The Psychology Of Hedonic Adaptation
Humans usually have an incredible capacity to adapt to changing situations. Hedonic adaptation is the psychological phenomenon where individuals quickly become accustomed to positive or negative changes in their lives, returning to a stable level of happiness over time. Over time and study, researchers often notice a tendency to return to an emotional baseline, or set point, after both positive and adverse events. This tendency can be referred to as the hedonic adaptation or hedonic treadmill. However, it can be possible to change your emotional baseline through effective methods and consistent effort. A licensed therapist can help you understand your set point and how you may change it to experience more happiness in life.
What is hedonic adaptation or hedonic treadmill?
Do people always return to their default level of happiness?
The theory was first proposed in the late 1940s and has been through multiple revisions over the years. The current consensus among the mental health community is that most people have a stable emotional baseline. Still, it can be possible to exert substantial and long-lasting changes, either due to life events or professional assistance.
“It is now widely accepted that while most people experience stable levels of happiness and well-being, significant and lasting changes can, and do, occur.” — Maike Luhmann and Sabrina Intelisano
Do people have set happiness levels?
Most people have a hedonic adaptation set point as their emotional baseline. The ability to consistently view the phenomenon in people around the world is likely one of the reasons the theory has persisted for so long and been fine-tuned so well. Hedonic adaptation can help us understand human nature. We often have the ability to adapt to changes, and our brains are generally wired to help us do so. By nature, certain reactive feelings can fade over time. For example, you can calm yourself from a rage, just as the euphoria from a happy event normally dissipates over time.
Understanding the hedonic treadmill
Many medical professionals refer to hedonic adaptation as the hedonic treadmill because you tend to end up back where you started, returning to your baseline set point. Even when you experience a difficult loss or setback, the severity of your feelings often lessens over time. For example, most people feel intense grief after losing a loved one. However, you can adapt to its effects with time and effort, process your grief, and eventually return to your (potentially altered) emotional baseline. Your experience may change you, but you may find a new normal and feel happiness again.
Phases of hedonic adaptation
Shifting adaptation levels
This generally refers to experiencing a slight emotional high or low and returning to your happiness set point. However, subsequent exposures to the same situation can offer the same emotional boost or dip. For example, many baseball players feel a rush of elation every time they hit a home run, though their happiness may return to a baseline level between events.
Desensitization
Desensitization can occur when you have “too much of a good thing”. Similar to how people can develop a tolerance after repeated substance use, you can create an emotional tolerance to specific situations and circumstances. Habitual exposure can result in desensitization, often leading you to seek higher emotional highs to achieve previous emotional states or allowing you to tolerate unpleasant circumstances until you reach new emotional lows. Emotional desensitization is typically seen as an adverse condition. Habituation psychology is generally concerned with the decrease in response to a stimulus, while desensitization normally focuses on the decrease in sensitivity to a stimulus.
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Sensitization
At the opposite end of the spectrum, sensitization can happen when you go through the process of adapting to something new. For example, if you worked for years but barely made enough to survive, starting a new job at ten times the pay would likely evoke elation as you experience being able to pay all the bills and build up savings. However, over time, you may become sensitized to the income increase. Your time at a lower income can help you maintain feelings of gratitude and happiness about the higher level of stability, potentially affecting your emotional baseline over time as the stressors of low income are removed.
Can you change your baseline level of happiness?
According to a 2011 study, it can be possible to change your emotional baseline, but increasing happiness usually requires consistent effort and an effective method. Researchers report that as much as 50% of your happiness set point may be due to genetic inheritance. At the same time, the remaining half can fluctuate due to individual differences in circumstances, well-being, and positive cognitive, goal-based, and behavioral activities. Researchers concluded that happiness interventions are usually more than placebos. Still, they tend to be more effective and long-lasting when you are well-informed about the intervention, agree with the method, and actively commit to a meaningful change.
Ways to limit the effects of hedonic adaptation
- Practice a mindful lifestyle
- Focus on personal development
- Actively express gratitude
- Invest in your personal relationships
- Act selflessly to help others
- Enjoy the little things
Opposition to hedonic adaptation
While they generally agreed with some points, the authors of a 2006 study suggested five revisions to the hedonic adaptation theory of well-being, which may help the model apply to a broader range of people and more accurately describe how humans experience happiness.
Suggested Revisions To The Original Hedonic Adaptation Model
- Non-Neutral Set Points—People usually tend toward happiness, not neutrality, so inaccurate starting points may skew the information.
- Individual Set Points—Emotional baselines can vary drastically from person to person and can be strongly influenced by personality type and temperament.
- Multiple Set Points—Happiness may not be reduced to a single point and may instead be multiple points influenced by numerous variables related to well-being.
- Happiness Can Change—With consistent effort and professional guidance, it can be possible to change happiness levels and manage the symptoms of mental health conditions.
- Individual Differences In Adaptation—Everyone may not adapt to intense emotional experiences similarly.
Some life events have a long-lasting impact on our happiness levels
Despite the wealth of evidence for the hedonic adaptation model, some medical professionals hesitate to set too much stock by it due to evidence that some life events, like divorce, loss of a loved one, marriage, severe illness, or disability, can have a substantial and long-lasting impact on happiness, according to researcher Richard Easterlin.
Some events may be more susceptible to hedonic adaptation
Sensory experiences, which usually involve pleasant physical sensations and intensely emotional events, tend to have a less persistent effect on your emotional baseline. These transient emotional events are often called pleasures, and their impact, while strong, can be fleeting. However, studies show that your sentimental attachment to certain circumstances can prolong the enjoyment you gain from them.
Categories of pleasure
One of the methods used to distinguish between different types of happiness can be categorizing the sources of pleasures and gratifications.
Hedonism (pleasures)
Hedonism is often defined as the pursuit of pleasure and can refer to the immediate happiness you experience when you do something you enjoy or avoid something you don’t like. It can be helpful to consider the hedonism category of happiness as enjoyment. Pleasures often have a short-lived effect on your happiness level.
Eudaimonia (gratifications)
The other category of happiness is usually called eudaimonia, which can refer to the fulfillment you may experience when pursuing meaningful activities. This can involve helping other people, pursuing personal development, and believing that your life has a purpose. Gratifications can often have a long-lasting impact on your overall happiness.
How therapy can help you learn to be happier
If you are concerned about your emotional set point or your ability to manage your feelings and reactions, it may be helpful to speak with a licensed therapist online through a virtual therapy platform, where flexible appointment formats can make it easy to fit treatment into your busy schedule.
Online therapy for hedonistic adaptation
The American Psychological Association (APA) published recent research suggesting that online therapy can be an affordable, effective alternative to in-person treatments. Additional studies reported that the efficacy of online therapy and face-to-face therapy is usually the same, potentially making both options valid for those seeking professional help with their mental health.
Takeaway
What is an example of a hedonic adaptation?
Hedonia adaptation is the idea that highly positive or negative events may change someone’s happiness levels but that they will eventually return to a baseline level of happiness or positive affect. For example, lottery winners may experience greater happiness immediately after winning, but these feelings will eventually return to a baseline level of happiness.
What is hedonic adaptation in psychology today?
Hedonic adaptation refers to people returning to a relatively stable level of happiness after significantly negative or positive experiences cause them to move away from their happiness baseline, known as the hedonic set point. Things that cause these changes may include major life events or temporary life circumstances.
What is hedonic adaptation bias?
Hedonic adaptation bias is our tendency to return to baseline happiness levels after we experience positive events or significant life events that are negative that move us away from that baseline. For example, someone may experience increased positive emotions after getting a promotion, but in time, that happiness boost will wear off, and they will return to a typical level of happiness. Hedonic adaptation occurs with negative events as well. For example, accident victims may experience increased negative emotions in the aftermath of these events but will eventually return to the same level of happiness they had before the events occurred.
How to beat hedonic adaptation?
That this tendency is also known as the hedonic treadmill suggests that it can be difficult to stop, but there are some ways to change the process to thwart hedonic adaptation. For example, one might try to practice mindfulness, focus on personal growth, express gratitude, invest in relationships, and enjoy the little things in life. Taking responsibility for your own happiness can help with hedonic adaptation prevention.
What is another word for hedonic adaptation?
The hedonic treadmill theory is another term for hedonic adaptation.
Why is hedonic adaptation a problem for happiness?
Hedonic adaptation can be considered a positive adaptation, but a paper in the journal Philosophical Psychology states that the hedonic adaptation process “can work for good or bad” depending on the context. In general psychology, arguments that hedonic adaptation is a problem may stem from the idea that if everyone has a set point for happiness, they will continue in hedonic pursuits to increase this level of happiness without any sustainable change in life satisfaction.
How to avoid hedonism?
Hedonism is when someone chooses to pursue pleasure and avoid pain. In psychological science, the suggestion then is that pursuing happiness is “good.” However, hedonism can be seen as the pursuit of things that lead to major positive feelings only in the short term, as hedonic adaptation involves returning to the same place.
That said, to avoid hedonism, you can focus on finding things that have a deeper meaning and purpose and cultivating gratitude. Shifting your priorities from random acts that can have brief positive effects on happiness to engaging in activities that lead to personal growth can help raise your baseline level of happiness.
According to Positive Psychology, hedonic adaptation can be shaped by various factors, including environmental factors, personality traits, and may even have a genetic component, which can make it difficult to overcome. The hedonic adaptation prevention model outlines how people can slow or change this adaptation to achieve long-lasting happiness. The HAP model suggests that hedonic adaptation can be a barrier to lasting happiness and that factors like experiencing a great variety of experiences or feeling a great appreciation for the good things can temper this adaptation.
What is the opposite of hedonic?
The opposite of hedonic is eudaimonic, which means flourishing and living a meaningful life. Eudaimonism is often associated with living a life of virtue and purpose instead of seeking hedonic pursuits or short-lived pleasures.
What is the problem with hedonism?
A possible problem with hedonism is that constantly focusing on seeking pleasure can lead to less pleasure in time and may even have negative side effects. Because hedonic relativism or the hedonic adaptation level theory theorizes that people will ultimately return to their baseline, hedonism may require seeking continuous exposure to pleasure, which can be impossible to achieve. Some have argued that hedonism can make it challenging to establish a good society as it can be fueled by the constant pursuit of material possessions and external validation rather than living a life of virtue and purpose.
How does hedonic adaptation affect your finances?
Hedonic adaptation can affect your finances because the constant chase of well-being derived from activities like buying nice things or taking frequent trips. These things do not result in sustainable happiness. According to the hedonistic set point model, positive events like these can cause temporary elevated happiness, and once someone returns to their baseline, they are likely to spend money on something else to try to recapture that feeling.
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