# The Science of Happiness  ## About - Author: How to Be a Better Human - Title: The Science of Happiness - Tags: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/b72a16f4-fe50-4ae8-a08d-37ba20869d30 ## Highlights > Teaching Monkeys about Money and Happiness Transcript: Speaker 1 And because we started this work around the time of the financial collapse, around the time when foreclosures were hitting the news, we said, hmm, maybe we should actually start in the financial domain. Maybe we should look at monkey's economic decisions and try to see if they do the same kinds of dumb things that we do. Of course, that's when we hit a sort of second problem, a little bit more methodological, which is that maybe you guys don't know, but monkeys don't actually use money. You haven't met them. This is why they're not in the queue behind you at the grocery store or at the ATM. They don't do this stuff. So now we faced a little bit of a problem here. How are we going to actually ask monkeys about money if they don't actually use it? Speaker 2 So we said, well, maybe we should just suck it up and teach monkeys how to use money. So that's just what we did. When we return, we will find out more about what Lori learned from animals about our most deeply embedded attitudes towards happiness and what we can each do to be happier in our own lives. ([Time 0:02:00](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7f8e9ee7-d034-4d95-a94f-5774c0afc453)) --- > The New Yorker Radio Hour: Unpacking the Complicated World with Award-Winning Journalists and Thinkers Key takeaways: - The New Yorker Radio Hour features award-winning reporters and thinkers discussing events in the news. - Lori Santos is a professor of psychology at Yale University and host of the Happiness Lab podcast. - Santos and her team taught monkeys how to use currency and found that they shared some of the economic biases of humans. Transcript: Speaker 3 I'm David Remnick and each week on the New Yorker Radio Hour, my colleagues and I unpack what's happening in a very complicated world. You'll hear from the New Yorkers award-winning reporters and thinkers, Jelani Cobb on race and justice, Jill Lepore on American history, Vincent Cunningham and Gia Tolentino on culture, Bill McKibben on climate change and many more. To get the context behind events in the news, listen to the New Yorker Radio Hour, wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 2 Okay, we are back. We're talking about what it means to be happy with Lori Santos. Speaker 1 Hey, I'm Lori Santos. I'm a professor of psychology at Yale University and host of the Happiness Lab podcast. Speaker 2 So Lori, I first heard about your research that was basically like having monkeys build a in economy based on different types of fruit. Speaker 1 Yeah, it was pretty good description, actually. We wanted to see whether or not some of the standard economic biases that humans showed were shared with monkeys too. We taught monkeys how to use that kind of form of currency, these little metal tokens that they traded with humans for food. That meant that we could put monkeys into kind of really simple economic experiments, really ask them their preferences about things like risk and whether or not they paid attention to how much food they were getting and so on. And what we found was that the monkeys were pretty rational in all the spots that humans were rational, but they also showed all the same irrational biases that humans tended to show. ([Time 0:02:57](https://share.snipd.com/snip/aef511cd-e804-4c8b-b4c1-eb670d84162a)) --- > Unpacking the World with New Yorker Radio Hour and Prof. Lori Santos on Monkey Economy Key takeaways: - The New Yorker Radio Hour is a weekly podcast that features award-winning reporters and thinkers discussing events in the news. - Lori Santos is a professor of psychology at Yale University and host of the Happiness Lab podcast. - Santos conducted research with monkeys to see if they exhibited similar economic biases as humans. Transcript: Speaker 3 I'm David Remnick and each week on the New Yorker Radio Hour, my colleagues and I unpack what's happening in a very complicated world. You'll hear from the New Yorkers award-winning reporters and thinkers, Jelani Cobb on race and justice, Jill Lepore on American history, Vincent Cunningham and Gia Tolentino on culture, Bill McKibben on climate change and many more. To get the context behind events in the news, listen to the New Yorker Radio Hour, wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 2 Okay, we are back. We're talking about what it means to be happy with Lori Santos. Speaker 1 Hey, I'm Lori Santos. I'm a professor of psychology at Yale University and host of the Happiness Lab podcast. Speaker 2 So Lori, I first heard about your research that was basically like having monkeys build a in economy based on different types of fruit. Speaker 1 Yeah, it was pretty good description, actually. We wanted to see whether or not some of the standard economic biases that humans showed were shared with monkeys too. We taught monkeys how to use that kind of form of currency, these little metal tokens that they traded with humans for food. ([Time 0:02:57](https://share.snipd.com/snip/6361e67e-9ed1-4c75-ad48-6c78172715c3)) --- > Researching Monkey Economics with Lori Santos Transcript: Speaker 2 So Lori, I first heard about your research that was basically like having monkeys build a in economy based on different types of fruit. Speaker 1 Yeah, it was pretty good description, actually. We wanted to see whether or not some of the standard economic biases that humans showed were shared with monkeys too. We taught monkeys how to use that kind of form of currency, these little metal tokens that they traded with humans for food. That meant that we could put monkeys into kind of really simple economic experiments, really ask them their preferences about things like risk and whether or not they paid attention to how much food they were getting and so on. And what we found was that the monkeys were pretty rational in all the spots that humans were rational, but they also showed all the same irrational biases that humans tended to show. They overpaid attention to risk and they kind of had this tendency to frame what they were getting in terms of gains and losses, which is the kind of thing that leads humans astray. Speaker 2 And one of the big things from this study that has just kind of always stuck in my head is that there were a lot of monkeys who were totally happy with the fruit that they were getting until they saw that a different monkey was getting more fruit or better fruit. And then all of a sudden they became furious and didn't like the things that had made them happy just moments before. Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, this was actually some lovely work by Sarah Brosnan, who used really similar kinds of studies with her group of monkeys. And it's yet another bias that we tend to show, right, which is that we tend to socially compare ourselves with others. ([Time 0:03:42](https://share.snipd.com/snip/98dbe1f2-6aaa-496c-8926-53df1a250261)) --- > Study Shows Monkeys Share Economic Biases with Humans Transcript: Speaker 1 Yeah, it was pretty good description, actually. We wanted to see whether or not some of the standard economic biases that humans showed were shared with monkeys too. We taught monkeys how to use that kind of form of currency, these little metal tokens that they traded with humans for food. That meant that we could put monkeys into kind of really simple economic experiments, really ask them their preferences about things like risk and whether or not they paid attention to how much food they were getting and so on. And what we found was that the monkeys were pretty rational in all the spots that humans were rational, but they also showed all the same irrational biases that humans tended to show. They overpaid attention to risk and they kind of had this tendency to frame what they were getting in terms of gains and losses, which is the kind of thing that leads humans astray. Speaker 2 And one of the big things from this study that has just kind of always stuck in my head is that there were a lot of monkeys who were totally happy with the fruit that they were getting until they saw that a different monkey was getting more fruit or better fruit. And then all of a sudden they became furious and didn't like the things that had made them happy just moments before. Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, this was actually some lovely work by Sarah Brosnan, who used really similar kinds of studies with her group of monkeys. And it's yet another bias that we tend to show, right, which is that we tend to socially compare ourselves with others. So even if what we're getting is perfectly fine, as soon as we see that somebody else is getting something that's better than we're getting, all of a sudden we're unhappy with it. ([Time 0:03:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b88800bf-dfe6-496e-a597-dfc9a99a48d9)) --- > The Unhappiness of High-Achieving Students in Ivy League Universities Transcript: Speaker 2 You teach at a school where there are so many driven students, right? There's students who are high achievers who have gotten into one of the most prestigious universities in the world. So in some ways you would think like, you've done it, you should be happy. But I know from listening to other interviews that you've done that one of the things that you really found was that your students were really unhappy, kind of profoundly so. Speaker 1 Yeah, and I saw this in a really acute way in this new role that I took on on campus. I've been teaching at Yale for now about 20 years, which makes me feel very old. So I saw students in the classroom and in my lab, but I didn't really get to know them really well. All that changed when I took on a new role at Yale where I became a head of college on campus. So this is a role where I physically live with students, like my house is in a quad with students. I eat with them in the dining hall and so on. And that was where I got to see this college student mental health crisis up close and personally, particularly acute at Yale, because as you said, Yale students, these Ivy League kids, they're incredibly driven and so on. But I think a shocking thing that I realized is that it's not just at Yale. In fact, there's lots of evidence that just nationally students are really struggling. So nationally right now college students report being too depressed to function. They're lonely, they're overwhelmingly anxious. And nationally right now more than one in 10 students has seriously considered suicide in the last year, right? ([Time 0:06:37](https://share.snipd.com/snip/327f869c-8163-40e3-b76a-7c5374b0162e)) --- > Walking the line between the science of happiness and toxic positivity Transcript: Speaker 2 How do you walk the line between the science of happiness and trying to get that out to people and not making people feel bad that they're not already happy? Which I, to be clear, I don't think you do, but I think a lot of the, like, you should just be happy framework that's out in the world sometimes does that is like this toxic positivity side. So how do you personally think about like walking that line? Speaker 1 Yeah, no, toxic positivity is real. But I think it honestly, I think it stems from yet another myth that we have about happiness, right, which is that a good life means being happy all the time, right? If I'm feeling sad or frustrated or angry or anxious or whatever, I've done something wrong, right? And I need to fix it. And I think this is a myth, right? Emotions are these signals that are telling our body what we should be doing in the future and how we should behave in the future. And negative emotions are an incredibly important signal, right? ([Time 0:08:55](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c210476b-eff0-43c1-b457-2479898c9b46)) --- > Walking the line between the science of happiness and toxic positivity Transcript: Speaker 1 I think it stems from yet another myth that we have about happiness, right, which is that a good life means being happy all the time, right? If I'm feeling sad or frustrated or angry or anxious or whatever, I've done something wrong, right? And I need to fix it. And I think this is a myth, right? Emotions are these signals that are telling our body what we should be doing in the future and how we should behave in the future. And negative emotions are an incredibly important signal, right? ([Time 0:09:21](https://share.snipd.com/snip/6786e311-e4f0-4941-adc4-5e5a518e69cd)) --- > The Importance of Scientific Rigor in Well-Being Practices Transcript: Speaker 2 This is one of the things that I admire most about your work. And I think it's so interesting is that you really are rigorously grounded in the science and in the practical pieces that make a difference. I mean, one thing that really stands out to me is that when your course was offered as a free online class, they were able to measure significant increases in well-being scores. Speaker 1 So this isn't just like, hey, look at the sun and say, I'm happy. And then all of a sudden you feel happy. This is like real practice. I'm a scientist first and foremost. And I want to help people, but I also want to make sure that we're not selling snake oil. And as you've said, there's a lot of snake oil out there, right? From the toxic positivity to the woo stuff, right? There's just a lot of advice out there that isn't necessarily scientifically rigorous, although it pretends that it is, or at least it's kind of scientifically adjacent. If I say, hey, experience more gratitude or look at the sun or whatever the recommendation is I'm saying, and here's the paper that shows that it might work for you. And if possible, trying to test it ourselves to make sure, you know, hey, if we suggest these strategies to students, if the students actually put these things into practice, will we move the needle? And I think that's a hard test, right? I mean, there's behavior changes really hard. And I think there's a lot of factors that affect our happiness. So if a simple 10 minute practice that I'm suggesting to students is moving the needle, realistically, it's probably not going to move the needle that much. Like if all of a sudden my students go from zero on a happiness scale to 100, probably something's wrong. But the cool thing is that we actually do see small but significant increases in happiness, small but consistent increases in people's self reported happiness. And that's really cool. It suggests that some of the practices that we're suggesting really can work. So let's talk about it then. What are some of these practices that you would recommend? You know, if you survey people, you know, again, around the new year, like when we're having this conversation, there's a lot of goals out there that people think are going to make them happy. Right now, or at least if you look at statistically last year in 2022, people's top new years resolutions were lose weight. Like, you know, around four out of 10 people basically said they want to lose weight. Absolutely no evidence that losing weight is going to make you happier, changing your body in general, probably not going to make you happier. What really does make us happier though is changing other behaviors. For example, increasing our social connection, a huge, huge boost in people's happiness. Pretty much every available study of happy people suggests that happy people are more social. There's also evidence that getting more social will increase your happiness no matter your personality profile. So even if you are a self-reported introvert, getting some social connection will make you feel better. Again, not like huge parties, huge crowds, but just like contacting that person one on one that you care about, but you haven't been in touch with it in a while. Another big boost for our happiness is kind of getting away from this idea of self-care. These days we hear a lot about treating ourselves and I think sometimes self-care can be like, you know, buy this bubble bath. So sometimes it's really about me time and me, me, me, but if you look at happy people, they're not as self-focused, they tend to be really other oriented. Happy people on average, controlled for income, donate more money to charity. Happy people on average, controlled for free time, spend more of their time volunteering. They're kind of just like doing stuff to make other people happy rather than focused on their own happiness. And so there's evidence that if you just kind of do more stuff for other people, get kind of out of your own headspace and try to help others, it can actually boost your happiness. Those are just some behaviors that help with happiness. There are also lots of mindsets that we can shift into that can really help with our happiness. For example, a mindset of gratitude, this idea of just counting your blessings, like taking moments to notice the good things in life sounds super cheesy, you know, sounds like grandmotherly wisdom, but I always say it might be common wisdom, but it's not common practice. Like common practice these days is to complain about everything, right? But again, there's evidence even if you just like write down a few things that you're grateful for every night. It can show significant increases in your happiness in as little as two weeks. A final practice I'll mention is sort of this mindset of being a little bit more present, right? You know, we talk, people have heard about mindfulness and being in the present moment, but but the evidence really suggests that like, if you're just there with whatever's going on, noticing it, paying attention to it, allowing it, that's better. And that includes being present when things like suck, like that includes being present when you're feeling frustrated, when you're feeling really sad, when you're feeling overwhelmed, the start of the new year, where you're like, Oh, there's always things I didn't finish last year. There's so much on my plate. Like that's a moment to say, Hey, wait, let me notice for a second. That's that's overwhelmed, right? That's that's feeling like I haven't had a break. And that's not a nice thing to notice and feel. It's much better to like, you know, pretend that that's not happening or cover it up or check your email or whatever. But the act of noticing that it turns out is important. It ultimately winds up making us feel happier in part because it causes us when you notice that you're going to deal with it and allow it and change it perhaps in some cases. So this act of being present is important, but it's not just being present when everything's like unicorns and rainbows. It's also being present when things don't feel so good. ([Time 0:10:18](https://share.snipd.com/snip/406353fb-cdc8-4b72-ac09-c096a75601fd)) --- > Framing time as a form of wealth can make you happier, according to Harvard Business School Professor Transcript: Speaker 1 Yeah, and I think this is some lovely work by the Harvard Business School Professor Ashley Willens that shows exactly this, that often when we think about getting more time, we're often thinking about, well, I'd have to give up money to do that. But what she finds is that people who focus on being wealthy in money aren't as happy as people who focus on being wealthy in time. And in fact, even spending your money to get back more time, if you are lucky enough to have some discretionary income, spending it to not have to clean your house or even in some cases buying takeouts, you save time, cooking and things like that, spending your money that way and really framing it that way, which is a spot where we mess up. A lot of us might go to a restaurant, but we don't sit in the restaurant and think, look at how much time I'm saving. I don't have to go to a grocery store. I don't have to clean the dishes. We're not framing it in terms of the time saved. But the act of doing that can really make you happier, much happier than money can make you. On the money and happiness points, we're saying money does make you happy if you don't have much of it. ([Time 0:20:13](https://share.snipd.com/snip/8776f423-0c1d-4428-ba67-e7c2d7fd38fb)) --- > The Fresh Start Effect and Motivation Transcript: Speaker 1 There's some evidence that it's worth sort of striking when the iron is hot, when the sort of motivation iron is hot. There is evidence for what researchers call the fresh start effect. This is some lovely work by Akkady Milkemann at the University of Pennsylvania. What she finds is that our motivation can kind of kick into high gear at certain temporal moments. New Year's is obviously one of them, but we have other ones. Our birthday is often a time where we're like this year, a new switch. There are these kind of moments that should be arbitrary, January 1 is just another day. For some reason it feels like we're turning a new page, a new page on the calendar, blank, slate, anything is possible. She finds that those things matter. They can actually be moments where because our motivation is in high gear, it makes sense that we're ready to make some changes. I think the problem though with this fresh start effect is that we apply it to the wrong changes. We're like, this is the year that I'm going to lose a bunch of weight. This is the year that I'm going to make more money at work or really double down on my career. When if you took the fresh start moment and said, this is the year that I'm really going to invest in social connection, this is the year that I'm really going to try to talk to myself in a different way. I'm a little bit more self-compassionate. This is the year where I'm really going to focus on the things I'm grateful for and just try not to pay as much attention to the negativity in the hassles. Even the fresh start effect, you'd apply this moment where motivation was feeling so amped up. You'd apply that motivation in positive ways that would really have a true effect on our happiness. ([Time 0:24:27](https://share.snipd.com/snip/71632d01-a1ab-4c39-aedc-fde4dfd81d62)) --- > Why Focusing on Your Happiness Can Benefit Social Justice and Climate Action Transcript: Speaker 1 So that's a spot where I get lots of push back. And then also just this idea of, is this the right enterprise? I mean, I think in the midst of where we've been with the COVID-19 crisis, with anti-black violence, with political polarization, with the climate being on fire, it can feel weird to focus on our happiness. I think people are like, is that just really selfish or kind of polyanish, right? Like I'm just going to pretend that I'm happy when the whole world is messed up. And I think that's a spot where they're a really interesting empirical data to push back. Because what the data suggests is if you really want to fight for social justice, if you want to take action against climate change, you might actually want to focus on your happiness. Because if you look at who's doing the push for these kinds of things, it tends to be people who are happier. You got to put your own oxygen mask on first before helping others or helping the world. But we forget that our mental health matters for our ability to do good stuff in the world and also for our performance. So that's another spot where I get pushed back is like, does this stuff really matter beyond just kind of selfishly feeling good? ([Time 0:29:18](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f7de6b26-1adb-481c-9c3f-c2ec9d043a90)) --- > The Power of Social Connection in Improving Well-being Transcript: Speaker 2 If someone's listening to this and they want to immediately, like, this podcast ends, they start a practice right now. Like what's something that they should do in this moment as soon as the show ends to make themselves a tiny bit happier? Yeah. Speaker 1 Well, I think the social connection piece is powerful. I think if when this podcast ends, you pick up your phone and you try to text a friend or call a friend or set up a time to engage with another real human being in real life, it's a positive thing you can do. And I promise that once you actually engage in that, at the end, if you, again, play scientists yourself and take your own data and figure out, like, how am I feeling? You'll feel, ah, I feel much better. I bet you'll feel relatively better, relative to maybe what you could have done with that half hour, which is like scrolling and scrolling through your social media feed or something like that. That would be the biggest, fastest takeaway. I think all of these practices we've talked about, it's worth noting that like they're kind of fast, right? Figuring out time to text a friend, you know, I best that I'll take half hour, doing something nice for someone, texting someone and checking in about how they're doing or doing a quick $5 donation to charity if you're having a bad day, doing something to feel a little bit more present, you know, that could be like a five minute meditation or just like three conscious breaths of where you are right now in terms of your emotions, scribbling in a gratitude journal that'll take you like five minutes, right? I mean, all the things we're talking about don't have to be these mega investments. And I think recognizing that, realizing that these tiny baby steps can have big effects is also a way forward to realize you don't have to revamp the whole wheel. Like your fresh start doesn't have to be like tearing off the new page and like throwing out the rest of the book. ([Time 0:32:56](https://share.snipd.com/snip/804519b3-e439-4a7a-abd4-969f4157b9a0)) ---