Surprising Findings from the World’s Longest Study of the Causes of Happiness

The Harvard Study of Adult Development

A recent survey of young adults revealed that for over eighty percent of them a major life goal was to get rich.  Fifty percent of them said that another goal was to become famous.  One might have guessed that achieving those goals would indeed bring happiness.   But according to an intensive study of the subject, this is not the case.  

The most famous study of happiness and contributing factors to healthy aging may be the Harvard Study of Adult Development.  It began as a longitudinal study of 268 Harvard college sophomores from the classes of 1939-1944.  It later included a group of 456 inner-city youth who grew up in Boston between 1940 and 1945.  The project continues under its fourth director.  Though only a handful of the initial participants are still alive, the study now includes their children and grandchildren.   Since the beginning, subjects were evaluated at least every two years through questionnaires, information from their doctors, and personal interviews.   

Psychiatrist George Vaillant, who led the Harvard study from 1972 until 2004, summarized their findings by saying, “The key to healthy aging is relationships, relationships, relationships.”  In other words, Vaillant said, “Happiness is love.  Full stop.”  “It isn’t the class system that governs how we turned out in life, but it matters tremendously whether we are loved and whether we’re able to give love.”  This turned out to be true both among the Harvard men and the inner-city Boston participants. 

Vaillant added:

We’ve learned three big lessons about relationships. The first is that social connections are really good for us, and that loneliness kills….

The second big lesson that we learned is that it’s not just the number of friends you have, and it’s not whether or not you’re in a committed relationship, but it’s the quality of your close relationships that matters….

The third big lesson that we learned about relationships and our health is that good relationships don’t just protect our bodies; they protect our brains. It turns out that being in a securely attached relationship to another person in your 80s is protective, that the people who are in relationships where they really feel they can count on the other person in times of need, those people’s memories stay sharper longer.

The current director of the Harvard study, Robert Waldinger, similarly observed: “The surprising finding is that our relationships and how happy we are in our relationships has a powerful influence on our health.”   He added, “Taking care of your body is important, but tending to your relationships is a form of self-care too. That, I think, is the revelation.”  Those without good relationships often died earlier.  “Loneliness kills,” he said. “It’s as powerful as smoking or alcoholism.”

Dr. George Vaillant even saw spiritual implications in the findings of the Harvard study.  He wrote: 

We’ve evolved to be increasingly altruistic and caring about each other. The spiritual side of that is that whether I blame Darwin for it or whether I blame a loving god that created the universe for it doesn’t make very much difference. It’s – you do a lot better going to a positive church than you do reading Richard Dawkins [a prominent evolutionary biologist, atheist, secular humanist, and outspoken opponent of religion]. And so that I’m a psychiatrist and I think it’s terribly important that my profession spend more time with positive emotion and more time regarding people’s spiritual involvement as a virtue rather than something that if they just read enough Freud they could give up.

Implications of the Harvard study for Latter-day Saints

People of all faiths will find the Harvard study confirming much of what they have always believed.  The findings may have special significance for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who will see validation in the study’s results of many of their most prominent doctrines and practices.  For example: 

1. The most significant of all relationships can and should be one’s relationship with his God.  But it is hard to feel much of a kinship with a great cosmic force, or ultimate cause, “without body, parts, or passions.”  But Latter-day Saints understand that God is literally our loving Father in Heaven.  We are not only created in His image but are descended from Him.  Just as kittens can grow into cats, so can we eventually become like our divine Father.  To know that makes all the difference. 

Latter-day Saints understand that we lived with Him and with all humanity in a spirit existence in heaven before we were born.  We understand that we are simply “away at school” for a brief time, after which we will return to our heavenly home.  While here we can continue to communicate with Him in prayer and receive daily comfort and direction from Him.

Understanding and cultivating this relationship with our Creator is so vital that Jesus, in prayer to His and our Father, said, “And this is life eternal:  That they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”  (John 17:3.)  Confidence in one’s relationship with God can compensate for deficiencies in other relationships.  As Paul wrote, “If God be for us, who can be against us?”  (Romans 8:31.)

2. The Church’s doctrine of eternal marriage encourages much stronger relationships with one’s spouse than if marriage were only a temporary convenience.  It therefore promotes much greater happiness in marriage, both here and hereafter.

3. The Church’s emphasis on the family is also a key to children growing up with a loving relationship with both parents and with each other.  Related recommendations from the Church include:

• That families hold a weekly family home evening
• That families read the scriptures together
• That families pray together twice a day
• That families enjoy wholesome recreation together
• That parents hold regular family councils with their children
• That parents periodically spend time individually with each child and conduct informal interviews to communicate love and to better understand their needs
• That parents remember that “no success can compensate for failure in the home” and that the greatest work a man or woman will ever do will be within the walls of his or her own home.

Families in which such emphasis and activities are the norm will typically find that children, despite some normal bickering in their early years, will turn out to be each other’s best friends and will find happiness in life-long interactions with each other. 

4. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints provides unsurpassed opportunities for the development of wholesome relationships by

• Providing an opportunity for children and youth to be nurtured by loving teachers and youth leaders in Primary, Young Men’s and Young Women’s organizations, and seminary.
• Providing all members an opportunity to serve others in leadership, teaching, and service capacities.

• Establishing a network of ministering elders and sisters, affording all an opportunity both to receive needed attention from others and to provide it to those members to whom they minister.
• Highlighting the responsibility of each member to help share the gospel with those around him.
• Encouraging the study of the scriptures, which emphasize that
  • Love (or “charity”) is the greatest of all virtues.  (1 Corinthians 13:13.)
  • “God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son.” (John 3:16.)
  • “Love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.  He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.”  (Meaning not that God is identical with love but that He is the perfect personification of it.  1 John 4:7-8.)
  • “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”  (John 13:35.)
  • Love is a gift of the Spirit, available to all who will “pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that [they] may be filled with this love.”  (Moroni 7:48)

Conclusion

The findings of the Harvard Study of Adult Development should serve to:

1. Fortify our faith that God provided a great plan for His children, whereby we can maximize our physical, mental, and spiritual health and happiness both here and hereafter.  It should be satisfying that the findings of science regarding what brings true happiness correlate perfectly with what the Lord revealed long ago.
2. Remind us of the importance of proper priorities in life.  As Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive,” and he that will lose his life in service to others will truly find it.   Earthly wealth, honors, and achievements will fade into insignificance after this life has ended, while our family relationships can and should endure forever.  And true riches are found in loving and serving others, all of whom are our spirit brothers and sisters, whom we once knew and loved and with whom we can also look forward to eternal associations.

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