A recent study found that when people learned ahead of time that they would win a game, get a job or get into college, they tried to suppress their excitement in order to feel it at the “right” time. Then, when that time came, they weren’t as happy as they would’ve been (y’know, because it wasn’t news anymore). “Once positive emotion is ‘tampered with,’” the researchers say, “it appears to be difficult to reignite.”

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