something about this concept in 1971 with their essay, “Hedonic Relativism and Planning the Good Society,” via the New York: Academic Press. ![]()
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