Right? We are on this hedonic treadmill of trying to get more and more stuff. I think I just need another outfit to find that same kind of happiness again. So, if I buy a new outfit, I'm happy for a second, but then I go back to baseline. "We are blind to both hedonic adaptation and impact bias. We tend to regularly overestimate just how happy or unhappy something in the future - from nailing a dream job, to purchasing a house, getting married or having kids - will make us. Impact bias also affects our perception of what will make us happy. As Professor Santos put it, “Our brains are wired to get used to the good stuff.” That’s hedonic adaptation. Multiple studies have shown that what we think will make us happy in the future likely won’t have a lasting impact. The second biggest misconception about happiness is that hedonic adaptation or what's known as the hedonic treadmill doesn't exist. Retail therapy may feel good in the moment, but it won’t increase our long-term happiness. “We think that the new job, the raise, the new dress, will make us happy, and the truth is that they just don’t create sustained happiness.” “Our intuition is wrong when it comes to figuring out what makes us happy,” she said. Compound this with the fact that we're constantly bombarded with images and advertisements designed to stoke our desires and insecurities (particularly via social media), and you have the perfect opportunity for misery to blossom. One of the biggest misconceptions that we have about happiness is that we incorrectly connect happiness with the things we own, the jobs we hold, how much money we make, or where we live. The study largely blames the rise of digital media for the corresponding decline of happiness.Īs humans, we think that happiness comes from our external conditions, Santos says. Sadly, the most recent numbers from 2019 show that in the United States, happiness has been on a steady decline since 2000, despite improved economic conditions, more per capita income, and low unemployment rates. Happiness is such a pivotal issue in the world that even the U.N. “Happiness is this conglomeration of a bunch of things,” she said, “but the science shows that it’s really about our mindset and the way we think about things outside ourselves.” It's often subjective to each individual, but Santos says that while we all have preconceived, societal notions about what happiness looks like, it really comes down to three things: Being connected, grateful, and present. ![]() ![]() ![]() Just last year, she also launched a successful podcast, called The Happiness Lab, which enters its second season on April 28.ĭefining happiness is a tricky thing. Since she created the course in 2018, one in every four Yale students has taken it, and it has become so popular that Santos has started offering a similar class for free on Coursera. Thanks to her in-demand class where she teaches students about the science behind happiness, Santos has attained a measure of celebrity. Santos is a professor of psychology at Yale and teaches an immensely popular class called "The Psychology of the Good Life." What the research suggests is that that isn't reality at all," says Laurie Santos, Ph.d. "We think happiness comes from our circumstances, and it's about all these things that we want. But what is happiness, and why is it so hard to find? It's what drives us every single day in some form or another, and yet it remains one of the most elusive and difficult things to hang onto. It’s embedded in our psychology, our personalities, our DNA, and it even forms the backbone of the U.S. The pursuit of happiness is not a new concept for humankind.
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