You enjoyed the new status and any associated perks. Think back to a time you got a promotion or similar personal accolade you likely felt pleased that your hard work had paid off. As such, by design, when we change things up it often can be a lot of fun. We were not designed to feel good doing the same thing all the time because (before modern advances) pleasure was meant to provide a biological incentive for us to engage in a variety of positive behaviors (procreation to keep our species alive, eating calorie-dense foods in case of famine, etc.). Most of us do likely have a happiness set-point, but variable hedonics can thwart our hedonic adaptation, disrupting this tendency that brings us back to our happiness set-point.
This is because variability disrupts hedonic adaptation, the brain’s tendency to “set” our enjoyment level.
If we know from research that unfluctuating experience can make life less pleasurable, what can be done? At this point, it should come as no surprise that adding some variability to your life can be a helpful strategy. Sonja Lyubomirsky-a leading expert on this topic-discussing the subject at the bottom of this post.) (Although outside the scope of this post, if you are curious about the science grounding this assertion I’ve linked a video from Dr. Although a significant degree of our happiness may indeed be pre-determined, there is purportedly a significant proportion we can directly influence. Whatever we experience, we shortly return to our familiar happiness state because hedonic adaptation usually kicks in sooner or later. We have difficulty pushing our boundary of happiness radically up (or down, for that matter). This is why psychologists sometimes call set-point theory hedonic adaptation or the hedonic treadmill-because there appears to be in each of us a so-called inborn degree of happiness, a set-point around which we fluctuate but generally return.
Since we are so good at adapting quickly to change, gains we make regarding happiness are usually short-lived. Set-point theory is the tendency we have as humans to enjoy experiences less when these experiences become routine, habitual, or unfluctuating. To explain what variable hedonics is, let’s start with a fundamental concept in positive psychology called the set-point theory of happiness (sometimes referred to as the hedonic treadmill or hedonic adaption). In short, variable hedonics is a construct to encompass the corpus of science that indicates that variability is one of the primary levers we can play with to live happier lives. In my work researching the science of fun, I have coined a new term: variable hedonics.
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