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Comment by bpodgursky | Hacker News Reader

Yes, it is blindingly obvious that people are born with different happiness set-points, and this is primarily genetic, if you look at families.

Circumstances and life adjust this up and down... but some people are just innately happy and other people are innately unhappy, and adjust to their set-point quickly after a life change.

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Are we sure that is "blindingly obvious"? I think the whole point of studies like this to try to tease out hints at what parts of it are genetic vs circumstance vs choices.

FWIW I think that the genetic component of 'innately happy' is quite small, as I've known relatively few dirt poor people who were happy anyway, and relatively more carefree upper class folks. Though of course it's possible it's still genetic and just caused economic sorting higher up the tree, I suppose.

There's plenty of research about events (e.g. unemployment or bereavement) affecting people's happiness long-term if you care to look

There's plenty of research counter to that, showing that regardless of negative or positive events happening in one's life, people tend back towards the same happiness they were at after a few years.

I wouldn't say it "counters" it, rather it very much depends on the events and/or circumstances. Winning the lottery won't make you happy. Losing your job and failing to get another one will probably make you sad. Traumatic events can be very hard to get over.

Funny enough the only example I've found of an "event" having a long term positive effect is cosmetic surgery

> long term positive effect is cosmetic surgery

Any links? It isn't clear whether you are talking about cosmetic surgery to mitigate an obvious issue (for example, correcting a hair lip or removing a disfiguring facial birthmark), as compared to cosmetic beauty enhancements (nose job or tummy tuck). I would guess "enhancements" have a very strong sampling bias, because of a strong correlations with disposable income, belonging to certain social groups, and the type of person that prioritises surgery over other expenses. Adjusting to remove bias would be problematic?

I also suspect that there would be an inherent bias in reported studies, because the cosmetic surgery industry will fund and publish results that benefit the industry?

"Other researchers have investigated the effects of life events which can cause medium term and perhaps permanent change in set points. These events include the unexpected death of a child (Wortman & Silver, 1987), repeated spells of unemployment which have a ‘scarring effect’ (Clark et al, 2004), becoming widowed and perhaps getting married (Lucas et al, 2003). Amusingly, the only favourable or positive ‘event’ unambiguously shown to enhance long term subjective well being seems to be cosmetic surgery (Wengle, 1986; Loewenstein & Frederick, 1999)"

Copy-pasted from a 2006 paper by Bruce Headey I had lying around. I haven't looked into this in a few years but you might be able chase those refs down if you're interested

I think it's astounding that people take happiness-set-point theory so literally. Has everyone here been uniformly happy/miserable throughout their life? I certainly haven't - when things have been bad I've been miserable, when things have been good I've been happy

If a person does not revise their core beliefs based on acute events, then, given time, their chronic happiness level will revert to what it was (speaking very generally).

I don't agree with the implication that genetics are to blame, but rather I believe it is incredibly difficult for a person to change their core beliefs, even when reality is at odds with those beliefs.

So if you see a person unhappy in poverty it’s because of their genetics?

I think he means the inverse: for people able to find joy despite adverse circumstances.

More importantly, I would say, it's likely innate to us that we are unhappy without adverse circumstances. I.e. for there to be brightness there needs to be darkness.

He claimed it was the primary effect. Which is absurd. And claimed it was easily observed by family inheritance? That’s obviously wrong.

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