randomness | (no subject)

(no subject)

From "What Makes Us Happy?" in the June 2009 Atlantic magazine:

In an interview in the March 2008 newsletter to the Grant Study subjects, Vaillant was asked, “What have you learned from the Grant Study men?” Vaillant’s response: “That the only thing that really matters in life are your relationships to other people.”

Edit: an LJ friend pointed out that the article was in the Atlantic, not Harper's, and I corrected.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Uhm, I just read that story in the Atlantic. Is it appearing in both?

That confirms what I've been thinking for a long time. I don't really matter.

That was fascinating, thank you.

"You can be anybody you want to be
You can love whoever you will
You can travel any country where your heart leads
And know I will love you still
You can live by yourself, you can gather friends around
You can choose one special one
And the only measure of your words and your deeds
Will be the love you leave behind when you're done."

--Fred Small, "Everything Possible"

>"That the only thing that really matters in life are your relationships to other people."

Along with being white, male, and with the privilege of affording to go to Harvard and the networking that provides, sure. Quantifying this helps the rest of us in a very different century how?

There are a number of uplifting comments in the article, but they're all stated from unrealistic socioeconomic positions.

(edited, previously version was too snarky)

Edited 2009-05-15 20:34 (UTC)

Good points...I think it is interesting, though, to start with a group of people who are privileged enough that many would think that they would just automatically be happy. With advantages such as they had, why wouldn't they be happy, right? But having privilege isn't an automatic indicator of life happiness, just as the lack of privilege isn't an automatic indicator of unhappiness, and it's interesting to see that quantified.

That is absolutely a failing of the study, but it's the longest running longitudinal study ever, a design fault of the original investigators doesn't render 70 years of data useless.
Also, although they don't seem to mention it in the article (I only skimmed) there was a similar study started with inner-city, under privileged men that got absorbed by this one. And while that doesn't deal with the gender issue, it does deal with the class issue.

Hey! Do you know that I was an RA for this study for about two years? The glowing recommendation of Bob Waldinger, who's slowly taking over for Valliant is, I suspect, one of main reasons I got into grad school.

My bad! I was reading a piece in Harper's this afternoon too. Correcting.

I had forgotten about that until this moment when you mentioned it! But yes, now I remember all the followup work you did. That's great!

It's here:

"Vaillant also dramatically expanded his scope by taking over a defunct study of juvenile delinquents in inner-city Boston, run by the criminologists Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck. Launched in 1939, the study had a control group of nondelinquent boys who grew up in similar circumstances—children of poor, mostly foreign-born parents, about half of whom lived in a home without a tub or a shower. In the 1970s, Vaillant and his staff tracked down most of these nondelinquent boys—it took years—so that today the Harvard Study of Adult Development consists of two cohorts, the “Grant men” and the “Glueck men.” Vaillant also arranged to interview a group of women from the legendary Stanford Terman study, which in the 1920s began to follow a group of high-IQ kids in California."

It was a pretty cool job. It wasn't follow up exactly - we were asking them about their marriages and looking at their daily interactions. It was also cool because some of the spouses participated, which was definitely interesting.

A beautiful article. Thank you!

That article was so amazing. Ironically my Mom recommended it, and she should know from unhappy Ivy league grads. *heh* But I'd head about it from David Brooks' oversimplifying ~~butchery~~ summary in the NYT this past week and was intrigued to read the real thing. Most interesting was how often alcoholism was a problem in the group simply because, with their wealth and connections, it was much harder for them to "hit bottom" when they were getting sloshed at the club every night. One of the failings mentioned in the comments above.

Here's to squeezing the hell out of that lemon!

I knew it! I was thinking about you the whole time I was reading the article.

That means that part of this study took place *in-my-kitchen!*

I like to be part of things...

It's true! You totally helped science.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only