Win a generational jackpot and a year or two later you are, on average, no happier than before. This episode explores the hedonic treadmill, the built-in happiness set point that rises with every raise and purchase to keep lasting joy just out of reach. The hosts explain why perception depends on contrast, break down shifting adaptation levels, desensitization and sensitization, and revisit the famous late-1970s study comparing lottery winners, accident victims with paralysis and a control group.

The conversation then asks who sets the thermostat: a decade-long twin study attributing roughly half of happiness to genetics, hippocampus volume and dysthymia, BDNF-boosted mice that calmly endure stress, and a critique arguing identical twins may simply be treated identically by the world. Longitudinal panels show the baseline is soft for about  ...