Psychology › Emotion, motivation & happiness › Happiness and well-being
Hedonic adaptation (the hedonic treadmill)
1971; lottery study 1978· Finding or experiment
Mixed evidenceSome support; effects smaller or less consistent than once thought.
The tendency for happiness to drift back toward a personal baseline after both good and bad life changes.
See it on the Psychology map →What it says
Philip Brickman and Donald Campbell coined 'hedonic treadmill' in 1971: as circumstances improve, expectations rise and joy fades. A 1978 study found 22 Illinois lottery winners no happier than neighbors, and people recently paralyzed in accidents less unhappy than expected. Later research using large panels revised this: adaptation is often incomplete. People recover only partly from unemployment, disability or a spouse's death, and a 2020 Swedish study found big lottery wins raised life satisfaction for over a decade.
Why it matters
It explains why a new house, car or raise rarely delivers the lasting lift people expect, and why people often recover from setbacks better than they fear.
Think of it like
Like a renovated lobby: tenants rave the first month, then it is just the lobby.
The evidence
Status: mixed evidence. The 1978 study was tiny; long panels tracking the same people for decades, such as Germany's, confirm adaptation but show it is partial and varies widely between people.
Open questions
Why some people adapt quickly while others never fully recover from the same event, such as job loss or widowhood.
Connections (2)
▸Hedonic adaptation (the hedonic treadmill) limits lasting gains in Happiness and well-beingMixed evidence
The connection
Because people adapt, most changes, from raises and new houses to many setbacks, move happiness less and for a shorter time than expected. People overestimate how long events will affect them, which Daniel Gilbert and Timothy Wilson call impact bias. But adaptation is partial: in German data, marriage's boost faded in about two years, while unemployment left lasting dips.
Who showed it and when
Philip Brickman and Donald Campbell, 1971; Gilbert and Wilson's forecasting studies from 1998; Richard Lucas and colleagues' analyses of the German Socio-Economic Panel, 2003–2007.
How solid is it?
Panel studies track the same people before and after major events, avoiding the guesswork of comparing different groups.
Open questions
How much people can slow adaptation deliberately, through variety, gratitude or savoring, and whether happiness set points can shift permanently.
▸Money and happiness research finds money's boost is dulled by Hedonic adaptation (the hedonic treadmill)Mixed evidence
The connection
People get used to higher income and new possessions, and their comparison group rises with them, so raises lift happiness less than expected and the lift fades. German panel data suggest much of a raise's effect wears off within a few years. Yet big Swedish lottery wins kept life satisfaction higher for over a decade: adaptation to money is partial.
Who showed it and when
Brickman's 1978 Illinois lottery study; Rafael Di Tella and colleagues' German panel study, 2010; Erik Lindqvist, Robert Östling and David Cesarini's Swedish lottery study, 2020.
How solid is it?
Panel and lottery studies track people before and after income changes, though they disagree on how complete adaptation is.
Open questions
Why adaptation seems stronger for day-to-day mood than for overall life evaluation, and whether spending on experiences resists adaptation better than buying things.