Few psychological results are as well-grounded as hedonic adaptation. Human beings often have strong short-run reactions to even mild stimuli. An ice cream cone can put a huge grin on our faces. Missing a red light can make us scream with rage. In the long-run, however, human beings’ emotional reactions to even extreme stimuli soften to a shocking degree. If you won millions in the lottery, the thrill would soon fade. If your girlfriend dumped you, the pain of that would soon fade, too. Hedonic adaptation isn’t perfect, but it is a mighty psychological force.
I’m weird in many ways, but as far as I can tell, my hedonic adaptation is quite normal. Indeed, my only visible abnormality is self-awareness. I know that I’m going to hedonically adapt to most good and bad life events, so I place little stock in life events. And I get impatient with people who refuse to do the same.
So what? Well, all this leads to an uncomfortable epiphany. Intellectually, I’m convinced that even liberal, democratic societies are deeply unjust. Logically, for example, the analogy between Jim Crow and immigration restrictions seems apt. But psychologically speaking, I can still get used to this injustice. Indeed, I’ve long since done so.
So what politically aggravates me? Change in the wrong direction. Though I do my best to regulate my own emotions, I fall short of perfect Stoicism.
The upshot: Even though my political views are deeply unconservative, the honest truth is that if existing justices and injustices were locked in place for ever, I would personally be happier. When the world stops changing, it’s easy to accept the world as it is.
What does this justify? Nothing, of course. But don’t say that I only feel this way because my life is fine. Plenty of people with far more than me are filled with rage. Plenty of people with vastly less than me live relaxed, care-free lives. Why? Epicurus elegantly explained it millennia ago: What inspires positive and negative emotion is not so much our situation, as the gap between our situation and our expectations. The lower your standards, the better you’ll feel.
And that is my conservative confession.
READER COMMENTS
Mark Z
Dec 11 2018 at 10:09am
“I know that I’m going to hedonically adapt to most good and bad life events, so I place little stock in life events. And I get impatient with people who refuse to do the same.”
There seems to be some circular reasoning going on here. To the extent that a person is persistently perturbed by life events, they’re not hedonically adapting (or more likely, they’re doing so more slowly). This sounds like someone saying, “I’m aware that people are happy, and I’m annoyed by people who miserably mope around erroneously thinking they’re miserable.” One would have to accept the premise that their misery is due to their unawareness of their own happiness.
Perhaps what you’re saying is that people who clearly do hedonically adapt worry about potential events to an extent that is disproportional to the actual misery they actually suffer from them after the fact? Even then, one might speculate that the worrying is psychological preparation for disaster that reduces the effect of the event itself. Speculation, of course.
RPLong
Dec 11 2018 at 10:30am
If you ever feel moved to do so, I would be very interested in a future blog post about how you talk to your children about hedonic adaptation.
Amy Willis
Dec 11 2018 at 2:30pm
Me, too!
Hazel Meade
Dec 11 2018 at 11:55am
It’s easier to adjust your expectations if they are expectations about how the world should for for other people than yourself. This is more of a problem if the gap is something that personally impacts you, like having the right to hold down a job. For example, I wouldn’t really advise Dreamers to just get used to the fact that they have no legal right to work in the country where they grew up, adjust their expectations, and be happy living in second class limbo working illegally in low-skilled occupations for cash.
Mark Z
Dec 11 2018 at 3:31pm
What’s the alternative to adjusting their expectations? Leaving? Assuming (I think correctly) that there is nothing an individual can do in the face of government action. If the situation will change, it’ll change regardless of whether you do anything. As an individual, you really only have to rational choices: get used to it or move somewhere else. Staying and not getting used to it would just be gratuitous stress.
Hazel Meade
Dec 11 2018 at 3:42pm
Continue to protest and demand equal rights. Work illegally as an act of civil disobedience. Dare the government to come and arrest them to demonstrate the violence and injustice that they live under.
Dylan
Dec 12 2018 at 11:04am
“Some things you must always be unable to bear. Some things you must never stop refusing to bear. Injustice and outrage and dishonor and shame. No matter how young you are or how old you have got. Not for kudos and not for cash: your picture in the paper nor money in the bank either. Just refuse to bear them.”
Mark Z
Dec 12 2018 at 11:58pm
That’s very poetic, and potentially a recipe for a miserable life.
Activism, protest, and political indignation in general are like voting and going to church: If you enjoy the activity itself, have at it; otherwise, there’s little to be gained from it but high blood pressure.
Hazel Meade
Dec 13 2018 at 11:08am
Once again spoken like someone who has never actually had the force of law barring them from exercising their basic rights.
It’s one thing to get indignant about theoretical matters that do not personally affect you. It’s quite another thing if you are personally the subject of the injustice being discussed.
Mark Z
Dec 13 2018 at 10:42pm
Which has no bearing on my point. It is entirely to be expected that people rage against things that are beyond their control, almost everyone does, I do it too. That does make it a good decision, and it doesn’t mean the few people who have the capacity to adapt with equanimity are not happier, which I’d say they probably are.
John Alcorn
Dec 11 2018 at 1:39pm
Bryan,
Might some distinctions be crucial?:
1. You apply the concept, hedonic adaptation, in two spheres: a) (individual) life events and b) (general) injustice in democratic societies. Aren’t hedonic spikes and adaptation mostly local (i.e., about what happens to oneself, family, friends, enemies, colleagues, and so on)?
2. Life events may befall us (fortune); or we may bring about life events (responsibility). Are hedonic spikes and adaptation blind to this distinction?
3. Mustn’t one believe that one will accomplish much, if one is to accomplish anything? I recall reading that depressed people have more accurate expectations than do people who aren’t depressed. Short of epicureanism, perhaps healthy hedonic streams involve optimal gaps between one’s expectations and one’s situation.
J Storrs Hall
Dec 11 2018 at 3:19pm
My dear fellow, it’s elementary. How do you explain the curious case of the dog in the night-time?
But the dog did nothing in the night-time.
Indeed, the dog WANTED nothing in the night-time. So in the morning, he awoke a healthy, satisfied, happy dog.
And that was the curious case!
CZ
Dec 11 2018 at 4:42pm
I am not sure if hedonic adaptation works quite as well when talking about things that manifest repeatedly in different ways as opposed to one-time status changes. For example, if you win the lottery, hedonic adaptation says you’d get used to the one-time thrill of becoming rich, but I imagine you could still use that money to constantly buy yourself new and different experiences that you would not hedonically adapt to. Similarly, I can hedonically adapt to the fact that injustice, but I have never hedonically adapted to constantly seeing new stories of injustice manifesting in different ways.
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