Short answer: the hedonic treadmill is the tendency for happiness to drift back toward a baseline after things get better or worse. The raise, the house or the personal best feels great for a while, and then it is normal. Psychologists Philip Brickman and Donald Campbell named it in 1971. It matters for balance because it hits hardest in exactly the areas ambitious people tend to max out.
Endurance athletes know a version of this in their bodies. The pace that was a stretch in spring is an easy run by autumn. Adaptation is the point of training. In the rest of your life, the same mechanism means that the area you keep pushing gives you a smaller return every year.
What did the original studies find?
Brickman and Campbell's 1971 essay, "Hedonic relativism and planning the good society", argued that people judge their situation against their recent experience, so improvements raise the bar they are judged against. Seven years later, Brickman, Dan Coates and Ronnie Janoff-Bulman published the study everyone cites: lottery winners were not significantly happier than a comparison group and took less pleasure in ordinary things. People paralysed in accidents were less happy than the comparison group, but by less than most people would predict.
What did later research correct?
Adaptation is not complete. Ed Diener, Richard Lucas and Christie Napa Scollon's 2006 review, "Beyond the hedonic treadmill", found that set points are not neutral, that they differ between people, and that they can move. Long-term panel data shows unemployment, disability and divorce lowering wellbeing for years.
Money keeps helping, more slowly. A widely reported 2010 study by Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton found day-to-day emotional wellbeing levelling off around $75,000 a year. In 2023 Kahneman worked with Matthew Killingsworth, who had found the opposite, and Barbara Mellers to settle it. For most people happiness kept rising with income. The plateau held only for the least happy group.
The lottery result is weaker than its reputation. Larger later studies of lottery winners found lasting gains in life satisfaction. The treadmill slows gains down. It does not cancel them.
What are everyday examples of the hedonic treadmill?
- Income: each raise resets what feels like enough.
- Possessions: the new car is exciting for weeks and is just your car after a few months.
- Performance: a personal best becomes the new baseline, and matching it starts to feel like a bad day.
- Status: a promotion changes who you compare yourself to, not how you feel about where you stand.
Why is it an argument for balance?
Adaptation is not equally strong everywhere. It is fastest for income and things, and slower for close relationships, health, varied experiences and meaningful work. The Harvard Study of Adult Development, which has followed the same people since 1938, found the quality of relationships to be the strongest predictor of a good old age. That is the area people with demanding careers tend to let go first.
So the arithmetic of a maxed life is bad. The area you keep pushing is usually the one that adapts fastest, so each gain buys less. The areas you are neglecting adapt slowly in both directions, so their decline keeps costing you. Combine that with Goodhart's law, where the number you chase stops measuring what you wanted, and you have most of the case for treating balance as a floor under every area.
How do you get off the treadmill?
- Move effort to slow-adapting areas. The next hour does more in a friendship, in sleep, or on a trip with someone you love than in the area that is already at 9.
- Vary, don't repeat. Adaptation feeds on sameness. New routes, new people and new skills reset it in a way that more of the same does not.
- Measure the whole wheel. A monthly Wheel of Life score shows which area you have stopped noticing before it shows up some other way.
- Choose the season. Push one area hard on purpose, for a defined period, as the Four Burners Theory suggests, then turn the heat back down.
Sources
- P. Brickman and D. T. Campbell, "Hedonic relativism and planning the good society", in Adaptation-Level Theory, 1971.
- P. Brickman, D. Coates and R. Janoff-Bulman, "Lottery winners and accident victims: Is happiness relative?", Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1978.
- E. Diener, R. E. Lucas and C. N. Scollon, "Beyond the hedonic treadmill", American Psychologist, 2006.
- D. Kahneman and A. Deaton, "High income improves evaluation of life but not emotional well-being", PNAS, 2010.
- M. A. Killingsworth, D. Kahneman and B. Mellers, "Income and emotional well-being: A conflict resolved", PNAS, 2023.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the hedonic treadmill?
It is the tendency to return to roughly the same level of happiness after something good or bad happens. A raise, a new car or a new house feels great for a while, then becomes the new normal, so you need the next one to feel the same lift.
Is hedonic adaptation the same as the hedonic treadmill?
Yes, mostly. Hedonic adaptation is the psychological process. The hedonic treadmill is the image Brickman and Campbell used in 1971 for its effect: you keep running toward more and stay in the same place.
Are lottery winners really not happier?
In the 1978 study by Brickman, Coates and Janoff-Bulman, lottery winners were not significantly happier than a comparison group and took less pleasure in everyday activities. It was a small study. Larger later studies of lottery winners found more lasting gains in life satisfaction, so the finding is weaker than its reputation.
Does money buy happiness?
Up to a point and then more slowly, but it keeps helping for most people. A 2023 study by Killingsworth, Kahneman and Mellers found happiness rising with income well past $100,000 for most people, with a plateau only among the least happy group. What adaptation changes is how much each extra step buys.
How do you get off the hedonic treadmill?
Spend effort where adaptation is weakest: relationships, health, experiences and work that has meaning for you, rather than another step up in income or possessions. Vary what you enjoy instead of repeating it, and keep a regular check, such as a Wheel of Life score, so the areas you have stopped noticing do not slide.
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