Hedonic treadmill and conspicuous consumption

Social norms and the efforts of businesses to persuade us that we need or want certain products, which can contribute to unnecessary aspirational consumption, like buying things to look cool or for people to think you are successful.   The problem with sensual pleasures is something called the Hedonic Treadmill. It’s called this because it’s similar to a treadmill where you have to keep running just to stay in the same place. The high you get from sensual pleasures is produced by dopamine, a brain neurotransmitter associated with addiction. The pleasure you get is fast but does not last long. So you need more and bigger hits to achieve same effect. This occurs with drug addiction, but also occurs with shopping!   If you experience a constant sound, smell or image it eventually disappears from your awareness. We quickly become familiar with, or adapt to, new sources of pleasure. The pleasure lessens and the enjoyment quickly fades as we get the same experience every day.

Michelle McQuaid suggests that practising gratitude consistently, sprinkling a good dose of novelty across one’s well-being approaches, and being clear on why some activities are important even when they became a little boring, are all important to immunise oneself to hendonic adapatation. Most importantly she suggests stopping comparing oneself to others and putting an end to always wanting more heads off adaptation. Sonja Lyubomirsky suggests we should deliberately choose to focus our attention on the positive. If we develop and refine our ‘attitude of gratitude’ we will gain a better perspective on our situation and counter the negative effects of hedonic adaptation. The phrase “hedonic adaptation” was made popular by Shane Frederick and George Loewenstein in chapter 16 of Well-being: the foundations of hedonic psychology.

We are much more resilient than we think we are. We do have a tendency to catastrophise when problems arise, and this makes us less mindful of the resilience we have inside ourselves.

One way to be more aware of ourselves is to gain some perspective. However, Douglas Adams’ Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy character Zaphod Beeblebrox was the only person to ever survive the Total Perspective Vortex. While fiction, this instance helps us to understand that we find it extraordinarily difficult to gain the true measure of ourselves and be happy with our place in the universe.

Source: King’s College Positive Education #6 Hedonic Adaption by Grant McKibbin

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