Dr. Laurie Santos

And then what happens is sometimes we end up going for that reward Anyway, the fiction writer David Sedaris has this wonderful article called The Fitbit Life where he talks about how he wanted to get fit. It's intrinsic reward of exercising more. And he got the Fitbit, and then it was all about the Fitbit. And he would set the level higher and set the level higher.

And then what happens is sometimes we end up going for that reward Anyway, the fiction writer David Sedaris has this wonderful article called The Fitbit Life where he talks about how he wanted to get fit. It's intrinsic reward of exercising more. And he got the Fitbit, and then it was all about the Fitbit. And he would set the level higher and set the level higher.

And then what happens is sometimes we end up going for that reward Anyway, the fiction writer David Sedaris has this wonderful article called The Fitbit Life where he talks about how he wanted to get fit. It's intrinsic reward of exercising more. And he got the Fitbit, and then it was all about the Fitbit. And he would set the level higher and set the level higher.

And he himself was miserable and no longer enjoying running to the point that at some point he just would walk around shaking his arm just to get up to those final steps, right? That's a really terrible case where your extrinsic reward – winds up taking over.

And he himself was miserable and no longer enjoying running to the point that at some point he just would walk around shaking his arm just to get up to those final steps, right? That's a really terrible case where your extrinsic reward – winds up taking over.

And he himself was miserable and no longer enjoying running to the point that at some point he just would walk around shaking his arm just to get up to those final steps, right? That's a really terrible case where your extrinsic reward – winds up taking over.

But so many of the cases you just talked about are ones in our real life where that comes up much more insidiously than with like a Fitbit or something like that. You talked about play and mammals, the easiest thing that little kid animals do all over the place. Little kid humans don't do that as much anymore because even from really young ages, they're

But so many of the cases you just talked about are ones in our real life where that comes up much more insidiously than with like a Fitbit or something like that. You talked about play and mammals, the easiest thing that little kid animals do all over the place. Little kid humans don't do that as much anymore because even from really young ages, they're

But so many of the cases you just talked about are ones in our real life where that comes up much more insidiously than with like a Fitbit or something like that. You talked about play and mammals, the easiest thing that little kid animals do all over the place. Little kid humans don't do that as much anymore because even from really young ages, they're

You know, in toddler university where they're kind of learning things to get into the next grade and get the perfect grade so they can get into institutions like ours, right? It all becomes about extrinsic rewards. And so I think you're really right. We're kind of extrinsic-sizing all the rewards to the point that we're not getting to internal happiness.

You know, in toddler university where they're kind of learning things to get into the next grade and get the perfect grade so they can get into institutions like ours, right? It all becomes about extrinsic rewards. And so I think you're really right. We're kind of extrinsic-sizing all the rewards to the point that we're not getting to internal happiness.

You know, in toddler university where they're kind of learning things to get into the next grade and get the perfect grade so they can get into institutions like ours, right? It all becomes about extrinsic rewards. And so I think you're really right. We're kind of extrinsic-sizing all the rewards to the point that we're not getting to internal happiness.

It was hard already to pay attention to that stuff because – I think we'll probably talk about this. It's hard to be mindful about your emotions. You really have to pay attention to what's going on. But I think it's gotten even harder because we have these metrics. They're all over the place in our culture, but they're just not the intrinsic thing.

It was hard already to pay attention to that stuff because – I think we'll probably talk about this. It's hard to be mindful about your emotions. You really have to pay attention to what's going on. But I think it's gotten even harder because we have these metrics. They're all over the place in our culture, but they're just not the intrinsic thing.

It was hard already to pay attention to that stuff because – I think we'll probably talk about this. It's hard to be mindful about your emotions. You really have to pay attention to what's going on. But I think it's gotten even harder because we have these metrics. They're all over the place in our culture, but they're just not the intrinsic thing.

There's some extrinsic marker that could make the intrinsic thing even less fun.

There's some extrinsic marker that could make the intrinsic thing even less fun.

There's some extrinsic marker that could make the intrinsic thing even less fun.

Yeah. So these effects of kind of resources on happiness are really interesting and they're nuanced, right? So if you look at the lower end of the kind of income spectrum, you would obviously say that money affects happiness, right? If you can't put food on the table, if you can't put a roof over your head, definitely getting a little bit more is going to affect your happiness in a positive way.

Yeah. So these effects of kind of resources on happiness are really interesting and they're nuanced, right? So if you look at the lower end of the kind of income spectrum, you would obviously say that money affects happiness, right? If you can't put food on the table, if you can't put a roof over your head, definitely getting a little bit more is going to affect your happiness in a positive way.