Involves

Word

Hedonic treadmill

hih-DAH-nik TRED-mil · noun

The tendency of people to return to a roughly stable baseline level of happiness despite major positive or negative life changes

Examples

  • The raise felt enormous for a month, then normal: the hedonic treadmill, right on time.

  • Knowing about the hedonic treadmill, he stopped assuming the next purchase would finally make him content.

Origin

Coined as “hedonic adaptation” by psychologists Philip Brickman and Donald Campbell in 1971, who used the treadmill image: to keep happiness rising, conditions would have to keep improving just to stay in the same subjective place. “Hedonic” is from the Greek hēdonē, “pleasure.”

How it connects

The name for the machine you are already on, where more effort keeps you at the same level of happiness.

This word appeared in Happiness resets, the Involves connection for July 25, 2026, which asked: Why does the thing you were sure would make you happy stop working?

Check yourself

What does the hedonic treadmill describe?

The tendency to return to a stable baseline of happiness after good or bad events.. Right. Highs and lows fade; you drift back toward your personal set point, like walking on a treadmill and staying put.

What the sources establish

  • Brickman and Campbell introduced the concept of hedonic adaptation (the hedonic treadmill) in 1971.

Sources