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A new book summarizes the findings from a famous happiness study that began in the 1930s—and explains how you can be happier.
What makes for a happy life? Philosophers have pondered this question for millennia, coming up with different theories and recommendations for people to follow, but not necessarily having any hard evidence to prove their ideas.
That’s what inspired the long-running Harvard Study of Adult Development.
Starting in the 1930s, researchers tracked men from different neighborhoods in the Boston area over several decades, asking them to provide regular updates on their lives, including their current health, income, employment, and marital status. The men also filled out questionnaires and participated in interviews where they revealed their fears, hopes, disappointments, accomplishments, regrets, life satisfaction, and much more. This resulted in rich, in-depth data that researchers could use to assess how life circumstances, experiences, and attitudes affect well-being.
Findings from the study have been parsed over the years as patterns emerged. But now they’ve been put together into a book, The Good Life: Lessons From the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness. Written by the study’s current director and associate director, Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz, the book not only reveals what factors lead to a “good life,” but also why it’s never too late to nudge our own lives in a happier, healthier direction.
The keys to well-being
It turns out the key to a long, healthy life isn’t necessarily obvious. “Contrary to what many people think, it’s not career achievement, or exercise, or a healthy diet,” write the authors—though those things matter, too, they add. Instead, “one thing continuously demonstrates its broad and enduring importance: Good relationships.”
How can the authors say this so definitively? After all, the study began with only white males in a select geographic area as participants (it’s since been broadened to include others). On the other hand, the authors can point to many other longitudinal studiesrepresenting more diverse groups, all of which conclude the same thing: that human connections are important for healthy development and longevity.