Hedonic capital, adaptation and resilience

Liam Graham (1) , Andrew J. Oswald (1)

1 Department of Economics

The paper sets out a theory of hedonic adaptation and resilience. By distinguishing between stocks and flows of psychological resources, it suggests a new way to think about the dynamics of human well-being or 'happiness'. Central to the analysis is a concept we refer to as . We build on the idea that the evolutionary function of happiness is as a motivating device. Our model successfully replicates the patterns routinely found in well-being data-particularly the empirical regularity of an approximately stable level of well-being and the adaptive tendency to return towards that level. The formal model provides a number of testable empirical predictions.

Mots clés: I3; Adaptation; well-being; evolution; happiness; habituation; resilience; D1; I3.

Domaines: Économie et finance quantitative [q-fin]

Liam Graham, Andrew J. Oswald. Hedonic capital, adaptation and resilience. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 2010, 76 (2), pp.372. ⟨10.1016/j.jebo.2010.07.003⟩. ⟨hal-00870190⟩