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Triumphs of Experience: The Men of the Harvard Grant Study
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Review
George Vaillant tells the story of the Grant Study men though age 91. This is, arguably, the most important study of the life course ever done. But it is, inarguably, the one most brimming with wisdom. If you are preparing for the last quarter of your life, this is a MUST read. (Martin Seligman, author of Authentic Happiness)Vaillant's fascination with the human condition and his deep insights about development make him a great storyteller, adept at elegantly conveying the essence of humanity. (Laura L. Carstensen, Director, Stanford Center on Longevity)A fascinating account of the 268 individuals selected for the Harvard Study of Adult Development… Vaillant has done a wonderful job summarizing the study, discussing its major findings, and communicating his enthusiasm for every aspect of the project, which became his life's work starting in 1966. The study has been investigating what makes a successful and healthy life. Initially, this meant looking for potential officer material for the military. Vaillant established what he called 'the Decathlon of Flourishing―a set of ten accomplishments in late life that covered many different facets of success.' With humor and intriguing insights, the author shows how progress in health studies and the passage of time contributed to the constant 'back and forth between nature and nurture.' During Vaillant's tenure, human maturation and resilience became the focus, and now biology is reasserting itself in the form of DNA studies and fMRI imaging, the seeds for future research. The author considers the study's greatest contributions to be a demonstration that human growth continues long after adolescence, the world's longest and most thorough study of alcoholism, and its identification and charting of involuntary coping mechanisms. Inspiring when reporting these successes, his personal approach to discovery repeatedly draws readers in as he leads up to the account of his realization that the true value of a human life can only be fully understood in terms of the cumulative record of the entire life span. Joyful reading about a groundbreaking study and its participants. (Kirkus Reviews (starred review) 2012-09-01)Of the 31 men in the study incapable of establishing intimate bonds, only four are still alive. Of those who were better at forming relationships, more than a third are living. It's not that the men who flourished had perfect childhoods. Rather, as Vaillant puts it, 'What goes right is more important than what goes wrong.' The positive effect of one loving relative, mentor or friend can overwhelm the negative effects of the bad things that happen. In case after case, the magic formula is capacity for intimacy combined with persistence, discipline, order and dependability. The men who could be affectionate about people and organized about things had very enjoyable lives. But a childhood does not totally determine a life. The beauty of the Grant Study is that, as Vaillant emphasizes, it has followed its subjects for nine decades. The big finding is that you can teach an old dog new tricks. The men kept changing all the way through, even in their 80s and 90s. (David Brooks New York Times 2012-11-05)Vaillant concludes that personal development need never stop, no matter how old you are. At an advanced age, though, growth consists more in finding new hues and shades in one's past than in conceiving plans for the future. As the Harvard Study shows with such poignancy, older men treat what lies behind them much as younger men treat what lies ahead. The future is what young men dream about; they ponder the extent to which it is predetermined or open; and they try to shape it. For old men, it is the past they dream about; it is the past whose inevitability or indeterminateness they attempt to measure; and it is the past they try to reshape. For the most regret-free men in the Harvard study, the past is the work of their future. (Andrew Stark Wall Street Journal 2012-11-02)To avid consumers of modern happiness literature, some of Vaillant's conclusions will seem shopworn ('Happiness is love. Full stop.'), while other results of the Grant Study appear to confirm what social science has long posited--that a warm and stable childhood environment is a crucial ingredient of success; or that alcoholism is a strong predictor of divorce. But what's unique about the Grant Study is the freedom it gives Vaillant to look past quick diagnosis, to focus on how patterns of growth can determine patterns of wellbeing. Life is long, Vaillant seems to be saying, and lots of shit happens. What is true in one stage of a man's life is not true in another. Previously divorced men are capable of long and loving marriages. There is a time to monitor cholesterol (before age 50) and a time to ignore it. Self-starting, as a character trait, is relatively unimportant to flourishing early in life but very important at the end of it. Socially anxious men struggle for decades in emotional isolation and then mature past it--relatively speaking. Triumphs of Experience is not only a history of how the Grant men adapted (or not) to life over 70-plus years, but of how author and science grew up alongside them. Yet what unifies Triumphs is the same question posed originally by Bock, the study's founder: What factors meaningfully and reliably predict the good life? Vaillant's mission is to uncover the 'antecedents of flourishing.' (Dan Slater Daily Beast 2012-11-07)George Vaillant's book on the development and well-being of a longitudinal sample of men, now in their nineties and studied regularly since they were undergraduates at Harvard University, reads like a riveting detective tale... He has a thought-provoking story to tell about the lifelong significance of loving care...Brief life-story vignettes illustrate movingly how adult development and maturation is a lifelong process that strongly relates to the transformative power of receiving and giving love... [The book's] well-evidenced wisdoms on the significance of nurturing relationships offer new multidisciplinary perspectives on the complex issue of nature versus nurture (much needed at a time when medical science and genetics once more dominate studies of human development) and on the lifelong costs of childhood emotional neglect. (E. Stina Lyon Times Higher Education 2012-12-13)Triumphs of Experience elegantly summarizes the findings of this vast longitudinal study, unique in the annals of research...[The] book analyzes how the men fared over their late adulthood, and indeed their entire lives. In it, Vaillant masterfully chronicles how their life successes, or lack thereof, correlate with the nature of their childhoods, marriages, mental health, physical health, substance abuse, and attitudes. Extensive quantitative findings are interspersed with the detailed stories of individual study participants...Here Vaillant proves that his skills are literary as well as scientific. The case histories are engaging novelistic capsules that artfully bring the quantitative material to life...Many of its findings seem universal. If they could be boiled down to a single revelation, it would be that the secret to a happy life is relationships, relationships, relationships...The other overarching message of this book is that resilience counts...Vaillant is that rare thing: a psychiatrist more interested in mental flourishing than in mental illness. With Triumphs of Experience, he has turned the Harvard men's disparate stories into a single narrative and created a field guide, both practical and profound, to how to lead a good life. (Charles Barber Wilson Quarterly 2013-01-01)In Triumphs of Experience, Vaillant elegantly and persuasively brings us an answer to the question that launched a thousand snake-oil salesmen: what makes for a successful and happy life? ...[An] engaging work. There are regrettably few studies of this magnitude and even fewer accounts that so ably synthesize the broader insights with the moving parts. (Christopher Croke The Australian 2013-02-09)Reading like a storybook, the case histories of the individuals provide fascinating insights about how the subjects tackled challenges or succumbed to setbacks. Vaillant superbly explains how these lifelong experiences sculpted these men's final years. Readers can learn more about themselves and what they may expect from life by reading this revelatory and absorbing book. (Aron Row San Francisco Book Review 2013-02-18)
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About the Author
George E. Vaillant is Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.
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Product details
Hardcover: 480 pages
Publisher: Belknap Press; 1 edition (October 30, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0674059824
ISBN-13: 978-0674059825
Product Dimensions:
5.8 x 1.8 x 8.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
4.5 out of 5 stars
116 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#635,374 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
I'm a father of two boys. I read this book because I wanted to see if there were seeds I could plant now, while they are young, that would bear fruit 40 or 60 years from now. I wondered what could do now to help them live full and meaningful lives. I also wondered if I would be able to avoid making mistakes.For those reasons, I read this book slowly, taking nearly a year to read every word. I can't help wonder if the time thinking about this was more fruitful or the data in and of itself, but of course the answer is both.Taking the time, thinking about these men, and imagining how the lessons learned could be grafted into the lives of my sons has been incredibly helpful. And I am so very grateful that George Valliant wrote this book.It did not chart a map, but it set a course that affirmed over and over again that the things you get right matter more than the things you do wrong and love is enough to bring about great joy.
Well...I read it cover to cover. No earth shattering revelations here. There's more history about the study itself and not nearly enough development and application of its results. Don't get me wrong, there are some tidbits to pick up on, but it's not as accessible to the lay person. At the end, you come away realizing how great an accomplishment this 70 year longitudinal study is, but that's about it.
Some of the oldest and most contentious debates on human beings centre around the relative influence of heredity (genetics), environment and individual voluntary action on growth and development. These include whether mental illness has genetic origins, what factors determine "success" in life, and whether adults continue to "develop" as they grow older (or whether all development happens before a certain age). These questions cross disciplinary boundaries as they involve concepts from psychology, psychiatry, sociology, and genetics.Great thinkers like Freud and Erikson made significant contributions to these debates, but many of their contributions were based on intuitive theorizing rather than rigorous empirical evidence. With time and careful research, some of their theories have been upheld, and others disproved! The studies that have made the most impact are longitudinal studies in which a carefully chosen cohort of respondents was tracked periodically over an extended period of time.The Harvard Grant StudyOne of the most well known of these studies is the Havard Grant study which commenced in the late 1930s and early 1940s and continues till this day. The survivors of the cohort (who were Harvard sophomores when they were recruited) have now entered their 90s, and the data collected therefore allows several inferences to be drawn on adult development.George F. Vaillant was the director of the Harvard Grant Study for over two decades. His latest book, The Triumphs of Experience, presents the latest findings. I found it a fascinating read as it not only uncovers new insights, but also questions some of the conclusions reached at earlier stages of the study. The Harvard Grant Study draws its conclusions from rigorous multivariate analysis, but Vaillant presents the findings with a distinctive and rare combination of statistical rigour and empathy for his subjects - in addition to tables containing the statistical results, there are profiles (disguised, of course) of different respondents of the study, and these give the reader a sense of being part of the study team.The original design and subsequent evolution of the study show how much our models of adult development have changed over time. At the time the study started, physical constitution and mental health indicators were expected to be important predictors of subsequent progress of the study. Parental/family relationships and childhood upbringing were thought to be unimportant. Yet, the latest Harvard Grant Study findings show that loving relationships during childhood are important for longevity and success in life.Findings of the Harvard Grant StudySome of the important findings of this study reported in The Triumphs of Experience:Individuals develop through their adult lives as well, not only upto the stage of adolescence.The impact of childhood trauma decreases over time; more importantly, the positive experiences of a loving childhood have enduring impact.Being well integrated and self-driving while young helps people live longer.Divorce led to happier marriages than the bottom third of sustaining marriages.Alcoholism had bigger negative impacts than measured by most previous studies. It accounted for more than half of the divorces in the Grant Study. The study shows that it is unlikely that alcoholics can return safely to social drinking, thereby upholding the methodologies followed by organizations like Alcoholics Anonymous.The involuntary coping styles predicted by Freud exist, and they are important for human effectiveness.Important Lessons for Management of Long-term Research ProgramsThe Harvard Grant Study is interesting from a research management perspective as well. Over its 70+ year lifespan so far, the study has transcended several research directors and team members, but the integrity of the study has not been compromised. George Vaillant estimates that about $ 20 million has been spent on the study over time, with an average cost of $10,000 per research paper published. The study has had different sponsors at different times, and while the study had to adapt itself to the priorities of these sponsors (such as a major retailer, cigarette company and a program against alcoholism), it still managed to sustain the collection of data related to its core research questions.With its emphasis on the choice of appropriate control variables and other related issues of study design, this book is a great primer on how to design and adapt longitudinal research studies for maximum research impact.Rishikesha Krishnan, IIM Bangalore
Well, start with full disclosure: I'm a Harvard man too, from a much later class than the subjects of this study. But the study consciously sought the crème de la crème: the students with the best physical, social, and intellectual profiles. With my notably modest accomplishments in all those areas, I'd never have gotten near the study.So, what does it prove that a very elite group of people mostly did well in life? Not much. The interest attaches to the few who did NOT do so well. Many transcended a rough childhood, but few could manage a lifetime of being locked in self, or a lifetime of drinking too much, or a lifetime of defending oneself too successfully against love and companionship. Some did find love and/or sobriety late, but personality mattered. A simple metric--extraversion minus neuroticism on the standard personality scale--predicted an awful lot.Another reviewer has pinpointed some problems with the statistics here. I would add that scoring big, vague, fuzzy concepts as if they were precise is always problematic. The study did its best--using independent raters, over time--and I think did a very good job, but between this scoring and the problem of using simple bivariate statistics, I sometimes wondered about the conclusions. There is also the problem that the study researchers ran, apparently, hundreds of correlations, so when something shows up as significant at .01, you should be a bit skeptical. Striking, though, are the many that showed up significant at .001, a rather rare thing in psychology.One problem is the list of defenses. Some are "immature," including "autistic fantasy," whatever that is; how is it different from ordinary fantasy? What little I got in life was due to my fantasizing in youth and then acting on it--"dream big dreams, then put on your overalls," as people used to say. Conversely, "mature" defenses include things like altruism, which seems to me neither unique to "maturity" nor a "defense." It's a natural human thing. No one is more altruistic than a little kid--she may throw a fit over "Mine!" in the sandbox, but will then turn right round and give the prized toy to a friend, or to Mom. Humor also is classified as a "mature defense." It is neither mature nor a defense--it's normal human behavior, again seen more often in kids than in grown-ups. Of course you can use it defensively, but that's a different issue. And my favorite defense, denial, is not listed--doesn't it qualify any more? Where would I have been without denial (which, as my daughter is fond of reminding me, is not a river in Egypt)? I would have recognized my own limitations much sooner, to my considerable loss. Those fantasies paid off thanks to hard work and a lot of luck. Realism would have done me in. One must remember that defenses are there for a reason. We NEED to defend ourselves in this world. I would seriously rethink the entire "defenses" issue.This aside, the book is excellent (if rather rambling and repetitious) and a very worthwhile read. I have become convinced by this and other long-term studies that such lifelong prospective studies are the very best way of finding out about people--not the only way, but the best way. We need more and more of them, with secure funding.
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