1. What is happiness?

a. Purpose - a goal-state that animals have evolved to pursue b/c it signifies that needs have
been satisfied
i. BUT even though we are better-provided for today than ever, we’re no happier
2. Happiness doesn’t change as much as we think
a. Genetic set point
i. Happiness is highly heritable
b. Life events
i. Paraplegics, lottery winners, getting/not getting tenure, election results - not as
strong of an effect as predicted
ii. Why?
1. Failure to appreciate day-to-day irrelevance of certain events
2. Logic of the set-point - we adapt to bad and good things (habituation)
iii. “The Hedonic Treadmill”
1. Either seek out endless novelty or step off the treadmill and seek out
more substantial goods
c. Absolutely relative
i. (+) correlation with GDP of country
ii. Within that, (+) correlation with income
iii. Your surrounding reference points
1. People have better memories of STRONGPAINmediumpainstop than of
STRONGPAINstop
2. People would rather go to a bad party that ends well than a good party
that ends badly