— Main Menu — 16 NOV 2014 2 COMMENTS The Hedonic Treadmill: Happiness Throughout a Lifetime The Hedonic Treadmill (also known as hedonic adaptation) is a theory that proposes that people stay at about the same level of happiness, regardless of what...
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— Main Menu — 16 NOV 2014 2 COMMENTS The Hedonic Treadmill: Happiness Throughout a Lifetime The Hedonic Treadmill (also known as hedonic adaptation) is a theory that proposes that people stay at about the same level of happiness, regardless of what happens to them. Rousseau beautifully explains hedonic adaptation in his second discourse with the following words: “Since these conveniences by becoming habitual had almost entirely ceased to be enjoyable, and at the same time degenerated into true needs, it became much more cruel to be deprived of them than to possess them was sweet, and men were unhappy to lose them without being happy to possess them.” – Jean Jacques Rousseau in his Discourse on Inequality (published in 1754) Before we dive further into the psychological concept of the hedonic treadmill, let’s look at the following quote from Aristotle, which beautifully supplements Rousseau’s: “We should consider what is natural not in things which are depraved but in
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