75 Years In The Making: Harvard Just Released Its Epic Study On What Men Need To Live A Happy Life
by Brent Lambert • April 29, 2013 • Books, Health, Psychology, Science, Spirituality • Comments (0) • 158112
In 1938 Harvard University began following 268 male undergraduate students and kicked off the longest-running longitudinal studies of human development in history. The study’s goal was to determine as best as possible what factors contribute most strongly to human flourishing. The astonishing range of psychological, anthropological, and physical traits — ranging from personality type to IQ to drinking habits to family relationships to “hanging length of his scrotum” — indicates just how exhaustive and quantifiable the research data has become. Recently, George Vaillant, who directed the study for more than three decades, published the study’s findings in the 2012 book Triumphs of Experience (Amazon) and the following is the book’s synopsis:
“At a time when many people around the world are living into their tenth decade, the longest longitudinal study of human development ever undertaken offers some welcome news for the new old age: our lives continue to evolve in our later years, and often become more fulfilling than before. Begun in 1938, the Grant Study of Adult Development charted the physical and emotional health of over 200 men, starting with their undergraduate days. The now-classic ‘Adaptation to Life’ reported on the men’s lives up to age 55 and helped us understand adult maturation. Now George Vaillant follows the men into their nineties, documenting for the first time what it is like to flourish far beyond conventional retirement. Reporting on all aspects of male life, including relationships, politics and religion, coping strategies, and alcohol use (its abuse being by far the greatest disruptor of health and happiness for the study’s subjects), ‘Triumphs of Experience’ shares a number of surprising findings. For example, the people who do well in old age did not necessarily do so well in midlife, and vice versa. While the study confirms that recovery from a lousy childhood is possible, memories of a happy childhood are a lifelong source of strength. Marriages bring much more contentment after age 70, and physical aging after 80 is determined less by heredity than by habits formed prior to age 50. The credit for growing old with grace and vitality, it seems, goes more to ourselves than to our stellar genetic makeup.”
As you can imagine, the study’s discoveries are bountiful, but the most significant finding of all is that “Alcoholism is a disorder of great destructive power.” In fact, alcoholism is the single strongest cause of divorce between the Grant Study men and their wives. Alcoholism was also found to be strongly coupled with neurosis and depression (which most often follows alcohol abuse, rather than preceding it). Together with cigarette smoking, alcoholism proves to be the #1 greatest cause of morbidity and death. And above a certain level, intelligence doesn’t prevent the damage.
With regards to income, there was no noticeable difference in maximum income earned by men with IQs in the 110-115 range vs. men with IQs above 150. With regards to sex lives, one of the most fascinating discoveries is that aging liberals have way more sex. Political ideology had no bearing on overall life satisfaction, but the most conservative men on average shut down their sex lives around age 68, while the most liberal men had healthy sex lives well into their 80s. Vaillant writes, “I have consulted urologists about this, they have no idea why it might be so.”
In Triumphs of Experience, Vaillant raises a number of factors more often than others, but the one he refers to most often is the powerful correlation between the warmth of your relationships and your health and happiness in your later years. In 2009, Vaillant’s insistance on the importance of this part of the data was challenged, so Vaillant returned to the data to be sure the finding merited such important focus. Not only did Vaillant discover that his focus on warm relationships was warranted, he placed even more importance on this factor than he had previously. Vallant notes that the 58 men who scored highest on the measurements of “warm relationships” (WR) earned an average of $141,000 a year more during their peak salaries (between ages 55-60) than the 31 men who scored the lowest in WR. The high WR scorers were also 3-times more likely to have professional success worthy of inclusion in Who’s Who.
One of the most intriguing discoveries of the Grant Study was how significant men’s relationships with their mothers are in determining their well-being in life. For instance, Business Insider writes: “Men who had ‘warm’ childhood relationships with their mothers took home $87,000 more per year than men whose mothers were uncaring. Men who had poor childhood relationships with their mothers were much more likely to develop dementia when old. Late in their professional lives, the men’s boyhood relationships with their mothers — but not their fathers — were associated with effectiveness at work. On the other hand, warm childhood relations with fathers correlated with lower rates of adult anxiety, greater enjoyment on vacations, and increased ‘life satisfaction’ at age 75 — whereas the warmth of childhood relationships with mothers had no significant bearing on life satisfaction at 75.”
In Vallant’s own words, the #1 most important finding from the Grant Study is this: “The seventy-five years and twenty million dollars expended on the Grant Study points to a straightforward five-word conclusion: Happiness is love. Full stop.”
Interesting reading!!!
Last night my neighbor Scott told me about the space station and that it would be passing by this morning around 6.20am and he was going to watch it and asked if he could go on my roof terrace of course I said yes and also that I would get up and see it too…
Facts and Figures
Image above: The International Space Station's length and width is about the size of a football field. Credit: NASA
› View hi-res image
The International Space Station marked its 10th anniversary of continuous human occupation on Nov. 2, 2010. Since Expedition 1, which launched Oct. 31, 2000, and docked Nov. 2, the space station has been visited by 204 individuals.
At the time of the anniversary, the station’s odometer read more than 1.5 billion statute miles (the equivalent of eight round trips to the Sun), over the course of 57,361 orbits around the Earth.
The International Space Station is not only an orbiting laboratory, but also a space port for a variety of international spacecraft. As of June 2013, there have been:
- 89 Russian launches
- 37 Space Shuttle launches
- 1 test flight and 2 operational flights by SpaceX’s Dragon
- 3 Japanese HTVs
- 3 European ATVs
A total of 174 spacewalks have been conducted in support of space station assembly totaling almost 1,100 hours, or nearly 46 days.
The space station, including its large solar arrays, spans the area of a U.S. football field, including the end zones, and weighs 924,739 pounds. The complex now has more livable room than a conventional six-bedroom house, and has two bathrooms, a gymnasium and a 360-degree bay window.
Additional launches will continue to augment these facts and figures, so check back here for the latest.
International Space Station Size & Mass
- Module Length: 167.3 feet (51 meters)
- Truss Length: 357.5 feet (109 meters)
- Solar Array Length: 239.4 feet (73 meters)
- Mass: 924,739 pounds (419,455 kilograms)
- Habitable Volume: 13,696 cubic feet (388 cubic meters)
- Pressurized Volume: 32,333 cubic feet (916 cubic meters)
- Power Generation: 8 solar arrays = 84 kilowatts
- Lines of Computer Code: approximately 2.3 million
International Space Station at Completion
International Space Station at Completion
Image above: Expedition 22 Flight Engineer Oleg Kotov wears a Russian Orlan spacesuit during a spacewalk. Credit: NASA
- The ISS solar array surface area could cover the U.S. Senate Chamber three times over.
- ISS is larger than a six-bedroom house.
- ISS has an internal pressurized volume of 32,333 cubic feet, or equal that of a Boeing 747.
- The solar array wingspan (240 feet) is longer than that of a Boeing 777 200/300 model, which is 212 feet.
- Fifty-two computers control the systems on the ISS.
- More than 115 space flights were conducted on five different types of launch vehicles over the course of the station’s construction.
- More than 100 telephone-booth-sized rack facilities can be in the ISS for operating the spacecraft systems and research experiments.
- The ISS is almost four times as large as the Russian space station Mir and about five times as large as the U.S. Skylab.
- The ISS weighs almost one million pounds (approximately 925,000 pounds). That’s the equivalent of more than 320 automobiles.
- The ISS measures 357 feet end-to-end. That’s equivalent to the length of a football field including the end zones (well, almost – a football field is 360 feet).
- 3.3 million lines of software code on the ground support 1.8 million lines of flight software code.
- Eight miles of wire connects the electrical power system.
- In the International Space Station’s U.S. segment alone, 1.5 million lines of flight software code run on 44 computers communicating via 100 data networks transferring 400,000 signals (e.g. pressure or temperature measurements, valve positions, etc.).
- The ISS manages 20 times as many signals as the space shuttle.
- Main U.S. control computers have 1.5 gigabytes of total main hard drive storage in the U.S. segment compared to modern PCs, which have ~500 gigabyte hard drives.
- The entire 55-foot robot arm assembly is capable of lifting 220,000 pounds, which is the weight of a space shuttle orbiter.
- The 75 to 90 kilowatts of power for the ISS is supplied by an acre of solar panels.
It was really humbling to see the station go by…. so fast and so far away and know there are people on board…..
Not great shots
The station is the white dot in the middle of the photo.
These are lovely sunrise shots I don’t get many of these….
I stayed up and spent some time on the computer and also planned my lesson for tonight….had breakfast and then went to the bank before I went to my yoga class……..always enjoy the class and this time was no exception.
After class I went to visit my friend Carol I have not seen her in ages so it was good to catch up and she provided a lovely lunch. I had more chores to do in town and did not get back home till almost 4pm…time for a shower and shave and get my car as I will need it in the morning and then go to my English class.
Again I had the students from the next level as their teacher is still away…I just really enjoy teaching it was all conversation tonight they are getting so confident and we always have so much fun.
Back home by 8pm so a busy day…just relaxing tonight watching some TV…yes I have a TV that actually shows other things apart from Sports!!!!!
Yashi Kochi!!!
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