What did George Loewenstein say about the hedonic treadmill on Hidden Brain?

George Loewenstein describes the hedonic treadmill as the belief that the next goal or purchase will finally deliver happiness, when each win fades into the background and new wants appear. He tells how, in the early 1990s, he and his friend Peter Ubel got bored after exciting rapids on a West Virginia river, tried to ride their canoe over a dam, and were both nearly drowned in the churning water below.

• Loewenstein says even his hard-won University of Chicago job made him happy for only a few weeks.
• He argues that boredom drives a great deal of self-destructive behaviour, and calls the dam incident a perfect illustration.

▸In their words

“And for me, boredom is excruciatingly painful.” George Loewenstein · at 15:58 — open in the transcript →

Source: our own transcription of the episode. The full conversation is on Hidden Brain (2026-10-12). Read the whole episode summary →

▸More from this episode