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Are you being robbed of your happiness?
By Elizabeth Scott, MS Medically reviewed by Steven Gans, MD Updated on March 19, 2020
Despite what your common sense may tell you, research shows that people are surprisingly inept at predicting how we will feel in various situations. For example, one study found that newlywed couples tended to estimate that their happiness levels would rise (or at least stay the same) over the four-year-period after marriage.1 In reality, their levels of happiness tended to diminish over that time period.
Other studies have found that lottery winners' happiness levels tend to reduce to pre-winning days (or sometimes even below).2 In fact, while we believe that the ideal job, perfect relationship, or stellar bank account will change our happiness levels permanently, they may only give us a temporary boost of joy—it is surprisingly short-lived. It seems that our expectations can confuse us into thinking that our goals will bring us much more than they actually do, so we often pursue the wrong goals.
