These revisions offer hope for psychologists and policymakers who aim to decrease human misery and increase happiness. Finally, individuals differ in their adaptation to events, with some individuals changing their set point and others not changing in reaction to some external event. Fourth, and perhaps most important, well-being set points can change under some conditions. Third, a single person may have multiple happiness set points: Different components of well-being such as pleasant emotions, unpleasant emotions, and life satisfaction can move in different directions. Second, people have different set points, which are partly dependent on their temperaments. First, individuals’ set points are not hedonically neutral. The recent empirical work outlined here indicates that 5 important revisions to the treadmill model are needed.
The theory, which has gained widespread acceptance in recent years, implies that individual and societal efforts to increase happiness are doomed to failure. According to the hedonic treadmill model, good and bad events temporarily affect happiness, but people quickly adapt back to hedonic neutrality.
