The Pursuit of Happiness: The Hedonic Treadmill

The hedonic treadmill, also known as hedonic adaptation, is the observed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes.[1] According to this theory, as a person makes more money, expectations and desires rise in tandem, which results in no permanent gain in happiness. Philip Brickman and Donald T. Campbell coined the term in their essay "Hedonic Relativism and Planning the Good Society" (1971).[2] The hedonic treadmill viewpoint suggests that wealth does not increase the level of happiness.[3] Subjective well-being might be largely determined by genetics; that is, happiness may be a heritable trait.[4]
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Happiness set point

The concept of the happiness set point (proposed by Sonja Lyubomirsky[22]) can be applied in clinical psychology to help patients return to their hedonic set point when negative events happen. Determining when someone is mentally distant from their happiness set point and what events trigger those changes can be extremely helpful in treating conditions such as depression. When a change occurs, clinical psychologists work with patients to recover from the depressive spell and return to their hedonic set point more quickly. Because acts of kindness often promote long-term well-being, one treatment method is to provide patients with different altruistic activities that can help a person raise his or her hedonic set point.[23][24] This can in turn be helpful in reducing reckless habits in the pursuit of well-being.[25] Further, helping patients understand that long-term happiness is relatively stable throughout one's life can help to ease anxiety surrounding impactful events.

I have read and thought and written so much about the pursuit of happiness, America's soul I term it, that I would not have thought it reasonably possible for me to have missed this theory, which has been around since 1971. But miss it I did until it was mentioned casually in the "Where are we making progress" article. Cut me down and call me shorty/