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Title: Adaptation to Life
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Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
List Price: $22.50
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| Adaptation to Life by Harvard University Press Limited scope | The scope of the study (as mentioned in other reviews) is limited not just to American males, but to those who graduated from college, and come from middle class or better backgrounds. Even within this context, the group selected included 238 of the "healthiest and most promising graduates" from one of America's "leading universities." So clearly, the study looks at some of the most privileged people in the world. Given this background, when reviewers say things like "Its most important finding, in my view, is that peoples circumstances in life play no role in their eventual success or failure", this has to be taken with a grain of salt. Others (such as John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth) have shown that the defense mechanisms and coping strategies people develop are due in large part to the stability of their early years. These circumstances (such as having caring, attentive parents who can provide for us) play an essential role in how people approach difficult situations. It is not simply a matter of choice. Although we can choose to improve our approach to life, some of us have grown up with healthy models of human interaction, and some of us have to revise and develop these models with much effort later in life.
However, the fact that this study is limited in demographic scope does not change the fact that it is a vital description of mental health within this context. It is naive to think that our circumstances play no role in our success and failure in life, but the ability to understand what mental health looks like and how it functions has the potential to help make all of us stronger people. By focusing health rather than sickness this study broke new ground and made important contributions to our understanding of human psychology -- but it is still only a small part of a large and rich field of study. | | Adaptation to Life by Harvard University Press Adaptation to Life | I purchase copies of this book by the dozen, as I frequently hand it out to friends and associates of all ages. Personally, I have read it at least three times since it first appeared, and I refer to it often.
The book is organized in alternating chapters of theory and case studies. The theoretical chapters are dense, but fascinating, and make a compelling case for the developmental sequence of what Vailliant calls "defenses" - i.e. adaptive mechanisms. The case studies are fascinating and often humorous, and make this an easy book to pick up and read over a period of time. Often I give the book to people who are unhappy with some circumstance in their life or in the lives of their children, stating that the message of the title is that there is no perfect passage through this life - we all face disappointments and setbacks. Therefore, our goal for ourselves and our loved ones should not be a flawless existence, but rather an increasingly mature adaptation to the inevitable setbacks.
Too many of the books on adulthood are depressing formulations of how everything falls apart after age 30. Who wants to believe that? Vailliant is much more encouraging, in that his thesis is that our 50's can be better than our 40's, our 40's better than our 30's. Sounds good to me (and in his follow up book "Aging Well" Vailliant takes the same cohort into their 80's, which can similarly be a time of growth and development.)
| | Adaptation to Life by Harvard University Press Adaptation to Life | | A fine book following a class of very smart folks who are ... adapting to life in 'the real world'. It's been updated from the original with further info on the people. Very educational and a pleasant read. | | Adaptation to Life by Harvard University Press This book changed my life | This book is amazing. It provides concrete examples based on a wonderful study of a group of Harvard graduates of how different psychological coping methods helped people succeed or fail during their lives.
Its most important finding, in my view, is that peoples circumstances in life play no role in their eventual success or failure. Instead, it is the coping methods that people develop, and the positive effort they put in, that decide their outcomes and happiness.
Most chapters contrast 2 real people from the Harvard study, identifying the opposing psychological methods each used (i.e. one is a procrastinator and another gets things done) and shows how their lives played out. Their behaviors correlated directly with their happiness and success in life. The procrastinator wandered from one job to the next, did not have satisfactory relationships, and did not build wealth. The person who got things done succeeded in business and in personal life.
This book identifies the key mental characteristics necessary to adapt to life, using concrete examples based on a long-term study. It provides a positive message that the circumstances of these subjects birth and background did not matter nearly as much as how much effort they put into life. It is well worth reading.
On the other hand, it is worth noting that these graduates were predominantly white, at least middle-class, often Protestant, and were part of the "greatest generation" that as WWII veterans worked during a time when the US economy was booming. | | Adaptation to Life by Harvard University Press Vaillant explores the life cycle and coping | Vaillant's long-term study of college graduates investigates the ways in which the adaptive mechanisms of various individuals help explain why some people manage to cope effectively with the challenges in their lives while others cope barely or not at all. "One can live magnificently in this life if one knows how to work and how to love.... Adaptation to life means continued growth."
| | Adaptation to Life by Harvard University Press Product Description | Between 1939 and 1942, one of America's leading universities recruited 268 of its healthiest and most promising undergraduates to participate in a revolutionary new study of the human life cycle. The originators of the program, which came to be known as the Grant Study, felt that medical research was too heavily weighted in the direction of disease, and their intent was to chart the ways in which a group of promising individuals coped with their lives over the course of many years. Nearly forty years later, George E. Vaillant, director of the Study, took the measure of the Grant Study men. The result was the compelling, provocative classic, Adaptation to Life, which poses fundamental questions about the individual differences in confronting life's stresses. Why do some of us cope so well with the portion life offers us, while others, who have had similar advantages (or disadvantages), cope badly or not at all? Are there ways we can effectively alter those patterns of behavior that make us unhappy, unhealthy, and unwise? George Vaillant discusses these and other questions in terms of a clearly defined scheme of "adaptive mechanisms" that are rated mature, neurotic, immature, or psychotic, and illustrates, with case histories, each method of coping. |
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