About that Harvard

education ...

In the Atlantic Monthly, a psychiatrist named Vaillant was interviewed about the results of a still ongoing longitudinal study regarding Harvard men who enrolled there during the early 1940s. Following their life histories through all possible parameters has been a labor of love for Vaillant.

There are several interesting findings from this study. As usual, heavy drinking and smoking cigarettes caused much disease and shorter lifespans. But some other findings are more interesting.

This cohort showed no better mental health than any other group (at odds with previously published reports). These (all) men have had no greater stability in their lives than more common folk. Their marriages were as likely to fail as those in the general population. High level achievement (which was common to the individuals in the group) did not predicate happiness (contentment) later in life. Nor did making a lot of money. Social networking did. It seems that to get to a happy ending friendship counts above all else.

Pursuing physical activity during their college years was likely to result in better mental health later, whereas ongoing intellectual achievement (at least activity) was linked to better physical health outcomes. Their cholesterol level alone at age 50 showed no correlation with longevity or any other health index. Interesting.

Although these men on average were especially intellectually endowed, it seems this alone did not lead them to more satisfying outcomes in their personal lives than average people achieve. (This is not to say that by conventional standards they were no more productive or "successful" in their professional lives however.) In the article, Vaillant makes the point that there is no such outcome as absolute mental health, that this perception is an idealized fiction. Some people approximate what is thought to be "mental health" more closely than others, but these Harvard men were not paragons of virtue in this regard. They too were (are) all too human.

Is there a moral to this story? Perhaps it is to be satisfied with who you are, and make the best of what you have been given.

Gary J. Whitesell

213 W. 21st