At 10:59 pm ET on August 23, a lucky winner could take home the $700 million Powerball jackpot.Most people assume winning would make themhappier, but some research indicates lotto winners struggle to enjoy everyday pleasures.Some researchers think peoplehave a "set point" for happiness, and big changesdon't impact itas much as we imagine.You know what sounds pretty great' Finding outthat you've won the $700 million Powerball jackpot.The lump sum minus taxes yields about $221 million to play with, depending on whereyou live. Divide that by two or three to account for multiple winners, and it's still a ton of money. Buying a ticket may not be a financially rational decision, but you'd still have to imagine that winning even a chunk of that money would make you super happy...right'If you're not happy already,winning the lottery actually might not make a differencein the long term.The psychology of rolling in piles in cashThere's some fascinating research on the psychology of lotteries. Studies have shown that people are compelled to buy tickets because we have a hard time processing just how unlikely a win is and we give ourselves reasons to think wecould somehow win.Some researchhas also suggested that the desireto play the lotto may be stronger amongpeople with lower incomes who hope to escape difficult financial circumstances.But perhaps most interestingly, research indicates that winning the lotto doesn't make people happier long-term. Contrary to popular myth, however, itdoesn't seem to make people more likely to go on spending sprees that leave them broken and unhappy, either.Winners mostlyreport ending up about as happy as they were before winning.Aclassic1978 studyon this compared 22 lotto winners to 22 control-group members (who didn't win any money) andto 29 people who were paralyzed in accidents.In general, the lottery winners reported that they were happier than the paraplegics and quadriplegicsa four out of five instead of a 2.96 out of five. The control group averaged 3.82 out of five, not significantly different from lotto winners. However,lotto winners reported getting the leastenjoyment from what researchers called "mundane pleasures"enjoyable aspects of everyday life like eating breakfast or talking with a friend.Researchers were surprised that lotto winners didn't report being significantly happier than non-winners, andthat accident victims reported being above the scale's mid-point (2.5). Overall, winning the lotterydidn't increase happinessas much as others thought it would,and a catastrophic accident didn't make people as unhappy as one mightexpect.As Melissa Dahl notedinScience of Us, this is how theauthors described the waywinning might make it harder to enjoy everyday life:"Eventually, the thrill of winning the lottery will itself wear off. If all things are judged by the extent to which they depart from a baseline of past experience, gradually even the most positive events will cease to have impact as they themselves are absorbed into the new baseline against which further events are judged. Thus, as lottery winners become accustomed to the additional pleasures made possible by their new wealth, these pleasures should be experienced as less intense and should no longer contribute very much to their general level of happiness."Hedonic adaptationAlthough1978 analysis wasa small study, a 2008 study of Dutch lottery winners reported similar findings. Those authors foundthat people who earned more money reported being happier (something psychologists have found istrue only up to a certain income threshold), but "lottery winnings do not make households happier."The concept at playhere is called "hedonic adaptation." People have been shownto return to a kind of "set point" of happiness after events that we assume willhave a big impact on how we feel."Some of us have our thermostat set to happy. Some are set to depressed. Meanwhile, others are somewhere in between," psychologist Robert Puff wrote in Psychology Today. "When we experience a major event, say winning the lottery or becoming paralyzed, our thermostat may temporarily swing up or down. But over time, it returns to its usual setting."There are things that we can do to influence our own happiness, however,includingcultivating strong relationships, spending time and money on fun experiences, and exercising. Perhaps a lucky lotto winner could devotetheir newfound wealth tothose sorts of goals. But winning itself doesn't seem to be enough to boosthappiness long-term.Still, it's pretty fun to imagine what that money could be used for a mental statesome psychologists say is perhaps the best reason to play the lotto in the first place.SEE ALSO:How to calculate the number of calories you burn doing anything, from running to sexDON'T MISS:Science says happier people have these 9 things in commonJoin the conversation about this storyNOW WATCH: We tested an economic theory by trying to buy people's lottery tickets for much more than they paid
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