Hedonic Treadmill
What is the Hedonic Treadmill?
The hedonic treadmill suggests that our long-term happiness levels are rather stable and will always return to baseline, despite any large surges or dips. While major positive or negative life events may cause temporary fluctuations in happiness, people often adapt to these changes, gradually returning to their original emotional state.
The Basic Idea
How often do you find yourself sitting at home, dreaming of obtaining something you desire? It could be a better job, a better car, or a better apartment, all with the accompanying thought that if you could just get it, you’d be so much happier.2 However, if you look around at what you already have, there was likely a time when you thought that once you obtained all those things, you’d be happier. Briefly, this may have worked—but eventually, your level of happiness returned to normal and you began to desire new things once more.
The cycle of returning to a ‘normal’ level of happiness is called the hedonic treadmill, and it extends beyond our achievements or material possessions. This phenomenon suggests that our general level of happiness, after being moved in either a positive or negative direction by some major life event, eventually returns to a baseline level where it was before the experiences causing the rise or dip.3
The hedonic treadmill explains why we are relatively stable creatures whose happiness levels don’t fluctuate much over the long term. This means we can bounce back fairly quickly after something bad happens—but it also means that when an event brings us a lot of joy, that surge of happiness will only last a little while. Much like someone running on an actual treadmill, the hedonic treadmill can make us feel like we’re moving while we remain in the same place. We adapt to the events in our lives, which is why the hedonic treadmill is often also referred to as hedonic adaptation.
Importantly, the hedonic treadmill does not apply in all situations. Research suggests that much of our happiness is either determined by genetic factors or under our control, while only a small portion of our happiness is influenced by life circumstances.11 While the hedonic treadmill describes a strong tendency for our happiness to return to a baseline over time, research suggests that certain increases in happiness can be long-lasting.
You want something because you think it’ll make you happy, and maybe it does, briefly. But then the new thing loses its shine and you revert to your earlier, less happy state. This is the ‘hedonic treadmill’, and we all seem to be trapped on it.
– Oliver Burkeman, British journalist for The Guardian1
About the Authors
Dan Pilat
Dan is a Co-Founder and Managing Director at The Decision Lab. He is a bestselling author of Intention - a book he wrote with Wiley on the mindful application of behavioral science in organizations. Dan has a background in organizational decision making, with a BComm in Decision & Information Systems from McGill University. He has worked on enterprise-level behavioral architecture at TD Securities and BMO Capital Markets, where he advised management on the implementation of systems processing billions of dollars per week. Driven by an appetite for the latest in technology, Dan created a course on business intelligence and lectured at McGill University, and has applied behavioral science to topics such as augmented and virtual reality.
Dr. Sekoul Krastev
Sekoul is a Co-Founder and Managing Director at The Decision Lab. He is a bestselling author of Intention - a book he wrote with Wiley on the mindful application of behavioral science in organizations. A decision scientist with a PhD in Decision Neuroscience from McGill University, Sekoul's work has been featured in peer-reviewed journals and has been presented at conferences around the world. Sekoul previously advised management on innovation and engagement strategy at The Boston Consulting Group as well as on online media strategy at Google. He has a deep interest in the applications of behavioral science to new technology and has published on these topics in places such as the Huffington Post and Strategy & Business.
