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attention is withdrawn from a new situation as it becomes more familiar. The main exceptions are chronic pain, constant exposure to loud noise, and severe depression. Pain and noise are biologically set to be signals that attract attention, and depression involves a self-reinforcing cycle of miserable thoughts. There is therefore no adaptation to these conditions.

the Californians enjoyed their climate and the Midwesterners despised theirs. But climate was not an important determinant of well-being. Indeed, there was no difference whatsoever between the life satisfaction of students in California and in the Midwest.

focusing illusion, which can be described in a single sentence: Nothing in life is as important as you think it is when you are thinking about it.

The satiation level beyond which experienced well-being no longer increases was a household income of about $75,000 in high-cost areas

More education is associated with higher evaluation of one?s life, but not with greater experienced well-being. Indeed, at least in the United States, the more educated tend to report higher stress.

her ?total happiness? was the happiness of a typical period in her lifetime, not the sum (or integral) of happiness over the duration of her life.

We should not be surprised: losses evokes stronger negative feelings than costs.

people expect to have stronger emotional reactions (including regret) to an outcome that is produced by action than to the same outcome when it is produced by inaction.

As might be expected, finance research has documented a massive preference for selling winners rather than losers?a bias that has been given an opaque label: the disposition effect.