What Makes Us Happy?

The Atlantic June 2009, "What Makes Us Happy?"

An article on a longitudinal study of mental and physical well-being conducted at Harvard that has lasted over 70 years. Chief 'curator' of the study, psychiatrist George Vaillant offers profound insight into how what is considered health or illness is socially defined. Vaillent also brings a nuanced theory of 'defense mechanisms' that evolve over time, to bear on his subjects' case histories. Through an analysis and narrative construction of case histories from a mass of documentation, the doctor argues against a simplistic understanding of what contributes to happiness.

The sample is composed entirely of able-bodied, assumed to be heterosexual Harvard men. The now public data-sets suggest #1/ The elite is not so uniform as one would think. and #2/ Privilege has less power then we like think - when the shit hits the fan, it hits whether you were Summa Cum Laude at Harvard or not. There is a whisper of a suggestion that it is not the avoidance of trauma that strengthens character, but how that trauma is met.

Some quotes.

In an interview in the March 2008 newsletter to the Grant Study subjects, Vaillant was asked, “What have you learned from the Grant Study men?” Vaillant’s response: “That the only thing that really matters in life are your relationships to other people.”

But why, he asked, do people tell psychologists they’d cross the street to avoid someone who had given them a compliment the previous day?

In fact, Vaillant went on, positive emotions make us more vulnerable than negative ones. One reason is that they’re future-oriented. Fear and sadness have immediate payoffs—protecting us from attack or attracting resources at times of distress. Gratitude and joy, over time, will yield better health and deeper connections—but in the short term actually put us at risk. That’s because, while negative emotions tend to be insulating, positive emotions expose us to the common elements of rejection and heartbreak.