A celebrity actress experiences ever-increasing levels of professional acclaim following each successful movie role. Yet with each success, she experiences no more than a temporary surge of subjective well-being. This is best explained in terms of

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The situation described is a classic example of the adaptation-level phenomenon, which is the tendency of individuals to adapt to their current circumstances and to judge new experiences or stimuli relative to their previous experiences rather than in absolute terms. The actress has adjusted her expectations of happiness and success based on her previous successes, so each new success does not bring as much happiness as it might if she were comparing it to a lower baseline.

A Celebrity Actress Experiences Ever-Increasing Levels of Professional Acclaim Following