Quoidbach, J., &Dunn, E. W. (2013). Give it up: A strategy for combating hedonic adaptation. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 4(5), 563-568.
The present research provides the first evidence that temporarily giving up something pleasurable may provide an effective route to happiness. Participants were asked to eat a piece of chocolate during two lab sessions, held 1week apart. During the intervening week, we randomly assigned them to abstain from chocolate or to eat as much of it as possible, while a control group received no special instructions ...