15 ms·

The Hedonic Treadmill

154 points by shubhamjain 11y ago

frostburg 11y ago
There likely were no kings ten thousands years ago.
- designium 11y ago
  Not kings but chieftains.
designium 11y ago
Maybe we could model this into a Machine Learning automation process.
danharaj 11y ago
Easier hypothesis: material wealth doesn't cause happiness
guard-of-terra 11y ago
I doubt their premises. For example, I've recently moved to another city which made me happier and the effect did not wear off after four months and I don't think it will. As another example, having a significant other versus being alone makes for such a huge difference that it's not ever up to discussion. Maybe if we're restricting our talk to meaningless status symbols (like the mentioned Lexus), then it starts to make sense.
- alashley 11y ago
  I've been thinking about this lately. The common meme is that people who say "I'll be happy when I do $thing" should try to be happy in the moment rather than looking towards their next goal(s). I think we always need micro-goals to strive towards. A new job can improve your life, a new partner can improve your life, and even when you find new $thing, there are still goals to work toward there. Like being a better employee or a better partner. And as you've said, the effect of some changes is long-term at least until you feel a need for growth/expansion again. Everything else outside of moving forward in life is complacency.
neogodless 11y ago
"The material standard of living of a homeless person in modern-day Manhattan is several dozens of times higher than the wealthiest of kings ten thousand years ago." Can someone explain to me what their definition of "standard of living" is in this context? I get that they might have access to cleaner water, but surely easy access to food prepared for you and having a roof over your head in a snowstorm would sound really appealing to someone without a home. (Maybe I need to know what they use as the definition of "homeless"...)
- blakesterz 11y ago
  " Material standard of living can be seen in the increase of real incomes that would increase the purchasing power of consumers, and is characterized by the ability to consume goods and services. Non-material standard of living is more qualitative, and refers to the improvements in quality of life and the environment." So (assuming that's the same definition they used) yeah, I guess the material standard of living is higher. Seems like that's ignoring quite a bit to sound really optimistic though.
  - neogodless 11y ago
    Well then, to be fair, they are not defining "homeless" as someone without an income. That's just my poor assumption. With that assumption, I have a hard time seeing how material standards do anything for someone without a home or income :)
  - FilterSweep 11y ago
    I understand they are trying to make a distinction between "relative to others" vs. "by absolute measures," and how we are prone to thinking only in terms of the former, but I'd still argue they are indeed ignoring quite a bit. Using our exponential increases in GDP as a measure of comparison seems a bit irrelevant.
  - nitrogen 11y ago
    Both of those (material and environmental) fail to encompass fully other important aspects of a monarch's life, like power and sovereignty/independence, things which modern homeless certainly lack.
blakesterz 11y ago
>>But sunshine after sunshine is correlated with nothing. >> Because if every day was warm and sunny, you would get use to it. That seems really really wrong. I see they cite studies but it just finally got warm and sunny here after a long cold winter and it feels, well, happy :-) Maybe, just maybe, if it was sunny all the time I'd get used to it. But some days wouldn't be sunny, or I'd travel someplace with no sun, or people would visit and say how awesome the weather is... I dunno, I'd be reminded all the time how awesome it is. Or I'd complain because there's no rain and everything is dry and dead and we're running out of water... damn hedonic treadmill.
- anon4 11y ago
  Lousy weather after lousy weather is correlated with an increase in suicides (look at the statistics for Norway). So he is right, in a way. The same way that breathing clean air and drinking clean water isn't correlated with anything.
- RangerScience 11y ago
  I live in LA. The last time I noticed myself wanting a change in the weather was a rare day when it was overcast AND I was bored. I realized that it wasn't that I wanted more interesting weather, it was that I was bored, and interesting weather is interesting. Most days I have at least one moment where I love the weather.
- outworlder 11y ago
  It's not wrong. I've lived very close to the equator for a couple of decades. I never had to care about weather forecasts at all, because I alway knew what the weather would be like: 30 degrees celsius (86F), +/- a couple of degrees. Sunny. Too hot under direct sunlight, but completely fine under a tree shade even at noon. If anything, you get fed up with the single season and will welcome rainy days. There is this mountain nearby that was hugely popular because it was a few degrees colder. So I guess even nice beaches under perfect weather get boring, given enough time.
- sliverstorm 11y ago
  Where I live, everyone celebrates the start of winter (because they're tired of summer), and then then start of summer (because they're tired of winter). My favorite part of winter is, a warm fire literally never feels better than when it's freezing outside.
leecarraher 11y ago
preaching to the choir. happiness is the derivative of circumstance thus ultimately unachievable. Unless you can sustain exponential growth in your current circumstance. Option two, hop on a sinusoid, and sometimes you will be happy and sometimes you wont.
- titzer 11y ago
  I don't agree. We don't really seem to notice the happiest times until later reflection, and most of my own I find there was stasis and mostly, a certain unconscious contentment. Once it becomes conscious it falls apart.
- Disruptive_Dave 11y ago
  or learn to detach your "happiness" from outside circumstances and stimuli.
maldusiecle 11y ago
This is such a terrible argument, even by its own data. For instance: "The good-looking are on average 7% happier than the bad-looking." ...from which it draws the conclusion that being beautiful doesn't make much of a difference. But 7% doesn't seem like a small difference at all. Spending hundreds of hours for a 7% improvement doesn't seem like such a terrible deal to me. Of course it's a bad deal if that's time you're taking from other things that make you happy. But exercise, for instance, has the benefit of improving your health and creating happiness in its own right. Likewise the fact that 30% of unemployed feel 10% less happy years after becoming employed again. A 10% reduction in happiness doesn't seem minor at all. I guess if you have some absurd expectation, like some notion that a simple intervention will make you twice as happy, you'll be disappointed by the effects of all these various things. But a lot of these changes are pretty substantial, and they're not even taking into account things that I would expect to really affect happiness--professional accomplishment, one's love life, etc. People are complicated, happiness is complicated, and of course no single thing is going to instantly grant you contentment. That's no reason not to work for small improvements; the small improvements add up. And I think this kind of fatalism is really pernicious, akin to writing arguments that suicide is a good idea or that heroin actually isn't very dangerous. Most people are sensible enough to dismiss them, but others develop this feeling of learned helplessness which really harms them. The authors arguing this are always hypocrites; they know that they'd be unhappy living on the street, that's why they keep going to work every day. But they're perfectly happy to confuse and harm others with their disingenuous rhetoric.
- hashkb 11y ago
  Aren't you ignoring the alternatives which the author suggests have significantly better ROI?
  - tgb 11y ago
    Sorry I just skimmed the article and liked it but didn't really see any alternatives except for a gratitude journal. What else does the author suggest? Gratitude journals appear to be his shtick.
  - maldusiecle 11y ago
0xdeadbeefbabe 11y ago
> how else would we have taken over the whole world? No other reason than adaptability, eh? Give me a break.
brianlweiner 11y ago
Studies have cast doubt on whether Subjective Well-Being (SWB) levels actually return to normal after significant life events. [1] [2] So a core element of this post may not even be an actual phenomenon. [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17469954 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17469954 [2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3289759/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3289759/
- tedks 11y ago
  Your first link is paywalled, but the second study hardly seems to "cast doubt" as you say. While we're taught to think about science in terms of "one experiment can disprove a whole theory!", the actual probability of getting an experiment wrong is much higher than the probability of a very established theory predicting an opposing effect to what's actually the case.
  - abandonliberty 11y ago
    There are many supposed theories that survive for decades with little scientific support. Such as the RICE treatment for illnesses, which has finally been denounced by its creator. [1] http://www.drmirkin.com/fitness/why-ice-delays-recovery.html http://www.drmirkin.com/fitness/why-ice-delays-recovery.html The pressure to publish new results and the low attention given to validation experiments drives a lot of unreliable outcomes.
- stevoski 11y ago
  > Studies have cast doubt on whether Subjective Well-Being (SWB) levels actually return to normal after significant life events. I had heard (in a TED talk I think) that humans typically need only three months or so to get back to "feeling normal" after a terrible life event. Then I had my one terrible life event (widowed two days after marriage). Boy was that TED talk wrong! The next few years were a desolate wasteland.
  - IkmoIkmo 11y ago
    Man I can't even imagine, all the best to you.
banku_brougham 11y ago
>The material standard of living of a homeless person in modern-day Manhattan is several dozens of times higher than the wealthiest of kings ten thousand years ago. When your analysis leads you to a conclusion that is obviously false, it is time to reconsider some of your steps along the way.
- banku_brougham 11y ago
  update: there seems to be disagreement, but no comments. My assertion is that the manhattanite homeless the author references are in the running against Eqyptian pharaohs, and I dispute the quoted claim as obviously false.
return0 11y ago
It's not a treadmill, it's a ladder, even if it's a small step at a time. I bet people will be less happy if they follow the advice and stop seeking more happiness.
tpeo 11y ago
I've got impression that the author has somehow conflated adaptation to pleasure and monotonicity. Adaptation doesn't imply that people will always want more stuff, monotonicity [0] does. What adaptation implies is that all gains in subjective happiness are short-term gains. Hence the "treadmill" image: though striving forward, people go nowhere. Maybe I've got the wrong impression. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotone_preferences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotone_preferences
anotherhacker 11y ago
The author is flat out wrong. The Hedonic Treadmill has been disproven. Moreover, the author seems to be conflating the concept of the treadmill, with adaptation. The former denotes the subject returns to the original state. The latter recognizes that while we become accustomed to new things, we still improve in happiness. The author is also misquoting, or misunderstanding, Kahneman. Kahneman isn't talking at all about the treadmill. He's talking about what he called the "Focusing Illusion"-- a fancy way of saying "the grass is always greener on the other side..." Relevant links: "Beyond the Hedonic Treadmill: Revising the Adaptation Theory of Well-Being" http://www.factorhappiness.at/downloads/quellen/S9_Diener.pdf http://www.factorhappiness.at/downloads/quellen/S9_Diener.pd... Kahneman tried to explain the hedonic treadmill via with his own aspiration treadmill. He claims that he not only failed, but the data were opposite to his hypothesis. https://www.edge.org/response-detail/10056 https://www.edge.org/response-detail/10056 Kahneman's paper where that OP misquotes Kahneman from: http://psiexp.ss.uci.edu/research/teaching/Schkade_Kahneman_1998.pdf http://psiexp.ss.uci.edu/research/teaching/Schkade_Kahneman_...
- Simp 11y ago
  >'Kahneman tried to explain the hedonic treadmill via with his own aspiration treadmill. He claims that he not only failed, but the data were opposite to his hypothesis.' https://www.edge.org/response-detail/10056 https://www.edge.org/response-detail/10056 Uh... what that Edge article you are linking shows is that 'experienced happiness' which he thought would be a better measurement of happiness than life satisfaction is even more immune to your life circumstances: >"This was the first of many such findings: income, marital status and education all influence experienced happiness less than satisfaction, and we could show that the difference is not a statistical artifact. " This only strengthens the OP's opinion... He does tell us at the end of the article that GDP correlates with the happiness levels of countries. But that doesn't really detract from the OP's reasoning. (Who knows if that's even causative, instability & war could cause both GDP & happiness to drop.) Even the study you are linking suggests revisions, and is far from 'disproving' the hedonic treadmill theory.
  - kbenson 11y ago
unit91 11y ago
What strikes me about the article is that a gratitude journal is recommended because of its effect, with no real discussion of the cause of the increased happiness. What could possibly explain a strong, common desire regardless of life-circumstances to thank an external source for the good things in our lives? If we're merely products of genetic mutation, this seems like a very bizarre psychological phenomenon.
- ASpring 11y ago
  Reflecting on things that made you happy in the past increases your current mood. I actually find that pretty intuitive.
- aethos 11y ago
  It's not so much thanking an external source, but just appreciating good things that happen. Try it!
jonbarker 11y ago
The Hedonic Treadmill may be a phenomenon but it can be rendered irrelevant to your decision making process with a couple simple guiding principles which many people actually do in practice (some don't but it is an overgeneralization to say everyone does this so don't try to make more money). Principle 1: All Raises Go to Savings (invest those in whatever suits your risk tolerance). Principle 2: Begin With The End In Mind. The end of course is the end of working life (free to do more work of course if you so choose beyond a certain point). If you want to be financially independent at age 50 plus or minus 10 years you need a high net worth, so ensure that these savings habits result in a high net worth (definitions of high net worth of course vary). Kind of tired of hearing about the hedonic treadmill at this point.
joe_the_user 11y ago
I've read the claim over the years that plastic surgery actually defies the usual reasoning of the hedonic treadmill. Those having plastic surgery tend to stay more-happy over an indefinite period of time. This is the best survey I could google-up; https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hollywood-phd/201403/does-plastic-surgery-improve-emotional-well-being https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hollywood-phd/201403/do...
npsimons 11y ago
The claim that losing weight won't make someone happier always surprises me. To be sure, there are those who have deep seated issues that won't be solved by losing weight, or for those who lose a little it won't make a big difference, but I can state with confidence the fact that I am happier and my quality of life is better for having lost weight. Just getting better sleep (and not needing a CPAP to do it) has made a world of difference for me. Anecdotal, I know, but still.
- metaphorm 11y ago
  I think that point needed to be deconstructed (by the author of the article) in a lot more detail. It strikes me as both obviously true in many ways but also obviously false in many other ways. It is obviously true that losing weight won't make you feel any better about being stuck in a shitty marriage, or a job you hate, or being estranged from your parents, or any number of other things that can cause deep-seated unhappiness. It is also obviously true that losing weight will make you feel better physically, and probably result in you being treated better by most of the people you interact with face-to-face on a daily basis. Being treated better by people definitely makes me feel happier. On that note, I should really go to the gym more often.
  - daodedickinson 11y ago
    It's common, though, for people to feel guilty about not working out enough even if they do it quite a bit (perhaps even more likely). That can lead to less happiness. The endorphins are great... but I feel there is still a hedonic treadmill effect there with that.
    - metaphorm 11y ago
      > It's common, though, for people to feel guilty about not working out enough even if they do it quite a bit ha, I'll bet. almost anything where there's a notion of "leveling up" or some kind of progress over time can lead to this treadmill feeling. in my case though, I mean, I'm at like once or twice a month at the gym. I'm pretty sure that's just objectively not enough, regardless of whatever treadmill effect is going on there.
darawk 11y ago
In addition to the other criticisms in the comments, > The material standard of living of a homeless person in modern-day Manhattan is several dozens of times higher than the wealthiest of kings ten thousand years ago. That statement is pretty clearly silly and false.
SonicSoul 11y ago
The hundreds of hours of dieting, going to the gym, and putting on make-up (or flexing, for men) increase happiness by a colossal 7%. nope nope nope exercising does much more than make you look jacked at the club. It makes your brain release endorphins for immediate mood improvement, and also improves thinking, sleep, and overall well being. The happiest I've felt in my life is when exercising regularly. Actually exercising and diet are probably _the most_ influential on our chemistry which in turn influences mood and happiness. also not sure why all these things were lumped in together and how they could possibly calculate the 7% increase considering there is such a wide range of diets and exercise plans. Seems hyperbolic
- and-can 11y ago
  And even then, is 7% supposed to be a little or a lot? They say "hundreds of hours of dieting & exercising" but really that only affects an hour a day, maybe? I'd say that if I could spend 1 hour a day and get a 7% gain in happiness, it probably is worth it. And perhaps there are other activities that require 1 hour that result in a 7% increase. Say: reading, socializing, writing. Then you've got 4 hours a day and get a 1.07^4 = 1.31 or 31% increase in happiness. Isn't that GOOD? I'd say that's AWESOME.
  - metaphorm 11y ago
    I find that actual metric here to be the most dubious part of the whole argument. I can easily understand making qualitative claims about happiness and maybe even some of the arguments presented by the author are good ones, on a qualitative basis. But trying to quantify this is just so bogus. What do they think they're even measuring? They're just making statistical claims about questionaire results as far as I can tell. The author doesn't qualify that nearly enough. He is treating this like there's some kind of discrete quanta of happiness. "My current happy level is 7.453 kiloJoys" or something like that. Its just weird.
  - SonicSoul 11y ago
    well the article seems to imply that 7% is low: "by the colossal 7%" and there is this: But that same survey found that those with a low level of education were 47% more likely to be the happiest than those with a high level of education.13 so low level of education makes almost 7x more impact than diet + exercising combined. something is seriously wrong with this happiness calculus
ajcarpy2005 11y ago
This is why esperiences almost always make us happier than stuff because it usually has us more involved and it lasts longer.
virgil_disgr4ce 11y ago
"I’m so glad I’m a man. Not only do I not have to give birth, I don’t have to have periods , or change any as many diapers." WTF?? Seriously? I mean, I assume he's trying to be funny, but really?
- dota_fanatic 11y ago
  Didn't you know? Women's hands are more capable of changing diapers due to physiologic differences. /s No but really it'd be foolish for a man to set aside his endeavors and aspirations and engage in childcare duties like changing diapers; women actually have extra hours built into their day to take care of shit work so in the end it's equal. /s Seriously though, what a repulsive statement (the quote).
karlb 11y ago
The scientific research into happiness is summarised in the book “The How of Happiness.” And the whole book is precised in the following eight-minute rap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyryRRYty4Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyryRRYty4Y (I find the visuals distracting and unhelpful.)
eggman 11y ago
twenty kilograms of high-grade worthless, without devoting my life to writing the anti-statement: "even a treadmill can benefit a person, it is the perspective of the person on the treadmill that matters" - you sweat, you win, no sweat, you lose.
allisthemoist 11y ago
"The top 1% own 48% of global wealth, but even they aren’t happy. A survey by Boston College of people with an average net worth of $78m found that they too were assailed by anxiety, dissatisfaction and loneliness. Many of them reported feeling financially insecure: to reach safe ground, they believed, they would need, on average, about 25% more money. (And if they got it? They’d doubtless need another 25%). One respondent said he wouldn’t get there until he had $1bn in the bank." [0] [0] http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/14/age-of-loneliness-killing-us http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/14/age-of-...
EricDeb 11y ago
I'd be curious to see how chronic pain fits into the equation.. I developed a fairly severe neuralgia and it dropped my quality of life about 3 or 4 points on a 1-10 scale.

154 points by shubhamjain 11y ago

frostburg 11y ago

There likely were no kings ten thousands years ago.

designium 11y ago
Not kings but chieftains.

designium 11y ago

Maybe we could model this into a Machine Learning automation process.

danharaj 11y ago

Easier hypothesis: material wealth doesn't cause happiness

guard-of-terra 11y ago

I doubt their premises. For example, I've recently moved to another city which made me happier and the effect did not wear off after four months and I don't think it will. As another example, having a significant other versus being alone makes for such a huge difference that it's not ever up to discussion. Maybe if we're restricting our talk to meaningless status symbols (like the mentioned Lexus), then it starts to make sense.

alashley 11y ago
I've been thinking about this lately. The common meme is that people who say "I'll be happy when I do $thing" should try to be happy in the moment rather than looking towards their next goal(s). I think we always need micro-goals to strive towards. A new job can improve your life, a new partner can improve your life, and even when you find new $thing, there are still goals to work toward there. Like being a better employee or a better partner. And as you've said, the effect of some changes is long-term at least until you feel a need for growth/expansion again. Everything else outside of moving forward in life is complacency.

neogodless 11y ago

"The material standard of living of a homeless person in modern-day Manhattan is several dozens of times higher than the wealthiest of kings ten thousand years ago." Can someone explain to me what their definition of "standard of living" is in this context? I get that they might have access to cleaner water, but surely easy access to food prepared for you and having a roof over your head in a snowstorm would sound really appealing to someone without a home. (Maybe I need to know what they use as the definition of "homeless"...)

blakesterz 11y ago
" Material standard of living can be seen in the increase of real incomes that would increase the purchasing power of consumers, and is characterized by the ability to consume goods and services. Non-material standard of living is more qualitative, and refers to the improvements in quality of life and the environment." So (assuming that's the same definition they used) yeah, I guess the material standard of living is higher. Seems like that's ignoring quite a bit to sound really optimistic though.
- neogodless 11y ago
  Well then, to be fair, they are not defining "homeless" as someone without an income. That's just my poor assumption. With that assumption, I have a hard time seeing how material standards do anything for someone without a home or income :)
- FilterSweep 11y ago
  I understand they are trying to make a distinction between "relative to others" vs. "by absolute measures," and how we are prone to thinking only in terms of the former, but I'd still argue they are indeed ignoring quite a bit. Using our exponential increases in GDP as a measure of comparison seems a bit irrelevant.
- nitrogen 11y ago
  Both of those (material and environmental) fail to encompass fully other important aspects of a monarch's life, like power and sovereignty/independence, things which modern homeless certainly lack.

blakesterz 11y ago

>>But sunshine after sunshine is correlated with nothing. >> Because if every day was warm and sunny, you would get use to it. That seems really really wrong. I see they cite studies but it just finally got warm and sunny here after a long cold winter and it feels, well, happy :-) Maybe, just maybe, if it was sunny all the time I'd get used to it. But some days wouldn't be sunny, or I'd travel someplace with no sun, or people would visit and say how awesome the weather is... I dunno, I'd be reminded all the time how awesome it is. Or I'd complain because there's no rain and everything is dry and dead and we're running out of water... damn hedonic treadmill.

anon4 11y ago
Lousy weather after lousy weather is correlated with an increase in suicides (look at the statistics for Norway). So he is right, in a way. The same way that breathing clean air and drinking clean water isn't correlated with anything.
RangerScience 11y ago
I live in LA. The last time I noticed myself wanting a change in the weather was a rare day when it was overcast AND I was bored. I realized that it wasn't that I wanted more interesting weather, it was that I was bored, and interesting weather is interesting. Most days I have at least one moment where I love the weather.
outworlder 11y ago
It's not wrong. I've lived very close to the equator for a couple of decades. I never had to care about weather forecasts at all, because I alway knew what the weather would be like: 30 degrees celsius (86F), +/- a couple of degrees. Sunny. Too hot under direct sunlight, but completely fine under a tree shade even at noon. If anything, you get fed up with the single season and will welcome rainy days. There is this mountain nearby that was hugely popular because it was a few degrees colder. So I guess even nice beaches under perfect weather get boring, given enough time.
sliverstorm 11y ago
Where I live, everyone celebrates the start of winter (because they're tired of summer), and then then start of summer (because they're tired of winter). My favorite part of winter is, a warm fire literally never feels better than when it's freezing outside.

leecarraher 11y ago

preaching to the choir. happiness is the derivative of circumstance thus ultimately unachievable. Unless you can sustain exponential growth in your current circumstance. Option two, hop on a sinusoid, and sometimes you will be happy and sometimes you wont.

titzer 11y ago
I don't agree. We don't really seem to notice the happiest times until later reflection, and most of my own I find there was stasis and mostly, a certain unconscious contentment. Once it becomes conscious it falls apart.
Disruptive_Dave 11y ago
or learn to detach your "happiness" from outside circumstances and stimuli.

maldusiecle 11y ago

This is such a terrible argument, even by its own data. For instance: "The good-looking are on average 7% happier than the bad-looking." ...from which it draws the conclusion that being beautiful doesn't make much of a difference. But 7% doesn't seem like a small difference at all. Spending hundreds of hours for a 7% improvement doesn't seem like such a terrible deal to me. Of course it's a bad deal if that's time you're taking from other things that make you happy. But exercise, for instance, has the benefit of improving your health and creating happiness in its own right. Likewise the fact that 30% of unemployed feel 10% less happy years after becoming employed again. A 10% reduction in happiness doesn't seem minor at all. I guess if you have some absurd expectation, like some notion that a simple intervention will make you twice as happy, you'll be disappointed by the effects of all these various things. But a lot of these changes are pretty substantial, and they're not even taking into account things that I would expect to really affect happiness--professional accomplishment, one's love life, etc. People are complicated, happiness is complicated, and of course no single thing is going to instantly grant you contentment. That's no reason not to work for small improvements; the small improvements add up. And I think this kind of fatalism is really pernicious, akin to writing arguments that suicide is a good idea or that heroin actually isn't very dangerous. Most people are sensible enough to dismiss them, but others develop this feeling of learned helplessness which really harms them. The authors arguing this are always hypocrites; they know that they'd be unhappy living on the street, that's why they keep going to work every day. But they're perfectly happy to confuse and harm others with their disingenuous rhetoric.

hashkb 11y ago
Aren't you ignoring the alternatives which the author suggests have significantly better ROI?
- tgb 11y ago
  Sorry I just skimmed the article and liked it but didn't really see any alternatives except for a gratitude journal. What else does the author suggest? Gratitude journals appear to be his shtick.
- maldusiecle 11y ago

0xdeadbeefbabe 11y ago

> how else would we have taken over the whole world? No other reason than adaptability, eh? Give me a break.

brianlweiner 11y ago

Studies have cast doubt on whether Subjective Well-Being (SWB) levels actually return to normal after significant life events. [1] [2] So a core element of this post may not even be an actual phenomenon. [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17469954 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17469954 [2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3289759/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3289759/

tedks 11y ago
Your first link is paywalled, but the second study hardly seems to "cast doubt" as you say. While we're taught to think about science in terms of "one experiment can disprove a whole theory!", the actual probability of getting an experiment wrong is much higher than the probability of a very established theory predicting an opposing effect to what's actually the case.
- abandonliberty 11y ago
  There are many supposed theories that survive for decades with little scientific support. Such as the RICE treatment for illnesses, which has finally been denounced by its creator. [1] http://www.drmirkin.com/fitness/why-ice-delays-recovery.html http://www.drmirkin.com/fitness/why-ice-delays-recovery.html The pressure to publish new results and the low attention given to validation experiments drives a lot of unreliable outcomes.
stevoski 11y ago
> Studies have cast doubt on whether Subjective Well-Being (SWB) levels actually return to normal after significant life events. I had heard (in a TED talk I think) that humans typically need only three months or so to get back to "feeling normal" after a terrible life event. Then I had my one terrible life event (widowed two days after marriage). Boy was that TED talk wrong! The next few years were a desolate wasteland.
- IkmoIkmo 11y ago
  Man I can't even imagine, all the best to you.

banku_brougham 11y ago

>The material standard of living of a homeless person in modern-day Manhattan is several dozens of times higher than the wealthiest of kings ten thousand years ago. When your analysis leads you to a conclusion that is obviously false, it is time to reconsider some of your steps along the way.

banku_brougham 11y ago
update: there seems to be disagreement, but no comments. My assertion is that the manhattanite homeless the author references are in the running against Eqyptian pharaohs, and I dispute the quoted claim as obviously false.

return0 11y ago

It's not a treadmill, it's a ladder, even if it's a small step at a time. I bet people will be less happy if they follow the advice and stop seeking more happiness.

tpeo 11y ago

I've got impression that the author has somehow conflated adaptation to pleasure and monotonicity. Adaptation doesn't imply that people will always want more stuff, monotonicity [0] does. What adaptation implies is that all gains in subjective happiness are short-term gains. Hence the "treadmill" image: though striving forward, people go nowhere. Maybe I've got the wrong impression. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotone_preferences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotone_preferences

anotherhacker 11y ago

The author is flat out wrong. The Hedonic Treadmill has been disproven. Moreover, the author seems to be conflating the concept of the treadmill, with adaptation. The former denotes the subject returns to the original state. The latter recognizes that while we become accustomed to new things, we still improve in happiness. The author is also misquoting, or misunderstanding, Kahneman. Kahneman isn't talking at all about the treadmill. He's talking about what he called the "Focusing Illusion"-- a fancy way of saying "the grass is always greener on the other side..." Relevant links: "Beyond the Hedonic Treadmill: Revising the Adaptation Theory of Well-Being" http://www.factorhappiness.at/downloads/quellen/S9_Diener.pdf http://www.factorhappiness.at/downloads/quellen/S9_Diener.pd... Kahneman tried to explain the hedonic treadmill via with his own aspiration treadmill. He claims that he not only failed, but the data were opposite to his hypothesis. https://www.edge.org/response-detail/10056 https://www.edge.org/response-detail/10056 Kahneman's paper where that OP misquotes Kahneman from: http://psiexp.ss.uci.edu/research/teaching/Schkade_Kahneman_1998.pdf http://psiexp.ss.uci.edu/research/teaching/Schkade_Kahneman_...

Simp 11y ago
>'Kahneman tried to explain the hedonic treadmill via with his own aspiration treadmill. He claims that he not only failed, but the data were opposite to his hypothesis.' https://www.edge.org/response-detail/10056 https://www.edge.org/response-detail/10056 Uh... what that Edge article you are linking shows is that 'experienced happiness' which he thought would be a better measurement of happiness than life satisfaction is even more immune to your life circumstances: >"This was the first of many such findings: income, marital status and education all influence experienced happiness less than satisfaction, and we could show that the difference is not a statistical artifact. " This only strengthens the OP's opinion... He does tell us at the end of the article that GDP correlates with the happiness levels of countries. But that doesn't really detract from the OP's reasoning. (Who knows if that's even causative, instability & war could cause both GDP & happiness to drop.) Even the study you are linking suggests revisions, and is far from 'disproving' the hedonic treadmill theory.
- kbenson 11y ago

unit91 11y ago

What strikes me about the article is that a gratitude journal is recommended because of its effect, with no real discussion of the cause of the increased happiness. What could possibly explain a strong, common desire regardless of life-circumstances to thank an external source for the good things in our lives? If we're merely products of genetic mutation, this seems like a very bizarre psychological phenomenon.

ASpring 11y ago
Reflecting on things that made you happy in the past increases your current mood. I actually find that pretty intuitive.
aethos 11y ago
It's not so much thanking an external source, but just appreciating good things that happen. Try it!

jonbarker 11y ago

The Hedonic Treadmill may be a phenomenon but it can be rendered irrelevant to your decision making process with a couple simple guiding principles which many people actually do in practice (some don't but it is an overgeneralization to say everyone does this so don't try to make more money). Principle 1: All Raises Go to Savings (invest those in whatever suits your risk tolerance). Principle 2: Begin With The End In Mind. The end of course is the end of working life (free to do more work of course if you so choose beyond a certain point). If you want to be financially independent at age 50 plus or minus 10 years you need a high net worth, so ensure that these savings habits result in a high net worth (definitions of high net worth of course vary). Kind of tired of hearing about the hedonic treadmill at this point.

joe_the_user 11y ago

I've read the claim over the years that plastic surgery actually defies the usual reasoning of the hedonic treadmill. Those having plastic surgery tend to stay more-happy over an indefinite period of time. This is the best survey I could google-up; https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hollywood-phd/201403/does-plastic-surgery-improve-emotional-well-being https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hollywood-phd/201403/do...

npsimons 11y ago

The claim that losing weight won't make someone happier always surprises me. To be sure, there are those who have deep seated issues that won't be solved by losing weight, or for those who lose a little it won't make a big difference, but I can state with confidence the fact that I am happier and my quality of life is better for having lost weight. Just getting better sleep (and not needing a CPAP to do it) has made a world of difference for me. Anecdotal, I know, but still.

metaphorm 11y ago
I think that point needed to be deconstructed (by the author of the article) in a lot more detail. It strikes me as both obviously true in many ways but also obviously false in many other ways. It is obviously true that losing weight won't make you feel any better about being stuck in a shitty marriage, or a job you hate, or being estranged from your parents, or any number of other things that can cause deep-seated unhappiness. It is also obviously true that losing weight will make you feel better physically, and probably result in you being treated better by most of the people you interact with face-to-face on a daily basis. Being treated better by people definitely makes me feel happier. On that note, I should really go to the gym more often.
- daodedickinson 11y ago
  It's common, though, for people to feel guilty about not working out enough even if they do it quite a bit (perhaps even more likely). That can lead to less happiness. The endorphins are great... but I feel there is still a hedonic treadmill effect there with that.
  - metaphorm 11y ago
    > It's common, though, for people to feel guilty about not working out enough even if they do it quite a bit ha, I'll bet. almost anything where there's a notion of "leveling up" or some kind of progress over time can lead to this treadmill feeling. in my case though, I mean, I'm at like once or twice a month at the gym. I'm pretty sure that's just objectively not enough, regardless of whatever treadmill effect is going on there.

darawk 11y ago

In addition to the other criticisms in the comments, > The material standard of living of a homeless person in modern-day Manhattan is several dozens of times higher than the wealthiest of kings ten thousand years ago. That statement is pretty clearly silly and false.

SonicSoul 11y ago

The hundreds of hours of dieting, going to the gym, and putting on make-up (or flexing, for men) increase happiness by a colossal 7%. nope nope nope exercising does much more than make you look jacked at the club. It makes your brain release endorphins for immediate mood improvement, and also improves thinking, sleep, and overall well being. The happiest I've felt in my life is when exercising regularly. Actually exercising and diet are probably _the most_ influential on our chemistry which in turn influences mood and happiness. also not sure why all these things were lumped in together and how they could possibly calculate the 7% increase considering there is such a wide range of diets and exercise plans. Seems hyperbolic

and-can 11y ago
And even then, is 7% supposed to be a little or a lot? They say "hundreds of hours of dieting & exercising" but really that only affects an hour a day, maybe? I'd say that if I could spend 1 hour a day and get a 7% gain in happiness, it probably is worth it. And perhaps there are other activities that require 1 hour that result in a 7% increase. Say: reading, socializing, writing. Then you've got 4 hours a day and get a 1.07^4 = 1.31 or 31% increase in happiness. Isn't that GOOD? I'd say that's AWESOME.
- metaphorm 11y ago
  I find that actual metric here to be the most dubious part of the whole argument. I can easily understand making qualitative claims about happiness and maybe even some of the arguments presented by the author are good ones, on a qualitative basis. But trying to quantify this is just so bogus. What do they think they're even measuring? They're just making statistical claims about questionaire results as far as I can tell. The author doesn't qualify that nearly enough. He is treating this like there's some kind of discrete quanta of happiness. "My current happy level is 7.453 kiloJoys" or something like that. Its just weird.
- SonicSoul 11y ago
  well the article seems to imply that 7% is low: "by the colossal 7%" and there is this: But that same survey found that those with a low level of education were 47% more likely to be the happiest than those with a high level of education.13 so low level of education makes almost 7x more impact than diet + exercising combined. something is seriously wrong with this happiness calculus

ajcarpy2005 11y ago

This is why esperiences almost always make us happier than stuff because it usually has us more involved and it lasts longer.

virgil_disgr4ce 11y ago

"I’m so glad I’m a man. Not only do I not have to give birth, I don’t have to have periods , or change any as many diapers." WTF?? Seriously? I mean, I assume he's trying to be funny, but really?

dota_fanatic 11y ago
Didn't you know? Women's hands are more capable of changing diapers due to physiologic differences. /s No but really it'd be foolish for a man to set aside his endeavors and aspirations and engage in childcare duties like changing diapers; women actually have extra hours built into their day to take care of shit work so in the end it's equal. /s Seriously though, what a repulsive statement (the quote).

karlb 11y ago

The scientific research into happiness is summarised in the book “The How of Happiness.” And the whole book is precised in the following eight-minute rap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyryRRYty4Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyryRRYty4Y (I find the visuals distracting and unhelpful.)

eggman 11y ago

twenty kilograms of high-grade worthless, without devoting my life to writing the anti-statement: "even a treadmill can benefit a person, it is the perspective of the person on the treadmill that matters" - you sweat, you win, no sweat, you lose.

allisthemoist 11y ago

"The top 1% own 48% of global wealth, but even they aren’t happy. A survey by Boston College of people with an average net worth of $78m found that they too were assailed by anxiety, dissatisfaction and loneliness. Many of them reported feeling financially insecure: to reach safe ground, they believed, they would need, on average, about 25% more money. (And if they got it? They’d doubtless need another 25%). One respondent said he wouldn’t get there until he had $1bn in the bank." [0] [0] http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/14/age-of-loneliness-killing-us http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/14/age-of-...

EricDeb 11y ago

I'd be curious to see how chronic pain fits into the equation.. I developed a fairly severe neuralgia and it dropped my quality of life about 3 or 4 points on a 1-10 scale.