The Psychology of Happiness | Dr. Laurie Santos
Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais
Dr. Michael Gervais
4.6 • 1.8K Ratings
🗓️ 15 April 2026
⏱️ 80 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Why do we keep chasing happiness in ways that don't actually work?
Dr. Laurie Santos is a cognitive scientist and professor of psychology at Yale, where she created the most popular course in the university's 300-year history, the Science of Well-Being. Since then, that course has reached millions of people around the world, and her podcast, The Happiness Lab, has become one of the most trusted resources on the science of living well. In this conversation with Dr. Michael Gervais, Laurie pulls back the curtain on why our minds so reliably get happiness wrong, and what we can do about it.
The conversation starts with a sobering look at the student mental health crisis: more than 40% of college students report being too depressed to function, more than 60% report overwhelming anxiety. Laurie saw it firsthand at Yale, and it launched her on a mission to translate happiness research into practical tools that actually work.
She explains why the things we predict will make us happy – more money, more success, more achievement – don't deliver the boost we expect, or the lasting satisfaction we hope for. She digs into the science of social comparison, why our brains default to the comparisons that make us feel worse, and why even the most high-performing people can feel inexplicably stuck. And she outlines the evidence-based habits, social connection, mindset shifts, emotional awareness, that actually move the needle.
In this conversation, we explore:
- Why our minds are wired to predict happiness incorrectly
- How social comparison shapes our experience of achievement, and rarely in our favor
- What the research actually says about money, status, and wellbeing
- Why social connection is the most underrated predictor of happiness
- How to work with your emotions rather than suppress or spiral into them
- What leaders and organizations can do to build genuinely happier, higher-performing teams
Everyone wants to live a good life. This is one of those rare conversations that might genuinely help you do it.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Right now, nationally more than 40% of college students report being too depressed to function most days. |
| 0:05.3 | And one in 10 students has seriously considered suicide in the last six months. |
| 0:09.6 | Those stats are staggering. |
| 0:11.5 | They're scary. |
| 0:12.3 | Why do so many of us chase happiness and then still feel like something's missing? |
| 0:16.6 | These kids are 19. They're in the Ivy League. They've made it, right? |
| 0:19.7 | I would switch with them in a heartbeat. But looking that so many of them were struggling and needed these strategies to do better was, I think, eye-opening for everyone. Welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast, where we dive into the minds of the world's greatest thinkers and doers. I am your host, Dr. Michael Jervais. A high-performance psychologist named Michael Jervaig. |
| 0:38.6 | Who Pete Carroll brought into work with the Seahawks. |
| 0:41.3 | Famous for his work with Felix Baumgartner when he jumped out of space in the Stratos Project. |
| 0:46.3 | Olympic athletes depend on something more than just training and talent. |
| 0:49.3 | They have to stay mentally tough. |
| 0:51.3 | Today's guest is Dr. Lori Santos, a cognitive scientist and professor of psychology at Yale, |
| 0:57.4 | where she created the most popular course in the university's history on the science of |
| 1:02.0 | well-being. |
| 1:02.6 | She's also the host of the Happiness Lab podcast. |
| 1:04.8 | In this conversation, we explore how our minds are wired to compare, often in ways that |
| 1:09.6 | leave us feeling worse. |
| 1:27.8 | I've done this brief work with a professional basketball team, and I said, well, who's your comparison for like the best, you know, three-pointer? And I was like, Steph Curry. And I was like, who's your comparison for like, you know, who was making the most money at the time it was stuff, is Steph Curry? I was like, who's your comparison for like, what's the appropriate height to be in basketball? At the time they saw Taco Fail. |
| 1:30.0 | And I was like, okay, why isn't it Steph Curry for height? And they're like, we wouldn't, like, he's sure. Like, I was like, why is it stuff for everything else? Like, if you compared yourself with Steph now, all of a sudden, you'd be like, well, how much better, right? And so this is the problem with what's called reference points, these social comparisons. |
| 1:44.9 | We pick the one that makes us feel crappiest. how much better, right? And so this is the problem with what's called reference points, |
| 1:47.7 | these social comparisons. We pick the one that makes us feel crappiest. |
| 1:54.8 | And she also shares a handful of simple tools that can meaningfully change the way we live our life. Notice how self-critical you're being. I got to push myself. And the way I push myself |
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