Can being grateful create lasting change?
The major claim of this book is that gratitude can increase your happiness set point by 25 per cent. This finding actually contradicts the commonly held view that each of us has a happiness set point and that no matter what events or interventions occur in our lives our happiness will eventually return to this point. This phenomenon is generally thought to be due to the tendency for humans to adapt to their environment, in evolutionary terms this would be beneficial as we would adapt to having little food or the threat of danger but in the modern world where food is readily available and danger is limited, adaption is actually counterproductive. Adaptation leads us to take the good aspects of life for granted and leaves us always wanting more; indeed the consumerism that fuels us to always want the latest car, or a bigger house may be partly due to adaption. Emmons claims in this book that gratitude is one of the few intentional activities that can, with a little effort, actually impro
