The
“hedonic adaptation”
A second explanation is based on the
hypothesis of “hedonic adaptation” which maintains that individuals quickly
adapt to new circumstances so that, after enjoying higher consumption and
income levels, they return to their initial state of satisfaction (or
dissatisfaction?).
Think, for example an individual who
wins the lottery. He goes crazy, jumps, calls all his friends, makes a big
party... Shortly after he gets used to his new standard of living, moving
house, has other friends and can have parties every week. What he previously
only dreamed is now a reality. But with time he gets used to it. Everything
returns to normal and nothing is special, so that now he is fascinated less by
that lifestyle and even it comes to seem to him more and more boring. Think too
in the children of this “lucky” man who, given his level of wealth, can afford
to satisfy every whim of them. His little son constantly requests a sophisticated
toy which he has seen on TV and his daughter, one fashion jean. The father buys
on Christmas Day and the children are happy at the time, but for New Year they
forgot these gifts.
The
satisfaction threshold
In third instance is the proposal
based on the threshold of satisfaction or “comfort line”. According to it once
the individual reaches a certain level of income or consumption no longer
increases his happiness. In economic terms, in so far as his income and
consumption tend to level of comfort, the marginal utility he gets from them
tends to zero.
Could be said that this is a
particular application of the “paradox of value” raised by Adam Smith, being
that the marginal utility of consuming one more unit of good in a situation of
opulence is almost null. And that is when our level of income increases we tend
to consume increasingly superfluous goods which do not really need and, to get
used to that lifestyle, having those goods is almost indifferent while not
having them would be catastrophic for us.
We ourselves can check this if we go
and say to a child of the street that we invite him to eat at McDonalls. We
will see how his eyes shine with joy. Then we can go and say the same to a
child of a prestigious (and expensive) school and he will answer that does not
mind because he goes with his dad every week to places like this and much
better yet. But the irony is that this same child who rejects our invitation would
feel very bad and would make a tremendous tantrum if any week his daddy refused
to invite him to some of those places.
You can contact the author of this article in: “Dante Abelardo Urbina Padilla” (Facebook) and dante.urbina1@gmail.com (email)
