PSYC 3302 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Hedonic Treadmill, Paraplegia
10 Apr 2016
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Why (how) does religion contribute to swb? (mediators) social support, meaning and purpose in life, and respect. Idea of adaping over ime e. g. smell; when you irst smell it it is great, but ater a while it doesn"t smell as strong to you. Idea is that pleasure or happiness might work the same way. Brickman, coates and janof-bulman (1978) study of the hedonic treadmill. Recruited loto winners, controls, and accident vicims (became paraplegic). Results: in present, loto winners were slightly happier than control group, but signiicantly higher than the vicim group. For raings of future happiness, all groups had similar means i. e. all equally expected to be happy in the future (vicims rated slightly more happiness in future, but not signiicant). This study gets interpreted as supporing the hedonic treadmill. In terms of mundane pleasure, loto winners get slightly less happiness from everyday pleasures. Study may contradict some intuiions e. g. that we may have expected bigger diferences.
