The June issue of The Atlantic has an article about a 72-year-long study at Harvard about how different experiences affect the health and happiness of people. Video above, full text of article here.
Is there a formula—some mix of love, work, and psychological adaptation—for a good life? For 72 years, researchers at Harvard have been examining this question, following 268 men who entered college in the late 1930s through war, career, marriage and divorce, parenthood and grandparenthood, and old age. Here, for the first time, a journalist gains access to the archive of one of the most comprehensive longitudinal studies in history. Its contents, as much literature as science, offer profound insight into the human condition—and into the brilliant, complex mind of the study’s longtime director, George Vaillant.
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With the sample they used, it seems like a more accurate title would be "what makes educated white men of a certain era happy?"
There is a great book on this topic, too, called "The Geography of Bliss" by NPR correspondent Eric Weiner. He takes some of these studies on happiness and combines them with his anecdotal approach to finding the happiest place in the world. The book is both enlightening and very amusing.
"Here, for the first time, a journalist gains access to the archive of one of the most comprehensive longitudinal studies in history."
Not a statistician, a journalist. Oh dear.
As a white, male, Harvard sophomore, currently living in the 1930s, I find this data very practical indeed!
Perhaps I'm being too snarky. It's an unusual, and potentially interesting, data set, even though it is very, very narrow. The proof's in the pudding though--any data set is only as useful as the types of analysis done to it.
One does imagine responses like, "That Betty Grable is a hot tamale."
What makes us happy? boingboing!
antinous: bee's knees.
The important thing is keeping an onion tied to your belt.
What the Dickens?!
Wow. Apparently elucidating the complexities of human development elicits a high proportion cynicism. The longitudinal study model is of extremely high value when looking at topics such as the one this study focuses on. Perhaps an open mind to the material would prove more useful than the critical banality which composes most of the comments.
We're made happy by the results of our own efforts: hard work and strong emotional ties at which you put consistent effort.
So...what does make us happy? I also felt an initial gut feeling to the video of gack...if you were entirely privileged in the 1930s, you probably made out pretty well in middle life... But, after squelching my initial US-privileged-guilt response, I realized that I'm more interested in finding out what people think really makes for a happy life, esp since I'm getting most of my happy out of spending most of my non-work hours playing Plants vs Zombies or internetting or whatever and thinking about how I'm way too old to be doing so. How do we convince ourselves to work hard enough to have true happiness and create new emotional ties as an adult vs a lack of pain/distress? Ah...existential moments.
Was really interested in this, clicked on the link, found out this brilliant study was only on men.
Title shouldn't be what makes "us" happy, unless you assume the readership of boingboing is entirely male.
As I watched the video, I was first under the impression that the narrator was given to longish pauses as he spoke - but no, that was the video player stuttering. The video player that refuses to continue to load when you hit pause, but stutters as it streams slowly. Fail.
#9: Well, that was the style at the time.
"it's faster horses, younger women, older whiskey, and more money"
Happiness is made up of six parts: a lasting love relationship; having good friends; enjoying optimal health; doing meaningful work; financial security; and being a ease with the unresolvable mystery of existence.
Is not being unhappy equal being happy? Noah Lieske
Happiness is life - the life of a Harvard Business Graduate. It's so nice to know that Harvard Business Graduates are likely to amount to something by the time they're forty.
The life expectancy in Zambia is less than forty years. Maybe they're not happy because they're dead. No wait - maybe it's because they don't have grandchildren to help them sail.
So what you're really saying is that happiness is being part of the heteronormative white elite. Wow, that's so profound! Without a longitundinal study spanning thirty years we might never have known this amazing fact!
Those of you who dismiss the information gained in this study out-of-hand simply because it involves a rather narrow cohort have entirely missed the point (and I suspect didn't bother to read the article). In fact, it could be argued that the data is even more relevant because the sample set controls for external factors like race, gender, and family income.
I suggest that if you RTFA, you will find it, if not informative, at least interesting. I know that bashing old, rich white guys is easy and fashionable, but you may find that if you leave your prejudices aside you may learn something.
Yes, it's the mid 30's, in the U.S., at Harvard, in the days of Jim Crow, separate drinking fountains, with the vast feminine job opportunities of secretary, operator or wife, pretty much every study of the time involves white males (and maybe a couple of run on sentences). I'm shocked!, shocked!, that a white male study is going on here!. And of course, since we all know that white males are genetically completely different from the rest of the species, as can be told by the gene that causes the pinky to raise when drinking, this study must be completely useless to the rest of the human population. It couldn't possibly be that human happiness has shared traits across gender and varying epidermal melanin concentrations. No, let's completely disregard this study because we can interpret it as having some implicit racism and as we can tell by previous comments, we no longer have racism today ;).
Well, the conclusion is that it's "love". He said it at the end. Surely that's universal enough?
I loved the thoughtfulness of this article - when I do manage to make it to a church with a good speaker, it makes me feel the same way. That is to say, curious about the world, my own heart, and how I can best spend my turn on this earth. As much as I love all the tech-nerdery, social-neuroticism, cigar-box banjo-tom-foolery, I found this to be one of my favorite postings in a long time.
Thanks, Mark, for giving me something to chew over today.