![]() I grew up 25 minutes from Cedar Point (“America’s Rockin’ Roller Coast”), a G-force mecca that periodically unveiled coasters so ludicrous they had to invent new categories for them ( “giga-coaster,” “strata-coaster” ). Fortunately, there is something very close to a Museum of Hedonic Design: Cedar Point Amusement Park in Sandusky, Ohio. That’s why I recently proposed a Museum of Psychological Engineering where people could go to interact with good design and learn about what makes it so good. Planning one big splurge activity during a vacation––a decadent meal, a night in a palatial AirBnB, front-row tickets at a showĭesign is better experienced than explained. Getting free dessert at the end of a meal (I’m still thinking about the surprise pudding the Mermaid Inn gives you) Setpiece escape room experiences, like climbing into a coffin or getting blindfolded and handcuffed (you know, if you like those things) A well-executed peak is the thing you reminisce about years later––not just spending a week at Cabo, but the one morning when you woke up with your partner to watch the sunrise and stood in the sand and smelled the sea and watched an old couple walking on the beach holding hands and imagined yourselves being them one day. ![]() Peaks and finales pair well with recyclers, since we tend to remember the best part and the last part. We can take this rule seriously and try to make the best parts better, the worst parts less bad, and the endings universally good. We tend to judge experiences by their peaks and their ends. Here are five tools for doing exactly that. To beat the treadmill, then, we have to figure out clever ways of resisting adaptation and keeping good feelings fresh. We know the hedonic treadmill is powered by adaptation : good things feel good at first, then they feel less and less good until they just feel neutral. True happiness actually comes from realizing that you cannot get any closer to your destination, and in fact that there’s no destination at all, only a journey. There’s nothing wrong with sweating and straining a little the problem is thinking that you’re going somewhere. We’re all on treadmills, of course, and that’s okay. Other people are running faster just to stay in place, but we are wisely chasing after one more promotion, publication, or piece of praise, and once we catch it, we will feel perfect, unending bliss. ![]() All of us––myself included!––work very hard every day to acquire additional prestige and currency and convenience and comfort, assuming that we'll feel better once we get it. The hypothesis has undergone some fine-tuning over the years––escaping poverty really does make people happier, for example––but the basic premise remains intact.Įverybody, even people who know about the hedonic treadmill, acts as if they aren’t on it. It’s called the hedonic treadmill : chase after happiness and the treadmill speeds up just enough to keep you right where you are. ![]() Psychologists have known for fifty years that people tend to adjust to the good things that happen to them, ending up about as happy as they ever were. Everybody secretly believes they can be the exception to this rule. ![]() Once you are moderately happy, it’s very hard to get any happier.Ģ. ![]()
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