Can you accurately identify what aspects of life make you happy? Would you even know if you found true happiness? Leading psychology professor Laurie Santos dives deep on the factors contributing to our happiness, evidence-based methods to boost your happiness, and why it’s crucial to protect yourself from unhappy people.
Santos is a Professor of Psychology and the Head of Silliman College at Yale University. Since 2018 she’s been teaching Psychology and the Good Life, which is one of the most popular courses at Yale and at one point included approximately a quarter of the school’s undergraduates. She has also turned her course into a popular podcast series, The Happiness Lab.
Here are a few highlights from our conversation:
I think happiness takes work. Like all good things you got to put in some work to get there, and part of that work is understanding the misconceptions. But part of that work is, we don’t often have the best instincts about what will make us happy. The things that we want to do in life are not necessarily the things we’re really going to enjoy, or like, or that will give us a meaningful life.
But part of happiness really is about being present. There’s so much evidence that when we’re mind wandering, when we’re not fully present, that that’s a time when we’re also not very happy.
One of my favorite most profound effects is the effect of taking a little time for gratitude, the simple act of counting your blessings. There’s evidence that in as little as two weeks, the simple act of writing three to five things you’re grateful for down on a piece of paper can significantly improve your wellbeing.
I think one thing that’s useful for parents to remember is about the science of emotional contagion, that we naturally catch other people’s emotions. If you are embodying calm and this is going to be fine and everything’s okay, then kids are going to follow that. If you’re embodying anxiety and like, “Oh my gosh, this is so important,” kids are naturally going to catch that too.
Timestamps:
00:00 – Intro
00:58 – Happiness misconceptions
02:26 – The Arrival Fallacy
08:50 – Happiness, defined
10:50 – Should we maximize happiness?
13:37 – Why do we think things will make us happier?
15:54 – On the origins of Laurie’s happiness course
20:00 – COVID’s impact on happiness
24:00 – On rituals & routines impact on happiness
26:10 – Personal connections and happiness
28:13 – Religion and happiness
32:57 – Social media and happiness
41:37 – Measuring happiness
43:26 – Long-term happiness vs. short-term happiness
45:21 – Cultural impacts on happiness
50:07 – On loneliness
53:59 – Evidence-based techniques for happiness
59:06 – Can we influence our kids’ happiness?
01:01:01 – Parenting techniques that lead to problems
01:07:45 – How to protect ourselves from unhappy people
01:13:20 – What role do boundaries play in our happiness?
01:19:49 – Is solitude the right approach to problems?
01:25:18 – What leads to a happy relationship?
01:33:55 – Summary of evidence-based approaches to happiness
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