Many people’s life paths are characterized by working hard in order to progress in their careers, grow in wealth and prestige, and get a bigger house and a better standard of living and yet their subjective happiness will often remain the same despite these improvements. The “treadmill” description refers to the idea of having to keep moving just to stay in the same place. The same Greek word gives us “hedonism”, the philosophy or lifestyle of pursuing pleasure. “Hedonic” refers to pleasure or happiness (from the Greek hedone, “pleasure”).
Similarly, people who suffer debilitating accidents go through a period of grieving, but then often return to their original levels. However, research shows that lottery winners usually experience a temporary boost in happiness and then revert to their original happiness levels. This is unintuitive, because people tend to think that winning the lottery would make them permanently happier, or becoming severely disabled would make them permanently more miserable. The hedonic treadmill refers to the idea that people’s subjective happiness levels stay around a given set point throughout their life, and are not permanently affected by major positive or negative life events.
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