La Dr. Laurie Santos is one of the world's most influential researchers and disseminators in the field of the science of happiness and well-being. She is a professor of psychology at Yale University, where she holds the Chandrika and Ranjan Tandon Professor of Psychology, and has been researching the relationship between mind, behavior and well-being for more than two decades.
Santos achieved international notoriety when he created the university course “Psychology and the Good Life”, which became the most popular subject in Yale's more than 300-year history, with around 1,200 students —almost a quarter of the undergraduate students—enrolled in its first edition.
Based on that course, he developed the online program “The Science of Well-Being”, available on the Coursera platform, which has been followed by more than 4.5 million people around the world, making it one of the most popular psychology courses ever offered on the internet.
Santos is also the creator and presenter of the podcast The Happiness Lab, based on her research and her Yale course. The program has surpassed 100 million downloads and has been among the most listened to podcasts on Apple Podcasts in the wellness category.
His work—which combines cognitive psychology, behavioral science and positive psychology—focuses on a key discovery: our brain is often wrong about what really makes us happy. Through scientific research and public outreach, Santos explores how habits such as social relationships, gratitude, mindfulness, or the conscious use of time can improve individual and collective well-being.
For her scientific and educational work, she has received several awards, including being included by Popular Science among the “Brilliant 10” young scientific minds and being named by TIME one of the”Leading Campus Celebrities” of the academic world.
In this short interview given to the Buddhist Film Festival of Catalonia (FCBC), he tells us how happiness is understood by contemporary psychology.
FCBC: Can happiness be scientifically defined or measured?
Dr. Laurie Santos: As for the definition of happiness, I usually use the one given by Sonja Lyubomirsky: happiness is both being happy in your life (having a lot of positive emotions) and being satisfied with your life. This means that happiness has an affective part (how you feel in life) and a cognitive part (how you think your life is going). When it comes to measurement, psychologists usually measure people's happiness simply by asking them. More specifically, we measure people's well-being using validated self-report measures, which allow us to study aspects such as satisfaction with life, positive emotions and meaning, and to track how they change over time.
FCBC: Does “true and universal” happiness exist?
Dr. Laurie Santos: The nature of happiness varies across people and cultures, but there are some common ingredients, such as social relationships, mindfulness, and the importance of physical habits such as exercise and sleep, that seem to be universal.
FCBC: Are there “scientific tips” or “strategies” for being or feeling happy?
Dr. Laurie Santos: Yes! There are many behaviors and mentalities that reliably make us happier. In terms of behaviors, we can focus on prioritizing social relationships, being kind to others and scheduling moments of rest. As for mentality, we could commit to practicing gratitude, being more present and using a more compassionate internal dialogue with ourselves. Science shows that these habits work, but we must practice them regularly.
FCBC: Your scientific approach to happiness shares common ground with Buddhism: how do you see that bridge between the scientific approach to happiness and contemplative Buddhist practices?
Dr. Laurie Santos: It's fascinating that modern psychology continues to rediscover ideas that Buddhists explored centuries ago; I'm referring to practices such as mindfulness, compassion (for oneself and others) and the limits of desire. I believe that these approaches work well together as a powerful set of tools to improve our well-being.
