Stuck on the Hedonic Treadmill? It May Not (Completely) Be Your Fault: The Role of Personality, Social Relationships, Genes and the Individual on Happiness

Happiness appears to be based on how individuals perceive and interact with the world, which can be further affected by personality, social relationships, and genes. Current research has found that personality traits, namely high extraversion and low neuroticism predict well-being, likely due to each trait\u27s impact on outlook on life. Having quality social relationships consistently predicts happiness, as social relationships enable many benefits, both tangible and psychological. Social relationships may also interact with personality, where they have a more significant effect for introverts as opposed to extraverts. All of the above research is mostly correlational, and direction of causality is mostly unknown, along with the possibility for an outside variable that affects both happiness and its correlates. Despite this, the success of intervention studies, which are able to induce longer lasting changes in happiness, indicates an ability to determine specific mechanisms that cause happiness. These intervention studies show that, to some extent, people can raise their levels of happiness, despite the finding that about fifty percent of our happiness is determined by genetics. Another roadblock to the idea of control is the hedonic treadmill, which shows that humans are very adaptable animals, and despite positive or negative life changes, humans naturally gravitate to a set point of happiness. Research has shown that certain events and activities can cause more permanent changes, and one will not always completely readapt. In the end, positive psychology is still a young field, with so many more issues to cover, from cross-cultural differences to furthering the study of causality