Who ages well? As my generation hits its sixties, this question suddenly grows interesting to me. It’s a simple question with no simple answers. And wouldn’t we love to know how people age well and what predicts aging well?
One reason we don’t know the answers to these questions is they are hard and expensive questions to study, and people are so complex. But the Harvard Study of Adult Development recently published a review of what may be the most rigorous scientific attempt to address these questions, through the account of its director for most of the last half-century, George Vaillant, MD, in Triumphs of Experience(2012).
How would you define aging well? The options depend on your values, your genes, and your luck: looking good or feeling happy, working hard or having multiple retirement plans, being physically fit or having a robust income, enjoying your marriage or enjoying your independence?
Given this dilemma, the Harvard Study of Adult Development chose another approach to defining aging well. In mining the 70 years of prospective data collected nearly annually on 268 men recruited around 1940—the survivors are now in their early 90’s—Vaillant chose ten events or accomplishments during their ages of 60-80 that serve as a measure of aging well and could be objectively measured. No one accomplished all ten, but doing well in five or six of the ten events was impressive and set the best apart from the rest. Vaillant dubbed his measure the “Decathalon of Flourishing.”
Vaillant chose, among other accomplishments, low psychological distress throughout this period, income in the top quartile of the Study group, being physically active at 75, good mental and physical health at 80, mastery of the generativity task of development, good social supports outside of immediate family, good marriage, and being close to his kids. This definition boils down to being healthy, wealthy, and well connected to those who care about you.
What predicts who will flourish in late life by this definition? Entered in this horse race were such constitutional variables from early adulthood as body type (is muscular and athletic better?), parental longevity, family history of depression or alcoholism, and inborn childhood temperament. Competing with these constitutional variables were social class, as measured by the parents’ years of education and mean family income, and levels of attachment in childhood and early adulthood.
Of the 17 potential predictor variables, eight proved to be statistically significant predictors of high Decathalon scores. Of the five strongest predictors, four proved to be relationship or attachment variables related to a warm childhood, warm adult relationships, and empathic coping styles. Vaillant concludes, “In short, it was the capacity for intimate relationships that predicted flourishing in all aspects of these men’s lives.”
The message from this lifelong prospective study of talented and privileged men is that the best predictor of their health, wealth, and meaningful attachments in the years from 60-80 was not social class or athletic prowess or genes for longevity, but the capacity to develop and keep intimate relationships in childhood and early adulthood.
Whether this applies to the rest of humanity remains to be studied. Limited as it is by the homogeneity of the sample, this finding stands out as a reminder that even in this privileged group, whose other considerable talents and good fortune might have saved them, what counted most for late life flourishing in a range of areas was the talent for intimacy.
A talent for intimacy helps us procreate; it may also help us live long enough to enjoy our procreations.