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Title: Aging Well: Surprising Guideposts to a Happier Life from the Landmark Harvard Study of Adult Development
ISBN: 0316090077
Author:
George E. Vaillant
Publicate Date: 2003-01-08
Publish: 2003-01-08
List Price: $14.99
Average Customer Rating: 4.0
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $5.26
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $6.89
Amazon Merchant Price: $10.19
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Well worth reading, especially for readers in their 30s and 40s
This is one of my favorite books for two reasons: It summarizes some extremely interesting research, and I have great respect for the author, George Vaillant, M.D., who has a long-term interest in adult development and psychological coping. I do not know him personally, but as a psychiatrist I have been familiar with his work since the 1970s.
The research involves almost 1000 men and women who were closely studied intermittently for decades, so that the findings are prospective (as opposed to most long-term research which uses retrospective data). As a result, Dr. Vaillant (along with others) has been able to tease out characteristics which can lead to predictions of outcome (in this case "Happy-Well" vs. "Sad-Sick"). He discovers that much of what affects health and happiness over the long term is under our control. The surprise in this book (and Dr. Vaillant's other work) is that circumstances of birth, including genes, do not completely determine our eventual health. This is good news for those of us who are tired of seeing all of medicine and psychology reduced to biological determinism and a worship of so-called cures that come in a bottle or a procedure.
Dr. Vaillant succeeds in this book in striking a balance between using academic concepts and explaining the key findings in very readable and accessible form.
The weakness of the book is that the research, being prospective, suffers from a strong cohort effect. That is, the subjects all lived during a similar historical and cultural period in the U.S. and were subject to the same overall economic, political and social forces. That particular pattern of world and local events is unique; no future generations will ever experience the same environment. So, that makes it hard to generalize his conclusions. Even so, I think Dr. Vaillant does a good job of putting them in perspective and honestly appraising their relevance for current and future generations. It is unlikely research like this will be done again because of the incredible cost and the need for a research team to remain intact for decades.
Despite the title of the book, I recommend it especially for people in their 30s and 40s who are early enough in the process of aging to really apply some of the lessons.
My favorite quote: [Aging well means] "learning to live with neither too much desire and adventure nor too much caution and self-care. ... Rather, successful aging means giving to others joyously whenever one is able, receiving from others gratefully whenever one needs it, and being greedy enough to develop one's own self in between."
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2: Really good read...
I bought this book as a textbook for a college class. It is very informative and the style is good. It's perspective is interesting and it puts a lot of pieces of the aging puzzle together. There are a lot of tips and tasks and things to think about and plan for for aging well and the book is worth it for that. But if you despise long drawn out personal narratives, this one's not for you.
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3: Great Study ...
Found the book to be both interesting and informative. Happier is better...and should be the goal for our seniors.
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4: Very Good
The book is very good, in fact it's the best review of how to get old well ever wrot, the amazon work well , was perfect in everything.
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5: Aging Well is helpful
The most useful information I found was the four areas listed for seniors to follow in later life. The recommendations were based on several comprehensive studies which followed people throughout their lifetimes. I did find it odd that in the beginning the author completely overlooked work done by Abraham Maslow many years ago, and instead insisted that he (the author) had been the first to study healthy people. This, however, was a small thing overall and didn't take away from the relevance of the information.
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