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# THE HEDONIC TREADMILL
- URL: https://www.johnwoodblog.com/the-hedonic-treadmill/
- Published: 2026-11-01T12:05:34.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-01T12:05:34.000Z
- Author: John Wood

We chase things, believing they will make us happy.

The promotion. The bigger house. The new car.

When we get them, we are happy for a short while. Then we fall back to roughly the level of happiness we had before.

It works for bad things as well as good. Lottery winners are elated for a short period. People who suffer life-changing accidents feel their lives are over, but as time passes, most return to something close to their normal level.

The explanation is an evolutionary one. We evolved to be dissatisfied. If we weren’t, we would stop hunting and gathering, stop competing for status and power, and stop pursuing the high-status partners who help us pass on our genes (and with them, the same restless behaviour).

Chasing happiness is, in many ways, futile. But it’s very hard to escape. It’s in our genes.

Which might explain why so much of marketing works as well as it does.

#BehaviouralScience #EvolutionaryPsychology #Marketing #Happiness