Mar 15th, 2007
Pursuit Of Happiness Is Not A Straight Path
This isn’t going to make Martin Seligman happy. A prominent advocate of the “set level” theory of happiness, he believes that people do not get much happier than their usual level, but that they can be made a bit happier within a range. According to this research, overall levels of happiness can change over the long term.
“Even though happiness is heritable and relatively stable, it can change,” Lucas said. “Happiness levels do change, adaptation is not inevitable and life events do matter.”
The party line for most psychologists has been that happiness – or what psychologists call subjective well-being – is largely independent of life circumstances. The dominant model: People adapt to major life events, both positive and negative, and happiness pretty much stays constant through life, even if it is occasionally disrupted.
Read: ScienceDaily: Pursuit Of Happiness Is Not A Straight Path