The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos

Why do kids do disruptive, annoying or maddening things? Usually when children behave badly, the first thing adults do is yell at them, tell them they're bad and dole out punishments. Developmental psychologist David Yeager says that's the wrong approach. Instead parents need work out why their child made bad decisions in the first place.    David is the author of the book  10 to 25...

Clinical psychologist Dr Becky Kennedy thinks every child is “good inside” even when they’re behaving badly. So to tackle tantrums or rule-breaking, she argues that parents must set clear boundaries for acceptable behaviour, but also seek to understand why their children are misbehaving.  If a child is acting "badly" because they are disappointed, sad, frustrated, jealous, o...

Nordic countries are known to be happy - so should we all raise our children like the Scandinavians do? British parent Helen Russell moved to Denmark and was shocked that Danish children play outside in all weathers; are given sharp tools and they're shown how to light matches. In her book The Danish Secret to Happy Kids: How the Viking Way of Raising Children Makes Them Happier, Healthier, and Mo...

Parents are never perfect - but their mistakes can have a lasting impact on their children. We all carry with us ideas and attitudes planted in us during childhood - and they're not always very helpful for leading a happy life. How can we unlearn some of these things and also prevent ourselves from passing them on if we have kids? Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach have raised three children together...

Too many parents feel “exhausted, burned out, and perpetually behind” according to the former US Surgeon General Dr Vivek Murthy. He says more needs to be done to protect parental mental health.  Vivek talks to Dr Laurie about his experience as a dad and the loneliness, guilt and shame parents can feel as they struggle with the challenges of raising children.  This series on...

In a special episode brought to you by Chase for Business, Dr. Laurie joins Ben Walter—CEO of Chase for Business and host of The Unshakeables podcast—to talk about resilience. Dr. Laurie and Ben explore the story of Benjamin Haugh, founder of All Nation Restoration in Austin, Texas. Benjamin had a difficult start in life, and at a young age found himself stranded in Austin with no mone...

There are many benefits to being an optimist - particularly when things go wrong in our lives. But we aren't all naturally optimistic, so can we learn to adopt the best and most positive behaviours of born optimists? Through treating New Yorkers caught up in the 9/11 attacks, psychiatrist Dr Sue Varma developed a concept she calls "practical optimism". She shares her tips on how we can all be more...

Author and vlogger John Green looks around the world and sees a lot of things that suck. But rather than giving in to despair, he's trying to develop a sense of hope. He says the most "punk rock" thing to do is tackle our problems head-on.  John embraces the motto: "Human beings can be good news!" In a live discussion with Dr Laurie, he explains that if we work together we can decrease the su...

Best-selling author John Green wants to see less suck in the world and more awesome - and you can help achieve that right now! John's turned his attention to tuberculosis (TB) - a disease that is fixable and yet still kills millions of people. But you can stop that.  TB is a disease of poverty - so if you can spare a buck, then you can save lives by donating to  GiveDirectly.org/tb Givin...

"What can we do to find hope when times are tough?" That was the question posed to Dr Laurie for a live recording of IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson at the 2025 SXSW festival.  Dr Laurie explained what science says about retaining hope and how we can act in ways that make us feel better even in bleak times - and the former First Lady shared her tips for staying hopeful.  IMO i...

Sometimes a two-week vacation just isn't enough - we all might need to leave our jobs for three months, six months or even a year. Taking an extended break can be great for our wellbeing - allowing us to recharge our batteries and reassess our priorities.  But for most of us taking a sabbatical feels impossible - so live at SXSW Dr Laurie asked the advice of sabbaticals expert DJ DiDonna. DJ...

Dr Laurie was invited by her pal Gretchen Rubin to appear on a special edition of the More Happier podcast to examine friendship.  The two old friends were joined in their discussion by a new friend, Reshma Saujani (founder of Girls Who Code and Moms First and host of the podcast My So-Called Midlife ).  The trio talked about how our friendships change over time, how to handle conflict,...

There are so many happiness lessons to remember - but it helps if we can boil them down into memorable little sayings. Happiness expert Gretchen Rubin has done exactly that in her latest book -  Secrets of Adulthood . Dr Laurie picked twelve of her favorite aphorisms from the book and invited Gretchen along to explore sayings such as “Happiness doesn't always make us feel happy” a...

Do you trust your government? Do you trust your neighbors or the strangers you meet on the street? Do you trust the media? Or your teachers? Who we trust is changing. And trust in our institutions and our fellow citizens is in steep decline. That's according to the World Happiness Report . Who we trust can have a huge impact on our behavior and our happiness.   So what's behind...

It's the International Day of Happiness ! It's a chance to talk about happiness and what we can all do to be happier. March 20th also sees the release of the World Happiness Report . A big finding of 2025's report is that more of us are dining alone - and that's bad news.  The report's editor Jan-Emmanuel De Neve talks us through the stark figures showing that shared meals are in decline - wh...

Earth Day is coming on April 22, but the whole month is seen as an opportunity to think about environmental issues and what we as individuals can do to help out.  It seemed like a good time to rerun an episode we made with Harvard professor Dan Gilbert about why we humans are great at tackling immediate threats, but find it harder to motivate ourselves to address problems that seem a longer w...

Hell is other people. They can upset us, depress us and infuriate us. Their bad moods can bring us down. And their achievements can make us feel like failures. But it doesn't have to be this way.    Psychologist Ethan Kross says there are simple things we can do to make our daily interactions a source of fulfilment and joy.  Ethan's the author of Shift: Managing Your Emotions So The...

What's your purpose? Jordan Grumet thought that becoming a doctor would give his life meaning and direction... but he was wrong. He spent his days doing things he didn't really enjoy and dreaded waking up in the morning.  Finding a purpose that is authentic to you can be transformative - and it doesn't have to be some grand goal like curing a disease or founding a company. Jordan, author...

Leadership isn't just for CEOs, presidents, or generals. If someone is looking to you for guidance—whether it's at home, school, or the workplace—that makes you a leader too. So how can you show up better for the people who rely on you? Columbia Business School's Adam Galinsky, author of Inspire: The Universal Path for Leading Yourself and Others , believes that just a few simple lesso...

To improve your life you might decide to prioritize your own personal happiness, or find meaning in helping the people around you. Few of us consider pushing ourselves well beyond our comfort zones. It might take a lot of effort and risks pain or disappointment.    University of Chicago professor Shige Oishi thinks to live fully we all need to push ourselves to find "psychological richne...

Love Factually is a new podcast looking at what "rom com" movies get right and wrong about relationships. Dr Laurie Santos joined the hosts Eli Finkel of Northwestern University and Paul Eastwick from UC Davis to talk about her favorite 80s teen movie, Say Anything. In this episode, they discuss what Cameron Crowe's 1989 film tells us about what constitutes stalking; and the transition when romant...

In the absence of better advice, we learn a lot about love and dating from rom com movies - but is the depiction of relationships in these films leading us in the wrong direction? Let's find out.  Eli Finkel of Northwestern University and Paul Eastwick from UC Davis are both accomplished relationship experts - but for fun they’ve launched a podcast called Love Factually exploring what t...

Do you go on endless dates hoping to find the perfect partner only to be endlessly disappointed? Or have you stopped meeting people because you've decided that you're undateable ? Maybe you need to start dating like a scientist.  Behavioural scientist Logan Ury has studied the common mistakes we make when looking for love - and thinks science can shows us a better way.   Logan is th...

Stress can suck, but it's part of life - it’s normal and even useful. Many of us drown in our stress - worrying about past events and fearing upcoming challenges. We even stress about feeling stressed. So how can we reset our relationship with stress - benefitting from its positives and avoiding those negatives?  Dr Jenny Taitz has some effective tips to help you greet stress more healt...

Negative emotions like fear or anger are part of being human. These feelings tell us something - perhaps prompting us to take action or bring about change. However, they're powerful and disruptive - and if they hang around too long or are too intense, they can take a huge toll on our happiness and wellbeing. We need to shift them... but how? Psychologist Ethan Kross knows. He's the author of Shift...