Y11W22WR Lifestyle creep

Observational
The writing prompt

Examine the trajectory of your own consumption and expectations — what you now consider normal that wasn’t five years ago, and what that tells you about the direction you’re heading.

1Retrieval check

Q1.What is hedonic adaptation (Brickman and Campbell)?

  • AMoney always produces lasting happiness
  • BThe positive emotional impact of income gains fades as the new income becomes baseline
  • CHappiness drops with income gains
  • DOnly rich people experience it

Q2.What is the article’s counter-thread about hedonic adaptation?

  • AThe adaptation is always complete
  • BAdaptation is partial; moving out of genuine financial precarity produces lasting wellbeing gains further income doesn’t match
  • CIncome never affects wellbeing
  • DIt only applies to people over 40
Show answer key

Q1 → B. The positive emotional impact of income gains fades as the new income becomes baseline.Expenses tend to rise to match income rather than savings rising proportionally — the hedonic treadmill keeps moving.

Q2 → B. Adaptation is partial; moving out of genuine financial precarity produces lasting wellbeing gains further income doesn’t match.Escaping precarity genuinely lifts wellbeing; the plateau sits above that baseline, not at it.

2Prompt deconstruction

Command verbs
EXAMINE — notice adaptation in your own life
You pick
specific things you now expect (not things in general)
Goal
distinguish genuine preference upgrades from creep; project what your five-years-from-now expectations will require
Must reference
hedonic adaptation

3Pick nudge

Which areas of your life will best reveal lifestyle creep?

Daily habits
Coffee, snacks, tech, subscriptions
Clothing/objects
What you now consider ‘normal’ to own
Experiences
What a ‘good weekend’ now requires

4Planner — for each of your picks

Thing I now expect
Five years ago: was this special, occasional, or unavailable?
#1
#2
#3
#4

5Sentence stems

  • I noticed that ___ when ___.
  • The specific moment it stood out was ___.
  • Before paying attention, I had been assuming ___.
  • [Researcher’s] finding that ___ captures what I saw, because ___.
  • The pattern across my cases is ___.
  • What this tells me about [wider topic] is ___.

6Exemplar paragraph (not about this article)

(1) Four things I now expect that weren’t normal five years ago: (1-a) Daily takeaway coffee — five years ago, occasional treat; now, a baseline I feel deprived without. Creep. (2) (1-b) Wireless headphones — I genuinely use them every day, upgraded twice, and would struggle to revert to wired. Genuine preference. (3) (1-c) Streaming subscriptions plural — I have three I barely use. Creep. (4) (1-d) Eating out once a week minimum — five years ago a treat, now expected. Creep. (5) The pattern: consumables and habits creep; durable goods that solve a real problem don’t. Brickman and Campbell’s point lands: if my income doubles, my expectations of ‘normal’ will likely double with it.

What this paragraph does, move by move

  1. Names the coffee example as lifestyle creep.
  2. Contrasts wireless headphones as a genuine preference.
  3. Identifies unused streaming subscriptions as creep.
  4. Adds eating out as another expectation that has shifted.
  5. Names the overall pattern and projects the trajectory forward.