hedonic adaptation

Also known as the hedonic treadmill, this is the human tendency to return to a baseline level of (un)happiness after major positive or negative life events. Neither winning the lottery nor losing something of great value produce the permanent change to our level of happiness we might hope for or fear.

Research

• A 2010 study by Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton found that while increased wealth correlated increasingly with increased satisfaction with life (one’s sense of achievement), wealth correlated with increased happiness (emotional well-bring) only up to ~$75,000 (in 2010 dollars). Increased wealth beyond the point (presumably of having one’s needs met) did not lead to increased happiness.
• However, a 2021 study by Matthew Killingsworth contradicts these results and showed that increased wealth tracked both increased happiness and satisfaction for all participants (whose incomes went up to $500,000). While Kahneman’s study relied on survey data of people’s remembered happiness after the fact, Killingsworth’s data came from an app where people recorded their happiness in real-time, so the latter data is likely more reliable.

Quotes

I’m supposed to be a different person now that I’ve won a slam. Everyone says so… But I don’t feel Wimbledon has changed me. I feel, in fact, as if I’ve been let in on a dirty little secret: winning changes nothing. Now that I’ve won a slam, I know something that very few people on earth are permitted to know. A win doesn’t feel as good as a loss feels bad, and the good feeling doesn’t last as long as the bad. Not even close. (Andre Agassi, Open: An Autobiography)