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Humans have a “hedonic set point” for happiness, which varies between individuals. Materialism has a negative effect on happiness, and consciously trying to be happy can backfire. The concept of happiness has evolved over time.
Humans can only sustain the feeling of happiness for certain periods of time before returning to a baseline state, sometimes called a “hedonic set point.” Different people’s set points are at different levels, with some people naturally having more optimistic or more pessimistic set points. Repeated seizures can depress people’s natural set points, but people generally return to the same set point even after experiencing extreme hardship or something extremely good.
More on happiness:
The idea of what happiness actually is has changed drastically over the years. For example, in Homeric literature, the idea of happiness was pure luck. In the classical age it was virtue, and during the Enlightenment it was pleasure.
Although personal satisfaction increases slightly as income increases, materialism has a very depressing effect on happiness. In studies, people who agree with statements like “I buy things only because I want them” tend to be more paranoid, depressed, narcissistic, and dissatisfied with life than others.
Consciously trying to be happy tends to backfire. A study published in Perspectives on Psychological Science had participants read an article with tips on how to be happier, then follow one of the tips to see if it worked. People who followed the suggestions felt more depressed afterwards because they focused too much on improving their mood rather than letting it happen naturally, and they felt let down when they didn’t feel as happy as they expected to feel. .
