Origins
Brickman and Campbell's 1971 idea of a hedonic treadmill suggested people adjust to their circumstances, so better conditions bring no lasting gain. Headey and Wearing's dynamic equilibrium model tied the baseline to stable personality. Lykken and Tellegen's twin study suggested a large genetic contribution to the stable part of wellbeing.
Evidence for change
Longitudinal research complicated the picture. Lucas and colleagues, following people through changes in marital status, found substantial individual variation in reactions and in the extent of adaptation. Diener, Lucas, and Scollon proposed several revisions to the treadmill idea.
- Set points are not hedonically neutral, and most people report positive wellbeing
- People may have different set points for different components of wellbeing
- Happiness can change over time
- Individuals vary in how they adapt
The sustainable happiness debate
Lyubomirsky, Sheldon, and Schkade's sustainable happiness model argued that intentional activities might provide lasting gains, though the widely repeated claim that genes, circumstances, and activities account for fixed percentages of happiness has been criticized as an unsound interpretation of variance data. Heritability describes differences between people in a population and does not set a limit for any individual. Unemployment and disability have sometimes been followed by incomplete recovery. Baselines seem to be stable tendencies, not fixed points.
Further reading
- Headey, B., & Wearing, A. (1989). Personality, life events, and subjective well-being: Toward a dynamic equilibrium model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57(4).
- Lucas, R. E., Clark, A. E., Georgellis, Y., & Diener, E. (2003). Reexamining adaptation and the set point model of happiness: Reactions to changes in marital status. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(3).
- Lyubomirsky, S., Sheldon, K. M., & Schkade, D. (2005). Pursuing happiness: The architecture of sustainable change. Review of General Psychology, 9(2).