Event Details
Title: “Social Connection and Happiness” (Annual Cogan Endowed Lecture)
Presenter:
Robert Waldinger, MD
Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital
Date: Tuesday, December 5, 2023
Time: 12 Noon US ET
Location: via Zoom
Cost: Free. CME credit available. Please email your name, degree title and institution if applicable to [email protected] during the event to claim credit.
Presentation Description
What keeps people happy and healthy as they go through life? In an era when wealth, fame and high achievement are often glorified as the keys to success, the Harvard Study of Adult Development examines what actually helps people thrive by studying thousands of lives unfolding across nearly a century. This lecture reports on the longest study of adult life ever done and presents scientific findings about human wellbeing throughout the lifespan.
Speaker Bio
Robert Waldinger is Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and directs the Harvard Study of Adult Development, one of the longest-running studies of adult life ever done. The Study tracked the lives of 724 families for over 85 years, now studying their children to understand how childhood experience reaches across decades to affect health and wellbeing in adulthood. He directs a teaching program in psychotherapy at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and he writes about what science can teach us about healthy human development. He is also a Zen master (roshi) and teaches meditation both in the US and internationally. His TED talk on lessons from the longest study of happiness has had over 45 million views and is one of the 10 most viewed TED talks of all time. For more information, go to www.robertwaldinger.com and www.adultdevelopmentstudy.org.
References
1. Security of attachment to spouses in late life: Concurrent and prospective links with cognitive and emotional wellbeing. Waldinger RJ, Cohen S, Schulz MS, Crowell JA. Clinical Psychological Science, 2014. NIHMS603138.
2. Linkages between childhood emotional abuse and marital satisfaction: The mediating role of empathic accuracy for hostile emotions. Maneta EK, Cohen S, Schulz MS, Waldinger RJ. Child Abuse and Neglect 2015. DOI:10.1016/j.chiabu.2014.07.017.
3. Empathic accuracy and aggression in couples: Individual and dyadic links. Cohen S, Schulz M, Liu S, Halassa M, Waldinger RJ. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 2015. DOI:10.1111/jomf.12184.
4. Midlife Eriksonian Psychosocial Development: Setting the Stage for Late Life Cognitive and Emotional Health. Malone JC, Liu SR, Vaillant GE, Rentz DM, Waldinger RJ. Developmental Psychology, 2016; 52:496-508. DOI: 10.1037/a0039875; PMID: 26551530.
5. The long reach of nurturing family environments: Links with midlife emotion-regulatory styles and late-life security in intimate relationships. Waldinger RJ, Schulz MS. Psychological Science, 2016. DOI:10.1177/0956797616661556
6. Thriving in midlife: The roles of childhood nurturance and adult defense mechanisms. Nevarez MD, Morrill MI, Waldinger RJ. Journal of Research in Personality. 2018 74:35–41. DOI: 10.1016/j.jrp.2018.01.002