Critical Views
One critical point made regarding our individual set point is to understand it may simply be a genetic tendency and not a completely determined criterion for happiness, and it can still be influenced.
The notion of "historical neglect", that people tend to focus more on negative emotions than positive emotions, can become a great detriment to improving our happiness set point. Negative emotions require more attention and are remembered better, overshadowing any positive experiences that may even outnumber negative experiences.
Ahmed and Koob (1998), in a study on moderate to excessive drug intake on rats, put forth that the use of mind-altering drugs such as cocaine can change an individual's hedonic set point; their study provides an animal model for the relation between excessive drug usage and how it affects our hedonic set point.
Read more about this topic: Hedonic Treadmill
Famous quotes containing the words critical and/or views:
“The male has been persuaded to assume a certain onerous and disagreeable rôle with the promise of rewards—material and psychological. Women may in the first place even have put it into his head. BE A MAN! may have been, metaphorically, what Eve uttered at the critical moment in the Garden of Eden.”
—Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957)
“Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries, when they wrote these books. Hence, instead of Man Thinking, we have the book-worm.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)