Given that hedonic adaptation generally demonstrates that a person’s long-term happiness is not significantly affected by otherwise impacting events, positive psychology has concerned itself with the discovery of things that can lead to lasting changes in happiness levels. The hedonic (or happiness) set point has gained interest throughout the field of positive psychology where it has been developed and revised further. Augustine, cited in Robert Burton’s 1621 Anatomy of Melancholy: “A true saying it is, Desire hath no rest, is infinite in itself, endless, and as one calls it, a perpetual rack, or horse-mill.” The concept dates back centuries, to such writers as St. During the late 1990s, the concept was modified by Michael Eysenck, a British psychologist, to become the current “hedonic treadmill theory” which compares the pursuit of happiness to a person on a treadmill, who has to keep walking just to stay in the same place. Brickman and Campbell coined the term in their essay “Hedonic Relativism and Planning the Good Society” (1971). According to this theory, as a person makes more money, expectations and desires rise in tandem, which results in no permanent gain in happiness. The hedonic treadmill, also known as hedonic adaptation, is the observed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes.
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