When Yale psychology professor Laurie Santos became head of a residential college for first-year students, she was shocked by the level of stress, depression, loneliness, and anxiety the students were experiencing. That, and her own self-described “below average” happiness level inspired her to create a course packed with evidence from the happiness research landscape that debunks what we’ve been conditioned to believe will give us the good life, exposes the faulty wiring in our brains that conspires to lead us astray, reveals what does make us happy, and teaches habits we can form to get there. It was an instant hit at Yale, and since being offered on its Coursera platform, The Science of Well-Being has enrolled nearly 3 million. Santos also spreads the happiness word on her podcast The Happiness Lab.
Happiness misconceptions
Societal forces conspire to convince us that a good job, money, awesome stuff, true love, the perfect face or body, and in the case of students, good grades, will make us happy. One by one, Santos reveals evidence showing they don’t.
While we require enough money to cover our basic needs to be happy, beyond that, more money doesn’t move the happiness needle much. Awesome stuff and a perfect look — that new car or iPad, nicer house, great clothes, perfect hair, weight, and face — not only don’t make us happy, but just thinking about and wanting them makes us less happy. And finding “the one” doesn’t have the impact we think. We get a boost at first, but after a time we move back to our baseline happiness.
Our “genetic set point” for happiness — some of us are glass full people and some aren’t — accounts for 50% of reported happiness according to the data Santos provides. Big life events like winning the lottery or becoming injured and paraplegic account for 10%. The remaining 40% is a result of things we control: our intentions, actions, and habits.
Miswanting: blame annoying features of the mind
Santos counts the ways we “miswant” — making mistakes about how much we will like or dislike something in the future: (1) our intuitions are often wrong; they misinterpret signals, (2) we use the wrong reference points — relative rather than absolute. We “want” based on what others have rather than what we actually desire, (3) hedonic adaptation — we get used to what we have and reset our reference points. She cites research that found people making $30k per year think they’ll be golden if they make $50k per year. People earning $100k think they need $250k. And, (4) we are unaware of this adaptive machinery. This can work against us in the opposite way, causing us to avoid risk or try new things because we aren’t aware that we’re wired to bounce back from failure and build resilience.
Better wanting through rewirements
A series of “rewirements” aimed at investing in experiences rather than stuff and adopting practices that help our brains orient to absolute reference points and resist hedonic adaptation are prescribed by Santos to experience what does make us happy — kindness, social connection, time affluence (having enough time for meaningful and enjoyable activities), taming our emotions, and healthy habits. Since forming good habits takes hard work, she orients most of the course to practicing these rewirements.
Students first complete happiness assessments to determine their starting point, then dig into the practices below, and pick one to concentrate on for several weeks. They then complete the assessments again to measure the effect.
Week one, the students complete the VIA Character Strengths Profile to discover their signature strengths, and then use them in new ways each day.
Week two introduces savoring — the act of stepping outside an experience and appreciating it to lengthen the positive emotions. Could be a laugh with a friend or a beautiful sunset. And, keeping a gratitude journal — recording five things they’re grateful for each day.
Week three brings practicing random acts of kindness, and forging social connections — thoughtful gestures for friends and family, or a smile to a stranger.
Next up is 30 minutes of daily exercise, and at least seven hours of sleep. Just 30 minutes of exercise a day can boost mood and health, and sleep mends our minds.
The final rewirements call for daily meditation, and writing and delivering a gratitude letter to a friend or loved one.
The wisdom of Viktor Frankl comes to mind. Seems happiness cannot be pursued — it ensues as a result of living in harmony and connection with ourselves and those around us.