Laurie Santos || The Science of Happiness
The Psychology Podcast
iHeartPodcasts
4.4 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 13 October 2022
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today we welcome Dr. Laurie Santos, psychology professor and Head of Silliman College at Yale University. Her course, “Psychology and the Good Life,”is Yale’s most popular course in over 300 years and has been adapted into a free Coursera program that has been taken by over 3.3 million people to date. Dr. Santos is a winner of numerous awards both for her science and teaching from institutions such as Yale and the American Psychological Association. She is also the podcast host of The Happiness Lab.
In this episode, I talk to Dr. Laurie Santos about happiness. People are unhappy not for lack of trying, but it’s because they’re applying ineffective strategies. Dr. Santos identifies some of the cognitive biases that can hinder our happiness. There is no magical antidote to our problems, but there are ways to boost well-being in small but significant ways. We also discuss resilience, social justice and mindfulness.
Website: drlauriesantos.com
Twitter: @lauriesantos
Topics
03:04 Laurie’s interest in well-being
06:54 Our expectations about happiness
09:44 Defining and measuring happiness
13:59 Predictors of resilience
15:43 Laurie’s happiness score
17:39 “Self-care is a political act”
22:39 The Feel Good, Do Good Effect
24:11 The role of culture, environment, genes
27:55 Contributions to the science of happiness
32:13 The impact of Laurie’s research
35:19 Cognitive biases that influence happiness
38:16 Do mindfulness interventions work?
44:37 The Happiness Lab’s new season
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | I don't think people are resting on their laurels hoping happiness is going to show up. |
| 0:03.9 | I think people are actively working towards this stuff. |
| 0:06.4 | They're just kind of going at it the wrong way. |
| 0:13.8 | Hello and welcome to the Psychology Podcast. |
| 0:16.4 | Today we welcome Dr. Laurie Santos on the show. |
| 0:19.8 | Dr. Santos is a psychology professor and head of Sillman College at Yale University. |
| 0:25.1 | Her course Psychology in the Good Life |
| 0:27.3 | is Yale's most popular course in over 300 years and has been adapted into a three-core |
| 0:32.4 | Sarah program that has been taken by over 3.3 million people to date. |
| 0:36.4 | Dr. Santos is a winner of numerous awards both for her science and teaching from institutions |
| 0:40.8 | such as Yale and the American Psychological Association. |
| 0:44.3 | She's also the podcast host of The Happiness Lab. |
| 0:48.1 | In this episode I talked to Dr. Santos about happiness. |
| 0:51.3 | People are unhappy not for lack of trying but it's because they're applying ineffective strategies. |
| 0:56.4 | Dr. Santos identifies some of the cognitive biases they can hinder our happiness. |
| 1:00.8 | There's no magical antidote to our problems but there are ways to boost |
| 1:04.3 | well-being in small but significant ways. |
| 1:06.9 | We also discuss resilience, social justice and mindfulness. |
| 1:10.9 | It was great to catch up with Laurie who I've known from my graduate school days. |
| 1:14.7 | I've long respected her work and it's been really great watching her amazing developmental |
| 1:18.8 | trajectory within her career. So that further ado I bring you Dr. Laurie Santos. |
| 1:24.8 | Laurie Santos, wow it's so great to have you on the psychology podcast. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from iHeartPodcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of iHeartPodcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.