Adaptation to life events and the resulting conclusion is that happiness is a process rather than a place.
The data and methods used from the Journal of Epidemiology suggest that in contrast to living states such as ‘being married’, it is more events such as ‘starting a new relationship’ that have the highest positive effect on happiness. This is closely followed by ‘employment-related gains’ (in contrast to employment status). Also, women who become pregnant on average report higher than average levels of subjective happiness (in contrast to ‘being a parent’). Other events that appear to be associated with happiness according to our analysis include ‘personal education-related events’ (e.g. starting a new course, graduating from University, passing exams) and ‘finance/house related events’ (e.g. buying a new house). On the other hand, the event that has the highest negative impact upon happiness according to our analysis is ‘the end of my relationship’ closely followed by ‘death of a parent’. Adverse health events pertaining to the parents of the respondents also have a high negative coefficient and so does an employment-related loss.
The measurement of something as intangible as subjective well-being (SWB) is not without difficulties. Schwarz & Stack (1999) have shown, for example, that temporary mood states can influence a participant’s response to SWB measures. However others have shown that temporary moods have only a marginal effect on SWB responses when compared to longer-term influences (Eid & Diener,1999). It has also been shown the long-term changes to an individuals circumstances can affect levels of SWB (countering the suggestion that SWB is biologically determined). Brickman, Coates & Janoff-Bulman (1978) showed that lottery winners were significantly happier than controls, and controls were happier than people who had recently become paraplegics (although the effect was insufficient to reject the null hypothesis due to a small sample size). As such it has been shown that temporary mood states have only a marginal effect on SWB, whilst long term changes and situational factors have a significant effect on SWB.
In 1978, a team of psychologists from Northwestern University and the University of Massachusetts published Journal of Personality and Social Psychology study (Vol. 35, No. 8, pages 917–927) that found lottery winners were not significantly happier than control-group participants and that patients with spinal-cord injuries "did not appear nearly as unhappy as might be expected." Ever since then, many in psychological and social science circles have taken for granted that people return to a relatively stable "happiness set point," even after seemingly life-changing events.
Hedonic adaptation refers to the process by which individuals return to baseline levels of happiness following a change in life circumstances. Dominant models of subjective well-being (SWB) suggest that people can adapt to almost any life event and that happiness levels fluctuate around a biologically determined set point that rarely changes. Recent evidence from large-scale panel studies challenges aspects of this conclusion. Although inborn factors certainly matter and some adaptation does occur, events such as divorce, death of a spouse, unemployment, and disability are associated with lasting changes in SWB. These recent studies also show that there are considerable individual differences in the extent to which people adapt. Thus, happiness levels do change, and adaptation is not inevitable.
References:
+ Ed Diener. (2004). The Nonobvious Social Psychology of Happiness. Retrieved from:
http://www.psych.uiuc.edu/~ediener/hottopic/nonobvious.htm
+ Ballas, B., Dorling, D. (2007). Measuring the effects of major events on happiness. Journal of Epidemiology. Retrieved from:
http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/co...ract/36/6/1244
+ White, A. (2007). A Global Projection of Subjective Well-being: A Challenge. Retrieved from
http://www.le.ac.uk/users/aw57/world/sample.html
+ American Psychological Assocation; Online. (2007) Is our happiness set in stone? Retrieved from
http://www.apa.org/monitor/dec07/happiness.html
+ Lucas, R. (2007) Adaptation and the Set-Point Model of Subjective Well-Being: Does Happiness Change After Major Life Events?. Current Directions in Psychological Science. Retrieved from
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi...urnalCode=cdir
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