Editor’s note: This article was first published in April 2013, when the Harvard study it describes had run for 75 years.
In 2009, The Atlantic published one of the longest-running studies of human development. Its purpose was to find out what influences people’s happiness over the course of their lives. In other words: “the factors that make one person happier than another”, taking into account a surprising range of psychological, anthropological and physical factors, even IQ, as well as family relationships.
The study began in 1938 and has followed the lives of 268 male Harvard students for 75 years. George Vaillant took it over 30 years ago and finally published what he called Triumphs of Experience. Among the study’s conclusions:
Alcoholism is a highly destructive disease and the main cause of divorce between the men and their wives, and this factor was strongly linked to neurosis and depression. A person who drinks tends to be unhappier, and when problems come up in life, instead of tackling and facing them, they tend to take refuge in alcohol, just like people who have dabbled in any kind of drug. And let’s not forget that the “cigarette” was the main cause of early death, through smoking-related diseases. The study reminds us that even the highest IQs fall just as easily into any kind of addiction.
As for professional success, the study shows no significant difference in income between men with an IQ of 110–115 and those with an IQ of 150.
On political ideology, the only thing it observed was that liberals had an active sex life even into their 80s, whereas conservatives tended to give up intimate relations at an average age of 68. Vaillant says he has talked to urologists about this and they have no idea why.
However, the study shows a strong correlation between warm family relationships, health and happiness in old age.
Although this correlation has been criticised, Vaillant insists that the 58 men with the highest scores for “warmth of relationships” earned, over their lifetimes, an average of $141,000 a year more, while the 31 men with the lowest scores on this measure earned the least, even though some of them had among the highest IQs.
Finally, we come to a conclusion Freud would have liked: the results that link the warmth of our relationship with our mothers to our future happiness:
- Men who had a warm relationship with their mothers earned an average of $87,000 a year more than those whose mothers could not give them much time and affection.
- Men who had poor relationships with their mothers were more likely to develop dementia in old age and had less successful careers.
Warm relationships with their parents were linked to lower rates of anxiety in adulthood, greater enjoyment of holidays and overall satisfaction with life. Men who had a warm relationship with their parents knew how to be happier with their own families, and so they were more “unburdened” of problems in their careers and could develop more easily. That meant they earned more money. They were simply happier.
George Vaillant’s final words and conclusion: “The 75 years and 20 million dollars spent on this study point to a five-word conclusion: Happiness is love. Full stop.”
The result is similar to an earlier article of ours, whose final conclusion was that happiness is love and $75,000 a year.
Further reading
- 5 keys to excelling at everything you set out to do
- The best advice 9 successful people ever received
Featured image: Vera de Kok, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
