Hedonic treadmill

Under hedonistic treadmill, or hedonic adaptation, refers to the tendency of people to return to a relatively stable level of happiness or Happiness relatively quickly after a strong positive or negative life event. It is object of study in both the science of happiness, positive psychology, as well as in parts of economics, such as behavioral economics. It is a kind of set -point theory of happiness.

The term was used in the essay Hedonic Relativism and Planning the Good Society of Brickmann and Campbell, among others, in 1971. During the 1990s, the concept was modified by the British psychologist Michael Eysenck to the well-known today hedonic treadmill theory, which compares the pursuit of happiness with a treadmill: you work it all the time and yet remains in the same place.

The hedonic treadmill trying to explain, among other things, why more wealth and more income people are not in the expected way makes happier ( Easterlin Paradox ).

An even earlier work on adaptation level and on the "subjective bias" found in Helson ( 1898-1977 ).