Amazon.ca:Customer reviews: Aging Well: Surprising Guideposts to a Happier Life from the Landmark Study of Adult Development

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Julia

Five Stars

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on July 4, 2015

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Mark O Smith

Some great nuggets of information on aging well- the author is ...

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on March 9, 2016

Some great nuggets of information on aging well- the author is an accomplished scholar and is clearly an authority on healthy aging. However, his writing style is a little pretentious and incredibly tedious, and doesn't make for an easy or enjoyable read. This is more of a scholarly writing than an accessible 'how-to' on living well.

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From Canada

Julia

Five Stars

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on July 4, 2015

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Mark O Smith

Some great nuggets of information on aging well- the author is ...

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on March 9, 2016

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One person found this helpful

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Ruth Edlund

Fascinatin' Data

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on April 23, 2002

This is an outstanding book if for no other reason that it describes in detail not one, but three studies that have followed selected groups of individuals from youth through old age over the course of the twentieth century. Two of the groups studied were drawn largely from people of privilege, but the third most assuredly was not.
The author became the ultimate caretaker of the data from the largest studies as part of his work at Harvard. As perhaps a sign of the times, the data from that study, which once was recorded painstakingly in ledger volumes now sits in his hard drive (one hopes carefully backed up). Simply learning that these studies existed was an eye-opener for me. What treasures!
Though Vaillant happily draws a number of subjective conclusions from the data in the course of this book, he provides substantial information about the objective facts from which his conclusions are drawn. The reader is educated sufficiently to differ with confidence when so moved. The author's periodic confessions of how his views on various study participants evolved of the course of many years is a rather charming demonstration of aging well in its own right. This book is not intended as a scholarly work, however, and the data are not reproduced in full.
I thought the descriptions of individuals who participated in the study, disguised though they might be, and of the author himself, to be the most interesting part of the book. Though they prevent _Aging Well_ from being a simple "Guide To Enjoying Being Old," the participant profiles provide considerable nuance and subtlety as the author ponders the age-old question, how are we to make the best of our lot in life?

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booklover

A good foundation for creating a philosophy about aging

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on April 19, 2003

Mountains of research was reviewed to write this book. For that effort I added an additional star to the three I gave for the book itself. The three studies referenced in this book began before the author was born or when he was a youngster. Dr. Vaillant's participation with these projects began decades later. This data was fragmented and resided on many different mediums. He undertook the task of getting all the data compiled onto a hard drive. His next task was to correlate the data (which was not always consistent between the three studies) to form meaningful patterns about aging.
His book is an "attempt to offer models for how to live from retirement to past 80 with joy". Comparing his pursuit to Dr. Spock's career in the study of child development, the author also perceives his book as "an attempt to anticipate development of old age and understand what can be changed and what has to be accepted."
Using composite histories of the study participants for comparison, six adult life tasks are reviewed: Identity, Intimacy, Career Consolidation, Generativity, Keeper of the Meaning and Integrity. The author strives to determine if we are genetically predisposed in how we experience these phases or in some cases choose to stay indefinitely in a phase that is comfortable rather than move on to experience another.
I read this book out of curiousity about the experiences of advanced aging in the United States and feel I now have a good foundation for developing a philosophy about my own aging process.
This book is not a deep scholarly rendition, however, the majority of the 300+ pages examing statistical data and percentage references became tiresome and difficult to analyze in lengthy reading sessions. I preferred reading a chapter and putting the book down for a while.

A helpful tip: I realized, after the fact, that reading the appendices first would have helped me understand of some terms and jargon used to refer to elements of the studies.

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Sandeep

A promising book

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on January 20, 2002

I just read some 20 pages of excerpt from this book. Really promises to be an interesting and informative read. A prospective (and not retrospective) study of the subjects over their lifetime - this book analyzes and draws inferences about what ways that could lead to a more satisfying life. Even if you dont agree with the author's views, just reading through the life histories of some "successful", "ordinary" people should provide great interest.

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J. Grattan

More confusion than clarity about aging

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on February 3, 2002

"Aging Well" is a book that does not clearly establish what it wants to say specifically about aging. Is it a book about longevity or is it a textbook on adult development? A main purpose of the author is to convey the findings of a multi-decade study of three distinct groups totaling about 800 individuals as they aged: a male Harvard student cohort born in 1920; a male inner city cohort born about 1930; and a gifted female cohort born in California about 1910. However the emphasis is on the Harvard cohort, a group that most assuredly stands apart from typical American lives. All of the interviewees were at least 70 years of age by 2000 but the specific commonality of longevity seems to get lost in the author's focus on more general social and emotional developmental concerns. However, the author establishes little connection between longevity and such development.
Perhaps the biggest problem with the book is that only a very limited, and at times inadequate, overview is presented regarding various social and emotional developmental topics. The author bases the entire book on Erik Erikson's ideas about adult developmental stages, which in his interpretation consists of the sequential tasks of identity, intimacy, career consolidation, generativity, keeper of the meaning, and integrity. There is no discussion about the legitimacy of those ideas or whether there are alternative ideas. The principal means of elaborating on those views is by presenting mini-profiles of about 50 individuals throughout the book who supposedly have or have not attained a particular level of development. It is burdensome for the reader to be presented with so many case studies to weigh.
It is here that the author's subjectivity becomes most apparent as he is very inclined to label those surrounded by somewhat extensive social networks be they ones of family, patients, customers, or friends as having aged well. He takes no notice of single adults or childless couples; two situations that would undoubtedly have an impact on traditional socialization. In one case he lauds as brilliant a man who has focused on the tasks of intimacy and career for the first twenty years of his adult life and then turns to generativity, or nurturing the young. One wonders if his children would appreciate the twenty years of de-emphasis on them. Frankly, it makes the development laid out by the author seem questionable.
In addition, the author demonstrates little appreciation for the atypical life chances and economic standing of the Harvard cohort. He finds it quite commendable that one-half of the Harvard cohort remained in their full-time work at age 65, failing completely to understand that the career control of doctors, lawyers, professors, and business owners and executives of the Harvard cohort far exceeds the options available to most people. He basically sidesteps the entire topic of adequate retirement income, even regarding it at one point as relatively unimportant compared to learning to play.
The author also classifies childhoods as ranging from "the Loveless" to "the Cherished." But to what effect? It is found that the negatives of childhood generally do not translate into life beyond age 50 and certainly not to longevity. In deference to general adult development textbook mode, the author makes a brief jargon-laced foray into both maladaptive and adaptive defense mechanisms that is bound to leave most lay readers just baffled.
The author frequently refers to "healthy" aging, but, again, what is it? We do learn that ancestral longevity, cholesterol levels, stress, parental characteristics, childhood temperament, and ease in social relationships do not predict healthy aging. What does predict healthy aging? Among the Harvard cohort, no alcohol abuse, no heavy smoking, and not being overweight were the greatest predictors of healthy aging followed by some exercise, a stable marriage, and then mature defenses. Among the Inner City cohort, a stable marriage was found to be the best predictor of successful aging followed by the same top three of the Harvard cohort and then by 12-plus years of education and by mature defenses. A major disconnect in the book is a discrepancy where the text claims that mature defenses ranks as the second best predictor contrary to the data displayed in charts.
So what is learned from this book? Some adults develop more or perhaps differently than others. Some adults have lives that are more social than others. Some adults are happier than others. None of that is unique to aging. It could well have a lot to do with life's circumstances that are largely outside an individual's control. We do learn that the author is somewhat judgmental concerning the quality of various individuals' lives in old age. Adults without bad consumption habits stand a far better chance of living longer than those who abuse their bodies. It probably did not take a Harvard study and a book to know most of this. Maybe the lesson is to go to Harvard and live long.

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Kenneth Young

A Useful Pop-Psych Antidote to Aging Poorly

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on March 18, 2003

With around 320 pages of main text, not counting the appendices, Vaillant takes some time to present a popularization of several longitudinal studies of adult development, and to put forth the idea that development doesn't simply stop at 5, 12, 21, or even 45, but that it continues, with specific challenges, into the late and late-late years of life.
As a book intended for popular reading, Vaillant can be expected to make assertions and hopeful noises that his data don't necessarily back up to the same extent as he would for a peer reviewed journal. Generalizability from the studies he has available (which are impressive accomplishments in social science research, even with all of their limitations) is sketchy, especially since he gives most of his time to the Harvard group of white men.
Still, even seeing a limited portrayal of a slice of the population that's gotten young-old (60-69), old-old (70-79), and become the oldest-old (80+) has its benefits. For one thing, it does help lay out a trajectory that those of us who are distant from the older generations can use of to conceive the future of our parents and the present of our grandparents in ways beyond loss.
So if you want a pick=me up and a reminder about many of the strengths and successes of the elderly go ahead and pick this up. Just don't expect it to tell you as much about the disadvantaged elderly.

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From other countries

A. colbert

Interesting research, troubling lack of objectivity

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 20, 2009

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George Vaillant has had the great fortune of spending an entire career delving into human development. His enthusiasm for his work, and his intelligence are powerful accelerants, as his insight and his articulate written expression make for a very readable book. I felt as though he was talking about weighty matters over a pot of tea, rather than the ponderous results of a research project. This sometimes works against the reader's wish for some statistical evidence to back up his sweeping generalities. In an effort to make the book work for an average reader, he has made it hard to find the substance of his objective results. We are forced to take it on faith, for the most part.

George Vaillant is a product of Harvard, having been educated and employed there for much of his professional career. His main body of research centers around the longitudinal study of a convenience sample of Harvard students who he follows from young adulthood into their older years.The sample of students was thoroughly biased, in that only the most stable boys, the creme de la creme, were chosen to be studied. Other arms were sewn onto the study to address issues of bias, so that a cohort of "blue collar boys" and a cohort of highly intelligent women were also studied in a similar vein.The interview notes are filled with subjective interpolations and contradictory assessments of the subjects.Though this was acceptable research methodology in the 1940s, it would be considered ridiculous today. What makes it valuable research in the midst of egregious shortcomings is that it has followed the subjects for so long.But the reader needs to understand how serious the research flaws are.Think about Tuskeegee, and you will understand. For example, there were several research subjects who did not disclose their homosexual orientation until many decades of interviews had been collected and collated.This makes it difficult to take the work seriously.

The book uses exemplars drawn from all three arms of the study to illustrate his key points, but it is his Harvard Men, those captains of industry and soulful artists that Mr Vaillant seems most enthralled with.His treatment of feminine devlopment is pretty cursory and in the end, his discussion of the women leaves more questions than answers.The females portayed in this book are, ala Nancy Reagan and Pat Nixon,the quiet helpmates of George's Harvard classmates; their husbands are the real heroes of his book. The other female portrayals are cast as otherwise unsuccessful misfits, either in their careers or in their doomed
relationships.Ironically, Mr Vaillant has been married a number of times, and had a reputation for being a bit of a roque. He left his second wife with a brood of children and then became married briefly to the younger woman he was involved with, before divorcing her to return to his family. Many years later, when shown the picture of he and his short lived mistress/wife standing side by side, he didn't recognize her and said "Who is that?" After reading Aging Well, I am not really surprised that his female subjects seem two dimensional. Is this the sort of fellow that could ever be appreciated as an authority on the development of women?

The findings of this book are neither earth shattering or "surprising", as the cover page promises: Happiness in old age is defined by the strength of our relatedness to others. Mr Vaillant makes a compelling argument that if an individual is willing to extend him/herself in the direction of "other" versus "self", that a measure of happiness is achievable for us all. Happiness just doesn't fall into our laps after a life of hard work and bean counting, rich or poor. Good message.

Snoopy used to say "Happiness is a good book." This book, unhappily, falls short, er,...rather it falls too short by being too long. Long on anecdotal musing. Short on objective measures.

27 people found this helpful

Interested Reader

Several of the critical reviews are misleading.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 8, 2014

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I think this is an outstanding book, and would like to briefly respond to several of the critical reviews.

1. The author is quite conscious of the impact of privilege on the lives of the Harvard graduates he studies, and repeatedly makes efforts to determine what kinds of success are, or are not, the result of privilege. He pays close attention to the lives of the women in the Terman study, and the "Inner-City" men who were not born into privilege, to compare them with the experience of the white male Harvard graduates.

2. The methods of the study (as, I assume, with the field in general) repeatedly make efforts to correct for the bias of individual observers, including the author. Over the decades, there have been many efforts by "blind" raters to examine one part of the subjects' files, with no knowledge of the rest of that subject's file. I.e. a physician reads the file to evaluate the subject's physical health, with no knowledge of that subject's childhood, professional or personal life, etc. This is not simply about the author interviewing people and confirming his pet theories, although you could superficially get that impression.

3. The author is very frank and aboveboard, that he, like every one of us, has certain biases and prejudices in how he sees the world: he is a liberal East Coast academic. However, it is absurd to say that the book is simply a reflection of his prejudices. He writes sensitively and appreciatively about business-executive Republican types (though he is an academic liberal) and about religious believers (though he is not one). I personally am acutely sensitive to the ubiquitous and un-self-conscious liberal bias in the media and academia, and I really did not find any here. Any given page of the New York Times is 100x worse than this book, if liberal bias is something that bothers you.

Finally, a couple of interesting points that I believe the book proves well:

* Within the cohort of (those who were privileged enough to be) Harvard grads, there was little or no correlation between social status at birth and at the end of life. Many men began with trust funds and boarding school, and ended up scraping by; others from small country towns wound up wealthy.

* Many of the "Inner-City" men, who were raised in or near poverty, with few opportunities or privileges, were able to have healthy, rewarding, inspiring lives, with happy marriages, satisfying work, community ties, grandchildren, rewarding hobbies, etc. On average, they had worse physical health, less prestigious occupations, and lower incomes than the Harvard cohort, but were in no way less happy -- again, on average.

What I take away from this book is the idea that although gifts, talents, luck, personal, physical and intellectual qualities, looks, social status, and privilege are all very unequally distributed in life, it is possible to respond well or badly to life's slings and arrows, and that the nature of this response can have a huge impact on your later life. (i.e.: Avoid alcoholism at all costs!!! Seriously.)

71 people found this helpful

Sam

What can Harvard grads can tell all of us about how to live

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 6, 2012

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The Italian-born father of Anthony Pirelli spent all his spare income and spare time in disreputable neighborhood bars. Anthony's father beat Anthony's brothers until they bled. Anthony's mother suffered from manic depression and fought constantly with Anthony's father.

Anthony stars as one of the heroes of Aging Well, starting his career as a laborer, and climbing through the ranks of financial accounting and, eventually entrepreneurship. We last see Anthony at his high-priced condo, high atop the swan boats in Boston Public Garden. What separated Anthony from others with similarly dismal childhoods was a high capacity for gratitude and forgiveness. In old age, Anthony recalled his father as a "good family man" and the best gardener in the neighborhood.

Aging Well recounts two dozen other life vignettes of participants in the Harvard study and two other longitudinal aging studies, seemingly in random order. Some of the vignettes, like Anthony's, show how the cultivation of particular personality traits--such as forgiveness--compound well-being over the course of a lifetime. You can read this book along with Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment and see VIA Signature Strengths reflected in each study Participant. You can see how cultivating forgiveness, optimism, and self-control in particular lead to successful aging.

Other vignettes, however, show participants who came from supportive childhoods and high-income families but ended up as unhappy, resentful adults. The message is that you control your destiny. "[A] stable marriage, the ability to make lemonade from lemons, avoiding cigarettes, modest use of alcohol, regular exercise, high education, and maintaining normal weight...allow us to predict health thirty years in the future," the author states. What can be more optimistic, more American, than the message that, by following a few simple rules, anyone can achieve success, fulfillment, and happiness?

The book, however, betrays that message a few times. Iris Joy "chose loving parents." The best predictor of health for low-income participants was years of education. The United States now has one of the lowest rankings for income mobility among developed countries, recent research has shown. The pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps message might inspire, but, for many, there are too many societal and political forces keeping them from fulfilling their promise. The book does little to acknowledge that circumstances for those not in the study--those that didn't attend Harvard--may contribute to their well-being in the same manner that personality traits can.

Some of the vignettes also just aren't very interesting. You can through muddle through several life stories to get to some useful conclusions about the aging process. In the end, the takeaway advice is a variant on the Golden Rule: "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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