Laurie R. Santos is an American psychologist and cognitive scientist who is a Professor of Psychology at Yale University. She is also Director of Yale’s Comparative Cognition Laboratory, Director of Yale’s Canine Cognition Lab, and Head of Yale’s Silliman College.
In January 2018, her course, titled “Psychology and the Good Life”, became the most popular course in Yale’s history, with approximately one-fourth of Yale’s undergraduates enrolled.
Most of us work hard to improve our material circumstances, assuming that this is the key to happiness. According to research in psychology and economics over the past few decades, however, this assumption is mistaken.
While better circumstances can increase happiness to some degree — especially for people who have been facing particularly adverse conditions — for most of us, this boost is much less than we expect. It turns out that certain features of our minds work against our effort to reach happiness through material improvement, and that instead of just focusing on “getting more,” our pursuit of happiness would be more effective if we also focused on the kinds of activities that help us get the most out of what we already have.
In this module, we’ll combine expertise in psychology and philosophy to examine this empirical research on happiness and consider what implications it might have in our lives and communities.
The module will begin with a set of videos by Dr. Laurie Santos, Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science at Yale University, who will introduce key conclusions from the social science research to provide an empirically grounded understanding of how happiness works and what we can do to live happier lives. Critical questions will be raised as we discuss how scientists define and measure happiness; how psychological mechanisms like hedonic adaptation, shifting reference points, and immune neglect undermine our ability to translate material progress into real happiness; and how practices like mindfulness meditation, kindness, and gratitude can help us counteract these mechanisms and get us closer to the happiness we seek.
We’ll then turn to a series of philosophers to deepen our discussion. The philosophical lens will allow us to explore some important conceptual and ethical questions that arise as we try to interpret the empirical research and draw on its results for our own lives. We’ll see some different ways philosophers define happiness, using these conceptions to assess how empirical researchers define the phenomenon. We’ll also investigate challenging ethical issues, such as the extent to which a person’s happiness is their own responsibility, the ethics of being happy in a world full of suffering and injustice, and the lessons we should take from empirical happiness research in shaping our laws, policies, and social norms.
By the end of this module, learners will be familiar with several central conclusions drawn by empirical researchers who study happiness; they’ll see how critical thinking reveals key philosophical complications faced in the interpretation and application of these conclusions; and ultimately, they’ll be better positioned to articulate and pursue a vision of happiness that fits their own lives.
What we have, and especially what we do, also impacts our happiness.
defined is these studies?
Please select 2 correct answers
At the start of this lesson, you were asked which of these scenarios would likely bring the most happiness to your life:
For the past few years Oliver has been working hard on his idea for a startup company, excited about where it might lead. He loves the work and has met some interesting people along the way. Although he still hasn’t had much success with this project or with parts of his personal life, Oliver rarely feels very upset about it. He realizes that things aren’t ideal for him, but he’s fairly comfortable with the current conditions of his life. And he’s proud of how determined he is to keep pursuing his dreams.
Discuss the ideas in this lesson with a friend! Compare experiences and think together critically about which ideas are convincing, which aren’t, and why.
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:
Studies show that each of us has a genetically-determined “set point,” or baseline level, of happiness. The “hedonic treadmill” is the empirically-supported idea that whatever happens in our lives to increase or decrease our happiness level, our happiness will soon return to its baseline set point. When we get a promotion, get divorced, have kids, or experience any other notable gain or loss in our life, we get an initial spike — either positive or negative — in our happiness level. But as time goes on, the feeling of happiness or sadness caused by the change in conditions starts to dissipate until we’re back around our set point of happiness.
At the start of this lesson, you were asked which company you’d most want to work at:
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:
Researchers who study behavior change have found that people are more successful in making a desired behavioral change when they design an environment for themselves (or happen to be in one) that encourages and reinforces the new behavior over the old one — when their environment is giving them “situation support.” (See for example Brian Wansink, et al., “Slim by design: kitchen counter correlates of obesity” (2016).)
Loving-kindness meditation is a form of meditation in which you practice generating warm and caring feelings for yourself and others, sometimes including people toward whom you usually have cold or hostile feelings. This kind of meditation has been shown to create lasting changes in how we see ourselves and others, increasing our capacity for compassion and boosting our emotional happiness. For an important study, see Barbara L. Fredrickson, et al. “Open hearts build lives: positive emotions, induced through loving-kindness meditation, build consequential personal resources” (2008)
Research shows that when we spend our money with the purpose of gaining enjoyable or otherwise valuable experiences, we get a greater increase in happiness than when we spend this money simply to acquire valued material items. Compared to materialistic purchases, experiential purchases make us feel more alive and aren’t as easily subject to social comparison; they also don’t last as long, making them less susceptible to hedonic adaptation. See, for example, the study by Robert T. Howell and Graham Hill, “ The mediators of experiential purchases: Determining the impact of psychological needs satisfaction and social comparison” (2009)
Getting adequate sleep and exercise can make a big difference in your happiness level. For a study on the value of exercise to your well-being, see Michael Babyak, et al. “Exercise treatment for major depression: maintenance of therapeutic benefit at 10 months, discussed here.
Who knows? Maybe you’ll enjoy the practice and want to keep it going — or feel motivated to try out another one!
And, as always, share these ideas and experiences with a friend, and be ready to learn from their experiences too!
