Summary of Brickman et al. (1978)

In the journal article “Lottery Winners and Accident Victims: Is Happiness Relative?”, Brickman, Coates, and Janoff-Bulman (1978) argue that people’s happiness levels will return to their set point levels after an extreme event because of adaptation level theory, which includes two key ideas: habituation and contrast. Researchers want to compare the happiness levels of three groups of people, before and after a specific life event. So researchers provided two study plans.  In the first study they interviewed lottery winners, accident victims, and controls about happiness levels, which they experienced before and after a major life event, and in the second study they interviewed the lottery winners over the phone in order to check alternative explanation for the results of the first study to reinforce strength of its findings. Brickman et al (1978) mentioned some limitations such as obtaining data at a specific time and also not considering the happiness levels at different times after the major event was mentioned. The authors conclude that the thrill of lottery win will disappear over time due to habituation theory and also old pleasures will not be as fun anymore because of contrast theory.

Reference

Brickman, P., Coates, D. & Janoff-Bulman, R. (1978). Lottery winners and accident victims: Is happiness relative? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36 (8), 917-927.