Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais

The Psychology of Happiness | Dr. Laurie Santos

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Apr 15, 2026

Dr. Laurie Santos, Yale cognitive scientist who created the popular Science of Well-Being course, explores why our minds mispredict happiness. She discusses student mental-health trends, how social comparison and reference points warp achievement, and why money and status fail to deliver lasting joy. She highlights social connection, emotion work, practical daily habits, and leadership practices that support real well-being.

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INSIGHT

Brain Picks Comparisons That Make Us Feel Worst

Our minds evaluate experiences relatively using reference points, so we habitually compare ourselves to others in ways that make us feel worse.
Studies show people notice areas where they're worse, explaining why silver medalists can feel worse than bronze medalists.

ADVICE

Avoid Chasing Status For Lasting Happiness

Don't chase more money, status, or accolades for lasting happiness because their boosts are smaller and shorter-lived than we expect.
Instead, change behaviors and mindsets toward practices that promote wellbeing and sustained satisfaction.

ADVICE

Sit With Emotions To Let Them Pass

Use acceptance: notice uncomfortable emotions nonjudgmentally and sit with them so they naturally dissipate instead of suppressing them.
Laurie reports trying this herself and watching strong emotions calm within minutes when attended to.

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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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