WEBVTT - How To Be Happier This Year 0:00:14.956 --> 0:00:15.396 Pushkin. 0:00:29.636 --> 0:00:32.836 Hey, it's Maya. Like many of us entering the new year, 0:00:33.116 --> 0:00:35.436 one of my goals is to be a happier, more 0:00:35.476 --> 0:00:39.436 peaceful person in twenty twenty six. That's why I recently 0:00:39.476 --> 0:00:42.916 revisited a conversation I had with my friend and former 0:00:43.036 --> 0:00:47.836 undergrad advisor, Laurie Santos. Lari is a psychology professor at 0:00:47.956 --> 0:00:51.796 Yale and a leading expert on happiness. She shares a 0:00:51.836 --> 0:00:54.836 bunch of science back strategies that we can implement right 0:00:54.876 --> 0:00:58.316 away to make us meaningfully happier in our everyday lives. 0:00:58.716 --> 0:01:02.796 Our conversation ranged from ideas like the arrival fallacy, the 0:01:02.876 --> 0:01:06.276 false sense that reaching one big milestone will finally be 0:01:06.396 --> 0:01:09.076 the thing that makes us happy, to whether thinking about 0:01:09.196 --> 0:01:13.476 our own happiness too much can actually backfire. I hope 0:01:13.516 --> 0:01:16.436 you enjoy listening to this conversation as much as I 0:01:16.556 --> 0:01:20.436 enjoyed hosting it. All Right, without further ado, here's my 0:01:20.516 --> 0:01:25.916 conversation with Laurie. Hi, Laurie, Hello a, Maya. Thank you 0:01:25.996 --> 0:01:28.396 for joining me on a slight change of plans in 0:01:28.476 --> 0:01:30.356 honor of World Happiness Day. 0:01:30.396 --> 0:01:31.596 I love it. Thanks so much for having me on 0:01:31.596 --> 0:01:31.916 the show. 0:01:32.596 --> 0:01:35.236 So I alluded to this, but it's worth sharing with 0:01:35.316 --> 0:01:38.156 folks that I've actually known you since I was seventeen 0:01:38.236 --> 0:01:43.316 years old. I was a student of yours almost eight years. No, no, 0:01:44.036 --> 0:01:46.596 it feels like it's been so much longer. I was 0:01:46.636 --> 0:01:49.956 a freshman in your monkey lab class, and you ended 0:01:50.036 --> 0:01:53.556 up being my academic advisor for all four years. And 0:01:54.076 --> 0:01:57.996 at the time, your research lab was focused on cognition, right, 0:01:58.116 --> 0:02:01.756 differences between monkeys and humans, and I would never have 0:02:01.796 --> 0:02:03.836 known at the time that at some point you would 0:02:03.876 --> 0:02:07.756 pivot and start focusing on happiness research. So can you 0:02:07.796 --> 0:02:09.076 share what led to that show? 0:02:09.836 --> 0:02:11.436 Yeah, I was just as so much of a surprise 0:02:11.516 --> 0:02:14.916 for me too, interestingly, but yeah, no, So, I mean 0:02:14.956 --> 0:02:17.076 I was doing all this work on kind of comparative 0:02:17.076 --> 0:02:20.436 cognition and studying monkeys, you know, happily doing that work, 0:02:20.796 --> 0:02:22.516 and then I took on a new role at Yale, 0:02:22.516 --> 0:02:24.556 I becoming what's called the head of college. And so 0:02:25.596 --> 0:02:27.316 I know you know this, but for your listeners, Yale's 0:02:27.316 --> 0:02:30.196 one of these weird schools like Hogwarts and Harry Potter, 0:02:30.196 --> 0:02:32.876 where there's like colleges within a college. There's like Gryffindor 0:02:32.916 --> 0:02:35.436 and s Lytherin kind of thing. Yale has these two. 0:02:35.596 --> 0:02:37.796 I was head of what's called Silliman College, and that 0:02:37.916 --> 0:02:40.236 meant that I, as a faculty member, lived on campus 0:02:40.236 --> 0:02:42.156 with students. So I hung out with them in the 0:02:42.196 --> 0:02:43.916 dining hall and I just you know, saw them in 0:02:43.956 --> 0:02:46.396 the coffee shop. I was like really much closer to 0:02:46.396 --> 0:02:48.476 student life than I was even you know, running my 0:02:48.556 --> 0:02:51.116 lab where I got to know students really well, and honestly, 0:02:51.156 --> 0:02:52.756 I just didn't like what I was seeing. I was 0:02:52.756 --> 0:02:55.516 seeing the college student mental health crisis up close and personal, 0:02:55.636 --> 0:02:58.076 where just in my community we had so many students 0:02:58.116 --> 0:03:02.796 who were self reporting experiencing like extreme anxiety or suicidality 0:03:02.916 --> 0:03:05.596 or panic attacks. It was just like on the ground, 0:03:05.676 --> 0:03:08.196 just so sad and scary that these students' lives were 0:03:08.236 --> 0:03:10.956 just like riddled with these mental health issues. And this 0:03:11.116 --> 0:03:13.196 is not just what's going on at Yale or any 0:03:13.196 --> 0:03:15.916 other IVY League campus. This is what's happening nationally right now, 0:03:16.196 --> 0:03:19.156 where nationally over sixty five percent of college students report 0:03:19.196 --> 0:03:22.836 being more anxious and overwhelmingly anxious such that they can't 0:03:22.836 --> 0:03:25.236 get any work done. Like the stats are just like 0:03:25.316 --> 0:03:27.716 staggering when you look at them. And so that was 0:03:27.756 --> 0:03:30.396 when I made this pivot to studying happiness. I was like, 0:03:30.876 --> 0:03:32.756 I need to figure out ways that I can help 0:03:32.796 --> 0:03:35.276 my students, right, Like my job as a professor means 0:03:35.276 --> 0:03:36.916 I need to take care of the mental health of 0:03:36.916 --> 0:03:39.156 these students that are around me. And one way I 0:03:39.196 --> 0:03:40.876 can do that is to try to figure out, like, 0:03:41.036 --> 0:03:43.396 what are strategies that we know from science that students 0:03:43.396 --> 0:03:45.636 can use to feel happier. And so I made this 0:03:45.756 --> 0:03:48.596 whole new class, Psychology in the Good Life that I thought, 0:03:48.596 --> 0:03:51.076 would you know, be just like a normal class on 0:03:51.156 --> 0:03:53.676 Yale's campus, But in the end it kind of went 0:03:53.716 --> 0:03:57.196 a little bit viral. Over twelve hundred students showed up 0:03:57.196 --> 0:03:59.796 on the first day of class to be part of 0:03:59.796 --> 0:04:01.596 this new class that we were teaching, and I think 0:04:01.676 --> 0:04:03.716 it showed that, like young people today are voting with 0:04:03.756 --> 0:04:05.556 their feet, like they don't like this culture of feeling 0:04:05.556 --> 0:04:08.516 stressed out and anxious, and they really just wanted to 0:04:08.596 --> 0:04:10.596 learn how they could kind of protect their well being. 0:04:10.636 --> 0:04:13.396 And so from there I kind of retrained in this 0:04:13.556 --> 0:04:17.116 new domain of happiness studies and realized it was useful 0:04:17.156 --> 0:04:20.796 not just for Yale students, but useful for like, honestly everyone, 0:04:20.916 --> 0:04:23.836 because everybody's trying to be happy. Everyone's sort of feeling 0:04:23.876 --> 0:04:25.676 a little bit burned out these days and feeling a 0:04:25.676 --> 0:04:28.116 little stressed, and I think so many of us are 0:04:28.116 --> 0:04:30.396 looking for strategies from science about what we can do 0:04:30.476 --> 0:04:31.236 to feel better. 0:04:32.356 --> 0:04:34.916 So I want to establish the basics because there are 0:04:34.956 --> 0:04:37.276 so many definitions of happiness out there, and there's so 0:04:37.276 --> 0:04:41.516 many questions, philosophical questions about what happiness is. Is it satisfaction, 0:04:41.796 --> 0:04:44.476 is it joy? Is it fulfillment? Is it pleasure? And 0:04:44.516 --> 0:04:48.116 I really love how you and many other psychologists define 0:04:48.436 --> 0:04:52.876 and measure happiness because to me, it encompasses so many 0:04:52.956 --> 0:04:55.556 of these concepts. So do you mind sharing how you 0:04:55.596 --> 0:04:56.556 think of that happiness? 0:04:57.196 --> 0:04:59.756 Yeah. So this is a definition that I've taken from 0:04:59.796 --> 0:05:03.956 Sonya Lubermirski, who's a professor at UC Riverside, and she 0:05:04.076 --> 0:05:08.036 thinks about happiness as being defined as being happy in 0:05:08.036 --> 0:05:11.516 your life and being with your life. So let's kind 0:05:11.556 --> 0:05:13.636 of break this down. So, being happy in your life, 0:05:13.636 --> 0:05:15.756 this is the idea that you have a decent number 0:05:15.796 --> 0:05:17.916 of positive emotions, or at least a decent ratio of 0:05:17.956 --> 0:05:21.356 positive emotions to negative emotions. I think bracketed happiness is 0:05:21.396 --> 0:05:23.396 not about getting rid of all of your negative emotions. 0:05:23.396 --> 0:05:27.036 That's toxic positivity. That's not what happiness researchers mean, but 0:05:27.076 --> 0:05:29.316 it does mean like having a decent ratio of positive 0:05:29.316 --> 0:05:32.156 things like cheerfulness and joy and laughter to the not 0:05:32.196 --> 0:05:34.636 so good things like anger and sadness and so on. 0:05:34.956 --> 0:05:36.796 So that's kind of being happy in your life. But 0:05:37.196 --> 0:05:40.156 being happy with your life is a different construct. It's 0:05:40.316 --> 0:05:42.556 how you think your life is going. So it's your 0:05:42.596 --> 0:05:45.236 answer to the question, all things considered, how satisfied are 0:05:45.236 --> 0:05:47.796 you with your life? And so researchers have called these 0:05:47.836 --> 0:05:51.556 the affective and cognitive parts of subjective well being. So 0:05:51.676 --> 0:05:54.276 the affective like the more emotional parts of happiness, and 0:05:54.316 --> 0:05:56.436 the cognitive how you think your life is going parts 0:05:56.436 --> 0:05:59.436 of happiness. And I love this definition because it shows 0:05:59.516 --> 0:06:01.036 us a couple things. One is it shows us that 0:06:01.316 --> 0:06:04.636 these constructs can dissociate. And you probably know people for 0:06:04.716 --> 0:06:07.916 whom they've dissociated. I have a friend who has a 0:06:07.956 --> 0:06:11.356 newborn baby right now, and you know she is with 0:06:11.476 --> 0:06:13.756 her life quite happy, right you know, she's this new 0:06:13.916 --> 0:06:16.556 like meaningful, bulderful of joy who she loves and you know, 0:06:16.636 --> 0:06:18.796 can't wait to see his future and so on. But 0:06:19.236 --> 0:06:22.316 like in her life, maybe the emotions are not as good. Right, 0:06:22.596 --> 0:06:26.276 there's like, yeah, it's like it's a rough go and 0:06:26.316 --> 0:06:28.956 you like have a newborn baby. Right. And we probably 0:06:28.996 --> 0:06:31.556 also can come up with examples of the opposite. You know, 0:06:31.636 --> 0:06:34.636 somebody who might have in their life all these like 0:06:34.676 --> 0:06:37.076 hedonistic pleasures, you know, to think of some like super 0:06:37.156 --> 0:06:40.276 rich or super famous person, but with their life, maybe 0:06:40.316 --> 0:06:43.436 they feel a certain emptiness. Right. And So I love 0:06:43.476 --> 0:06:45.676 this definition because I think it captures so much of 0:06:45.676 --> 0:06:47.956 what I'm trying to help my students with and what 0:06:47.996 --> 0:06:50.076 I'm trying to help my listeners with with happiness. What 0:06:50.156 --> 0:06:53.036 I want them to have is a life that's filled 0:06:53.076 --> 0:06:55.796 with lots of positive emotion and a life that feels 0:06:55.836 --> 0:06:58.236 satisfying to live a life that they think is going well. 0:06:58.316 --> 0:07:00.796 And the great news is there's so many strategies that 0:07:00.836 --> 0:07:03.756 we can use to boost both of those constructs up. 0:07:05.436 --> 0:07:08.196 What is the time horizon for thinking about the like 0:07:08.596 --> 0:07:11.236 in your life versus the with your life? Because in 0:07:11.276 --> 0:07:13.956 any given day, I wonder, you know, can you have 0:07:14.116 --> 0:07:17.116 both that moment to moment understanding of your happiness and 0:07:17.156 --> 0:07:18.836 then also that reflective experience. 0:07:19.556 --> 0:07:21.556 Yeah, I mean this is a hard one and this 0:07:21.636 --> 0:07:23.316 is where we get to a sort of dirty secret 0:07:23.436 --> 0:07:26.996 of the entire happiness science work, which is that to 0:07:27.036 --> 0:07:29.636 measure people's happiness in their life and with their life, 0:07:29.876 --> 0:07:31.556 we have to ask them, Right, Like I wish we 0:07:31.596 --> 0:07:33.636 had a little thermometer that we could stick in someone's 0:07:33.636 --> 0:07:35.796 mouth that would say, well, in your life, you're you know, 0:07:35.916 --> 0:07:37.956 ninety nine point six happy, you know, out of one 0:07:37.996 --> 0:07:40.316 hundred or something, But we don't. We have to kind 0:07:40.316 --> 0:07:42.836 of ask people, and that brings up the problem that 0:07:42.876 --> 0:07:47.156 whenever we're asking people, we're getting people's like retrospective judgment 0:07:47.236 --> 0:07:49.996 about how things are going. If I were to ask you, hey, 0:07:50.116 --> 0:07:52.836 you know what, how many positive emotions did you experience 0:07:52.876 --> 0:07:54.836 this week? You'd have to think back and make an 0:07:54.836 --> 0:07:57.196 evaluation of, well, how was that farmer's market or how 0:07:57.316 --> 0:07:59.316 was that you know, interesting coffee shop I went to. Right, 0:07:59.356 --> 0:08:02.276 you'd have to kind of make a remembered judgment about something. 0:08:02.956 --> 0:08:04.756 The same is true and even more true in the 0:08:04.796 --> 0:08:07.396 case of your happiness with your life. Right, you kind 0:08:07.396 --> 0:08:09.196 of have to do a sort of summing of, like, well, 0:08:09.116 --> 0:08:11.356 all things considered, how satisfied am I? You're kind of 0:08:11.356 --> 0:08:14.156 making this sort of very cognitive judgment and all of 0:08:14.196 --> 0:08:17.116 the judgments are a little bit retrospective, right, and it 0:08:17.196 --> 0:08:20.916 makes us worry that, like maybe the judgments go wrong, 0:08:21.036 --> 0:08:23.436 and maybe those judgments particularly go wrong if you ask 0:08:23.516 --> 0:08:26.916 people after a long time horizon. Many of these happiness 0:08:26.916 --> 0:08:30.076 studies try to do an analysis like in the particular day, 0:08:30.156 --> 0:08:32.596 so tag you right now, like how many positive emotions 0:08:32.636 --> 0:08:34.596 have you experienced this week? So hopefully you'll kind of 0:08:34.596 --> 0:08:38.796 remember accurately. But sometimes we're having people give these retrospections 0:08:39.196 --> 0:08:41.476 a while back, and we might be tapping into maybe 0:08:41.476 --> 0:08:44.756 a different form of happiness and people's remembered happiness than 0:08:44.796 --> 0:08:47.676 in their kind of happiness in the moment. This is 0:08:47.676 --> 0:08:51.356 something that researcher Danny Conneman calls this distinction between experienced 0:08:51.396 --> 0:08:54.796 happiness and remembered happiness, Like it's hard to know the 0:08:54.876 --> 0:08:57.556 experienced happiness because I have to like ask you immediately 0:08:57.596 --> 0:08:59.636 and make sure you're not kind of remembering to get 0:08:59.636 --> 0:09:02.876 it right. But you know, Danny has this interesting quip 0:09:02.916 --> 0:09:05.076 where he says, well, which of these happinesses are we 0:09:05.116 --> 0:09:08.396 trying to maximize our experience or our remembered happiness? And 0:09:08.436 --> 0:09:09.836 I feel like he kind that comes down on the 0:09:09.876 --> 0:09:12.116 side of the remembered happiness, you know, like the experience 0:09:12.156 --> 0:09:15.116 happiness that's gone. Like all you have access to is 0:09:15.156 --> 0:09:17.996 what you remember, and so maybe we might want to 0:09:18.036 --> 0:09:19.276 maximize that one instead. 0:09:20.356 --> 0:09:23.916 So a foundational message of your work is that we 0:09:23.996 --> 0:09:26.436 as humans mispredict what is going to make us happy. 0:09:26.916 --> 0:09:30.316 When it comes to happiness, we always have a well, 0:09:30.356 --> 0:09:32.956 as soon as X happens or as soon as Y happens, 0:09:32.956 --> 0:09:35.436 as soon as I get to Z, that's when I'll 0:09:35.436 --> 0:09:38.916 be happy. Right. We stall our happiness in present day 0:09:38.956 --> 0:09:43.116 with a hope that this future event will deliver all 0:09:43.156 --> 0:09:46.316 the goods. And it might be for someone a promotion 0:09:46.396 --> 0:09:49.236 they're waiting for, or having a family, or finally finding 0:09:49.276 --> 0:09:51.596 a partner to get married to. And we just put 0:09:51.596 --> 0:09:54.636 so much stock in that one event and then inevitably, 0:09:54.836 --> 0:09:57.436 at least the research shows it will disappoint us, right, 0:09:57.476 --> 0:09:58.316 that end destination. 0:09:59.116 --> 0:10:02.036 Yeah, this is what researchers call the arrival fallacy, right, 0:10:02.116 --> 0:10:04.316 or I like to call it the happily ever after fallacy, 0:10:04.356 --> 0:10:07.836 Like this thing happens and I'll be happy ever after. Right. Yeah. 0:10:07.836 --> 0:10:10.196 So for example, you know my like some high school 0:10:10.196 --> 0:10:12.196 student applies to Yale. They're really excited about it. They 0:10:12.196 --> 0:10:14.956 get in. They over predict that that event of getting 0:10:14.956 --> 0:10:18.276 into Yale will feel amazing, like super super amazing, and 0:10:18.316 --> 0:10:20.756 they predict that that feeling of happiness will last for 0:10:20.796 --> 0:10:23.196 a really long time. It turns out it doesn't feel 0:10:23.236 --> 0:10:26.276 as amazing as you think, and that amazing feeling doesn't 0:10:26.316 --> 0:10:28.636 last for as long as you think. And that's not 0:10:28.676 --> 0:10:30.316 just true of getting into Yell. It's true of any 0:10:30.356 --> 0:10:34.396 positive fact, whether that's like getting married or winning the lottery. 0:10:34.516 --> 0:10:36.396 You know, pick your favorite positive thing. It just like 0:10:36.476 --> 0:10:39.316 doesn't impact you for as much or as long as 0:10:39.396 --> 0:10:43.236 you think. But this has like good news attached to 0:10:43.276 --> 0:10:45.756 it as well, which is that the same is true 0:10:45.756 --> 0:10:48.796 for negative events, you know, So pick your terrible negative 0:10:48.796 --> 0:10:52.436 event right, Like you get divorced, you go bankrupt, like 0:10:52.556 --> 0:10:55.836 you lose the ability to use your leg, you become paraplegic. 0:10:55.876 --> 0:10:58.956 For example, all those things we predict would be really 0:10:58.996 --> 0:11:01.996 really really bad. It would very negatively affect our happiness, 0:11:02.236 --> 0:11:04.236 and we would feel pretty crappy about it for a 0:11:04.276 --> 0:11:08.076 long time. But it turns out that we even more 0:11:08.116 --> 0:11:11.876 strongly mispredict in the negative direction. So, you know, we mispredict, 0:11:11.916 --> 0:11:13.756 for example, that getting into yet will feel really good. 0:11:14.116 --> 0:11:17.036 We even more mispredict that having a car crash and 0:11:17.076 --> 0:11:20.556 becoming paraplegic would feel really bad, and we even more 0:11:20.596 --> 0:11:23.596 strongly mispredict how long these negative events are going to last. 0:11:23.676 --> 0:11:26.556 And so research by Harvard professor Dan Gilbert has found 0:11:26.596 --> 0:11:29.596 that our impact bias is worse in the negative direction 0:11:29.676 --> 0:11:31.716 than it is in the positive directions. We make even 0:11:31.756 --> 0:11:35.316 more mispredictions when we're dealing with bad events, which is 0:11:35.436 --> 0:11:37.556 kind of good news, right, because it means that all 0:11:37.596 --> 0:11:39.876 those things, all these things aren't really scared of, They're 0:11:39.876 --> 0:11:41.036 not going to be as bad as we think. 0:11:41.516 --> 0:11:44.396 Yeah, And can you talk a bit about this concept 0:11:44.396 --> 0:11:47.116 of the happiness set point and how when you talk 0:11:47.156 --> 0:11:49.996 about this mixed prediction, what ends up happening is we 0:11:50.076 --> 0:11:53.396 often just return back to our baseline faster than we 0:11:53.476 --> 0:11:54.196 might have thought. 0:11:54.476 --> 0:11:56.996 Yeah, And so this is a phenomenon the researchers often 0:11:57.036 --> 0:11:59.476 refer to as hedonic adaptation, where you just kind of 0:11:59.836 --> 0:12:01.836 you go back to wherever your set point was and 0:12:01.876 --> 0:12:04.156 happiness no matter what the good stuff and the bad 0:12:04.156 --> 0:12:07.156 stuff is. And again that can feel a little bit depressing, right. 0:12:07.196 --> 0:12:09.396 We want these new circumstances in our life life that 0:12:09.436 --> 0:12:11.636 are good to have this positive impact on our happiness 0:12:11.636 --> 0:12:14.156 for a while, but actually we kind of just mostly 0:12:14.156 --> 0:12:16.356 go back to baseline. But that means the same is 0:12:16.356 --> 0:12:18.716 true for all the crappy stuff in life. Some terrible 0:12:18.716 --> 0:12:21.316 thing happens, and it will, you know, hurt a little 0:12:21.316 --> 0:12:23.196 bit less than we think, maybe for a while, but 0:12:23.236 --> 0:12:25.156 not for as long as we think, and so we're 0:12:25.236 --> 0:12:27.916 much more stable in our set points for happiness than 0:12:27.916 --> 0:12:28.596 we expect. 0:12:29.356 --> 0:12:31.916 I still remember learning about this research for the first time, 0:12:31.996 --> 0:12:34.756 and I think this is the most powerful finding that 0:12:34.796 --> 0:12:37.596 I've come across in my entire time as a cognitive 0:12:37.596 --> 0:12:41.036 scientist when it came to impacting my personal life. And 0:12:41.236 --> 0:12:44.556 I think that's because my philosophy around life is to 0:12:44.716 --> 0:12:49.196 minimize suffering. I'm less concerned with maximizing the positive, and 0:12:49.356 --> 0:12:52.556 suffering is what scares the crap out of me, right, 0:12:52.836 --> 0:12:55.236 and so learning that I would be more resilient in 0:12:55.236 --> 0:12:58.036 the face of that suffering has been just I mean, 0:12:58.036 --> 0:12:59.476 it was a boon. Yeah. 0:12:59.476 --> 0:13:03.396 I mean, how often are we like really over analyzing 0:13:03.396 --> 0:13:06.196 some decision because we're trying to avoid some negative outcome 0:13:06.236 --> 0:13:08.196 when we can really say to ourselves, actually, if that 0:13:08.676 --> 0:13:12.796 worst case scenario happen, I'd actually be fine with it, 0:13:13.316 --> 0:13:15.276 or I'd be more fine than I think, and it 0:13:15.276 --> 0:13:17.356 wouldn't impact me for as long as I think. And 0:13:17.396 --> 0:13:21.196 so I think, Yeah, recognizing that your impact bias can 0:13:21.276 --> 0:13:23.036 kind of make you a little bit more resilient. It 0:13:23.036 --> 0:13:24.716 can make you a little bit more open to however 0:13:24.756 --> 0:13:25.356 the world. 0:13:25.156 --> 0:13:27.276 Is going to be like risk seeking, you know, just 0:13:27.436 --> 0:13:31.476 needing of closure. Yeah, and how robust are those findings 0:13:31.516 --> 0:13:35.676 because there are times where I feel like I'm exceptional 0:13:35.716 --> 0:13:37.116 in this way. So I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, the 0:13:37.156 --> 0:13:39.916 average person will be really resilient, but I komm a 0:13:39.996 --> 0:13:42.756 maya won't be because I suck in a particular way. 0:13:43.076 --> 0:13:45.956 And so can people buy and large feel fairly good 0:13:45.996 --> 0:13:49.276 given their mental constitution that they will show these effects. 0:13:49.916 --> 0:13:51.756 Yeah, I mean, you know there is you know, well 0:13:51.796 --> 0:13:54.916 there's like this so called replication crisis in psychology, but like, 0:13:55.076 --> 0:13:57.596 I don't think there's any replication crisis when it comes 0:13:57.636 --> 0:14:00.276 to effective forecasting or impact bias. This is the kind 0:14:00.276 --> 0:14:03.276 of thing that everybody shows and people is shoe it 0:14:03.636 --> 0:14:06.156 both in these like natural field data, like of people 0:14:06.156 --> 0:14:08.876 who actually have wonderful and terrible things happen, like winning 0:14:08.876 --> 0:14:11.356 the LWE and so on, this is like one that 0:14:11.436 --> 0:14:13.676 seems to be a sure universal. 0:14:13.236 --> 0:14:16.036 Yeah, Okay, that's great. That's great because I can I've 0:14:16.076 --> 0:14:17.476 definitely felt that way, and I can imagine a lot 0:14:17.516 --> 0:14:20.036 of people listening thinking okay, yeah, sure on average, but 0:14:20.716 --> 0:14:22.116 you know me, not really. 0:14:22.476 --> 0:14:24.476 Yeah, I think this is super important, right because a 0:14:24.556 --> 0:14:28.156 real problem with these like cognitive errors is that even 0:14:28.156 --> 0:14:31.036 when we learn how they work, they don't go away. Right, 0:14:31.116 --> 0:14:34.236 So I like literally have whole podcast episodes and whole 0:14:34.316 --> 0:14:37.636 lectures about hedonic adaptation, but when I'm making a prediction 0:14:37.716 --> 0:14:41.356 about something happening, I get just as freaked out about it. 0:14:41.396 --> 0:14:44.316 I get just as worried, Like I am just as 0:14:44.356 --> 0:14:46.996 bad at predicting as everybody else. But I can kind 0:14:46.996 --> 0:14:49.516 of remember the data and sort of course correct a 0:14:49.516 --> 0:14:52.836 little bit after the fact. And so I think that's important, right, 0:14:52.876 --> 0:14:55.156 Like knowing about these biases doesn't make them go away. 0:14:55.516 --> 0:14:57.916 It just makes you like have a little bit more awareness. 0:14:57.996 --> 0:15:00.156 You can kind of update a little bit after the fact. 0:15:00.756 --> 0:15:02.836 Yeah, I mean, as you know, I studied visual perception 0:15:02.916 --> 0:15:05.156 and undergrad and it was it was akin to you know, 0:15:05.236 --> 0:15:07.716 the visual illusions and illusion, but you can't unsee it 0:15:07.876 --> 0:15:10.636 exactly case of happiness, we can be a little bit 0:15:10.636 --> 0:15:14.676 more intentional, deliverate and change our mental frames. But yeah, absolutely, 0:15:14.716 --> 0:15:16.796 I think I'm sure this happens to a lot of 0:15:16.796 --> 0:15:18.996 people as soon. Given the field we're in, Oh, you 0:15:19.076 --> 0:15:23.596 must be so disciplined about eating and exercise and all 0:15:23.596 --> 0:15:26.116 these other things. And it's like, not really, we know 0:15:26.236 --> 0:15:29.396 the tactics, but implementing them is a different matter altogether. 0:15:29.876 --> 0:15:32.636 In fact, my next whole season of the podcast is 0:15:32.636 --> 0:15:35.436 going to be about happiness challenges that I face on 0:15:35.476 --> 0:15:38.956 the Happiness Lab. So fun, Yeah, so fun, but also 0:15:39.196 --> 0:15:40.876 so personal and kind of so painful. 0:15:43.396 --> 0:15:45.916 How fixed is this? So if I'm someone listening to 0:15:45.956 --> 0:15:49.756 this podcast and I'm thinking, look, I'm committed to being happier, 0:15:49.796 --> 0:15:51.276 I really want to be happier. I'm going to work 0:15:51.316 --> 0:15:53.836 super super hard, Laurie, what do you have to tell 0:15:53.876 --> 0:15:56.116 me in terms of hope in this domain. 0:15:56.756 --> 0:15:59.396 Yeah, So there's some bad news and good news, as 0:15:59.396 --> 0:16:01.156 there often is in science. So the bad news is 0:16:01.156 --> 0:16:04.396 that there is a heritable component to our overall subjective 0:16:04.436 --> 0:16:08.116 well being. Like if you grew up with parents who 0:16:08.116 --> 0:16:10.956 are really unhappy and you have the genes for unhappiness, 0:16:11.156 --> 0:16:13.276 it's going to be harder for you to be happy 0:16:13.276 --> 0:16:15.636 than it might be for somebody to whom happiness comes 0:16:15.676 --> 0:16:18.076 a little bit more naturally. So there is a sort 0:16:18.076 --> 0:16:21.556 of heritable component to happiness, but it's pretty tiny, right 0:16:21.596 --> 0:16:23.596 It's tinier than most of the other traits that we 0:16:23.676 --> 0:16:25.996 have out there, and that means there's lots of room 0:16:26.036 --> 0:16:29.276 for malleyability. And so the good news is that that 0:16:29.396 --> 0:16:32.916 range is really really flexible. It's much more flexible than 0:16:32.956 --> 0:16:35.556 we think. Like, even if you're a natural kind of 0:16:35.796 --> 0:16:38.716 set point right now might be feeling a little bit unhappy, 0:16:38.956 --> 0:16:41.356 that doesn't necessarily say that you're going to be stuck 0:16:41.476 --> 0:16:44.076 right there for your whole life. There's probably a range. 0:16:44.156 --> 0:16:46.316 You might not be like the happiest person on the planet, 0:16:46.636 --> 0:16:49.476 but you can engage with strategies to become much happier 0:16:49.476 --> 0:16:51.796 than you are right now. The problem is that we 0:16:51.836 --> 0:16:53.596 do that the wrong way. The problem is that we 0:16:53.676 --> 0:16:56.076 do that by like trying to change our circumstances. We 0:16:56.156 --> 0:16:59.156 try to go for the lotteries and the big college 0:16:59.196 --> 0:17:00.996 winds as we were just talking about. We try to 0:17:01.076 --> 0:17:03.396 engage in things that are just not going to feel 0:17:03.396 --> 0:17:05.956 as happy as we think. The key to really changing 0:17:05.956 --> 0:17:07.996 our happiness is that we need to realize the right 0:17:08.036 --> 0:17:08.796 ways to do it. 0:17:10.116 --> 0:17:13.916 One really powerful finding is that even small tweaks in 0:17:13.956 --> 0:17:16.556 the way we frame an experience can have a big 0:17:16.596 --> 0:17:19.236 impact on the way that we process it from a 0:17:19.316 --> 0:17:22.596 hedonic perspective. And so, can you talk about the role 0:17:22.596 --> 0:17:26.956 that expectations play in the way that we interpret in experience? 0:17:27.596 --> 0:17:30.636 Yeah? Yeah, expectations are huge. I mean, wasn't it Shakespeare? 0:17:30.676 --> 0:17:32.996 There's nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so. 0:17:33.156 --> 0:17:35.156 I mean, this is like how basically all of our 0:17:35.196 --> 0:17:38.636 psychology works. We just don't do it in objective terms. 0:17:38.636 --> 0:17:41.596 We think in terms of some reference point, and it's 0:17:41.636 --> 0:17:44.636 also often some reference point that makes us feel kind 0:17:44.636 --> 0:17:47.436 of crappy about whatever we've just gotten or achieved in 0:17:47.436 --> 0:17:50.676 our own life. My favorite example of this comes from 0:17:50.876 --> 0:17:54.956 the Olympics. So imagine that you're some amazing athlete, you're 0:17:54.996 --> 0:17:58.396 an Olympian, and you win a silver medal, right, like 0:17:58.436 --> 0:18:01.276 your second best in the entire world in some sport. 0:18:01.796 --> 0:18:04.716 You might think I would feel amazing, right, But it 0:18:04.756 --> 0:18:07.636 turns out that if you actually analyze how silver medalists 0:18:07.716 --> 0:18:11.516 experience receiving this sol metal, they're not feeling elated. They're 0:18:11.516 --> 0:18:14.676 actually feeling awful. If you analyze their like emotional expressions 0:18:14.676 --> 0:18:18.236 on the stand, like you see expressions of contempt discussed, 0:18:18.276 --> 0:18:20.836 like deep sadness right like, it looks like they've like 0:18:20.996 --> 0:18:23.356 you know, lost a loved one or something. It's that terrible, 0:18:23.876 --> 0:18:25.796 and you say, like, what is going on, Well, what's 0:18:25.836 --> 0:18:29.116 going on is that they're evaluating based on an expectation, 0:18:29.196 --> 0:18:31.396 a reference point. What's the obvious reference point? If you've 0:18:31.396 --> 0:18:33.916 won silver, it's a gold medal. You didn't get that, 0:18:34.116 --> 0:18:36.516 and you don't see that you've beat you know, millions 0:18:36.556 --> 0:18:38.476 and millions of people around the world. You just see 0:18:38.676 --> 0:18:40.436 I didn't do as good as I could have done. 0:18:40.636 --> 0:18:42.676 And what's super interesting is that if you analyze the 0:18:42.676 --> 0:18:46.596 emotional expressions of bronze medalists, you see just the opposite. 0:18:46.716 --> 0:18:49.196 They are elated, they are happy. Sometimes they're even happier 0:18:49.276 --> 0:18:51.356 than the person who won the gold medal. And the 0:18:51.436 --> 0:18:53.596 reason is that their reference point is totally different. What's 0:18:53.636 --> 0:18:55.436 the reference point that's salling it? If you just want 0:18:55.476 --> 0:18:57.596 a bronze medal, like you weren't going to get gold, 0:18:57.676 --> 0:19:00.796 you are like many seconds or you know, many moments away, 0:19:00.876 --> 0:19:03.556 right like many points away your reference point is like, 0:19:03.636 --> 0:19:05.516 if I'd just done a little bit worse, I wouldn't 0:19:05.516 --> 0:19:07.996