Insight
Santos: Depriving Kids of Failure Drives Rising College Student Anxiety
“I mean, I think that's right, and I think this is one of the reasons we're seeing so much more anxiety in our college students today, right, is that they've never had a chance to mess up. They've never had a chance to do it on their own, and so when they final…”
Insight
Santos: Time Famine Harms Well-Being More Than Lack of Money
“A lot of the unhappiness hit that comes with poverty isn't necessarily a not having money hit, it's a not having time hit. You know, so she argues that time famine comes with, you know, being low income, and it's actually the time famine that's a real hit on w…”
Assertion Partly supported
Santos: Over-Intervention by Parents Causes Children to Give Up Faster
“What she finds is that when you give kids a very different puzzle later on, kids who've had that taking over condition, where the parents give the answer, give up much more quickly. And if you find ways to survey them about what they believe, like, they probab…”
Insight
Santos: Altruistic Actions Generate More Happiness Than Self-Care Luxuries
“Happiness is about achieving these accolades. It's not. We often think happiness is about self-care and treating ourselves and giving ourselves these luxuries. It's not. In fact, if anything, it's about doing nice things for others. That gives you more of a ki…”
Assertion Supported
Santos: Religious Happiness Comes From Behaviors, Not Theological Beliefs
“When you really do that work, what you find is that the effect of the correlation between religion and happiness seems to be pretty fully mediated by those religious behaviors. So going to church, doing nice things for other people, you know, taking part in al…”
Assertion Supported
Santos: Feeling Time-Famished Damages Well-Being as Much as Unemployment
“In fact, some work by Ashley Willans shows that if you self-report being time famished, that's as big a hit on your wellbeing as if you self-report being unemployed.”
Assertion Supported
Santos: Genetics Accounts for Only 30% to 40% of Happiness Variance
“You know, even the heritability of happiness is, is lower than you might expect. You know, estimates kind of vary, but it's probably around, you know, 40%, 30%. Like, it's not that all the variants and the happy people that you see out there in the world is li…”
Insight
Santos: Children Mirror Their Parents' Anxiety Through Emotional Contagion
“I think one thing that's useful for parents to remember is about the science of emotional contagion, that like, you know, we naturally catch other people's emotions. If you're embodying calm, and this is going to be fine, and everything's okay, then kids are g…”
Insight
Santos: External Milestones Provide Only a Temporary Happiness Boost
“You know, there's studies that look at people who get those wonderful things, and yeah, you get a little happiness boost for a little while, but it doesn't seem to last. Lasting happiness comes from something else.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Santos: Wealthy People Share the Exact Same Delusions About Money
“But what's funny is even if you look at incredibly wealthy people, they have the same mistaken intuitions about money.”
Insight
Santos: People Instinctively Pick Reference Points That Make Them Feel Inadequate
“The comparison point you pick is always somebody that's going to make you feel like crap. And that makes sense. You know, we want to have something to shoot for, but it means we never feel good with what we have. We're always finding reference points that make…”
Insight
Santos: Human Minds Evolved for Survival and Reproduction, Not Happiness
“We are products of natural selection, which is a blind process that, you know, if you kind of intentionalize it, it's kind of going for anything that will get you to survive and reproduce into the next generation. So natural selection is like double down on al…”
Assertion Supported
Santos: Over 40% of College Students Report Severe Functional Depression
“National statistics report that now, nowadays, over 40% of college students report being too depressed to function most days. Over 60% say that they're overwhelmingly anxious. Another over 60% report feeling lonely, extremely lonely most of the time. Over 80% …”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Santos: Canceling Extracurriculars Reduced College Students' Anxiety and FOMO
“Just not having as much stuff to do wound up making students feel less FOMO, less anxious, less time famished.”
Assertion Partly supported
Santos: Every Single Study Shows Happy People Are More Social
“Every available study of happy people suggests that happy people are more social. They prioritize time with their friends and family members, but they're also just, like, around other people more often.”
Assertion Supported
Santos: Talking to Strangers During Commutes Significantly Improves Mood
“There's some lovely work by Nick Epley and his colleagues showing that if you force somebody to talk to a stranger on the train on their commute to work, for example, they wind up in a happier mood.”
Assertion Supported
Santos: People Smile 30% Less When a Smartphone Is Merely Nearby
“She finds things like we smile 30% less when we have our phone near us, even if you're not using your phone, right?”
Assertion Supported
Santos: Writing Gratitude Lists for Two Weeks Significantly Boosts Well-Being
“There's evidence that in as little as two weeks, the simple act of writing three to five things you're grateful for down on a piece of paper can improve your well-being, like significantly improve your well-being.”
Assertion Supported
Santos: Writing One Gratitude Letter Elevates Well-Being for Over a Month
“There's also evidence that expressing gratitude to other people, like writing a, you know, a detailed thank you note to someone that you've always wanted to thank but never gotten a chance to. The act of doing that, at least in Marty Seligman and others' data,…”
Assertion Supported
Santos: The Genetic Heritability of Happiness Is Roughly 30% to 40%
“Estimates kind of vary, but it's probably around, you know, 40%, 30%. Like, it's not that all the variants and the happy people that you see out there in the world is like, well, some people are genetically happy and some people aren't. That's just simply not …”
Assertion Supported
Santos: Toddlers Give Up Faster When Parents Solve Puzzles for Them
“What she finds is that when you give kids a very different puzzle later on, kids who've had that taking over condition, where the parents give the answer, give up much more quickly. And if you find ways to survey them about what they believe, like, they probab…”
Insight
Santos: Emotion Regulation Requires Proactively Avoiding Triggering Situations
“Emotion regulation and finding ways to control your emotions are sometimes about you experience that emotion. You've gotta control it and regulate it in the moment, but you can also be smart enough about, like, trying not to get yourself into that situation in…”
Insight
Santos: Burnout Stems From Work Becoming Your Identity, Not Apathy
“Oftentimes it's not because your work, you didn't care about your work, or your work is boring, or it sucked. Oftentimes it's because you got so involved in your work is really your identity right now.”
Insight
Santos: Seeking Solitude During Burnout Cuts Off Restorative Social Connection
“Solitude, I think when you're experiencing this, the depersonalization, which is like rich cynicism, you know, I get it. It's like, I don't want to deal with people anymore. But ultimately that's allowing us, that's forcing us to lose out on this one mechanism…”
Laurie Santos