The study's original focus, stated by its earliest directors, was intentionally focused on what goes right in human development rather than what goes wrong, which was radical for its time in 1938.

Beyond literal self-report content, researchers can use natural language processing and AI to analyze tone of voice and word choice to infer aspects of mental state that subjects may not consciously articulate.

Waldinger was born in 1951 in Des Moines, Iowa, which was a quiet and conservative place where the 1960s counterculture largely passed by.

Waldinger was initially enthusiastic about the Vietnam War while growing up in Des Moines, but his views changed when he went to Harvard as an undergraduate.

Waldinger has spent his entire adult career at Harvard, since his undergraduate years.

Waldinger noticed that other high-achieving people at Harvard were similarly trapped in the worry about mattering and achievement, suggesting this is a widespread psychological pattern among ambitious people.

In his 30s, Waldinger read John Kabat-Zinn's 'Wherever You Go, There You Are' about Buddhist philosophy, which helped him begin to make sense of his existential preoccupations.

Well-being in the broad sense encompasses the body, the mind, and social connections, rather than being limited to momentary happiness or a single dimension of human functioning.

In response to Harris's question about the sample composition, Waldinger acknowledges that the study has constantly had to explain to the NIH why they continue to fund research on such a politically incorrect sample of only white men and women.

George Valiant, the third director of the study before Waldinger, combined the Harvard men and inner city men cohorts into one study to examine contrasting groups, and Waldinger expanded the study 20 years ago by including wives of the original men and reaching out to their children, more than half of whom are women.

There are significant limitations to relying on self-report: people are blind to much about themselves, are unwilling to share certain things even with assurances of confidentiality, and tend to present themselves in certain flattering lights while avoiding unflattering presentations.

Meditation shows us that we tell ourselves limiting stories not just in retrospect, but in the present moment, continuously constructing narratives about experience as it unfolds.

The Harvard study of adult development is the longest study of adult life ever done, following the same people from their teenage years into old age, spanning from 1938 to the present.

The original Harvard College cohort consisted of 268 men from the classes of 1939 to 1942, all white, selected to study 'normal' young adult development; fewer than 10 are still alive.

Kahneman's distinction between the experiencing self (moment-to-moment subjective states) and the remembering self (retrospective global narrative) reveals that people are systematically bad at predicting what will make them happy because these two selves often reach different conclusions.

Waldinger tried vipassana practice at a vipassana center in Cambridge but found it unsuitable because the tradition does not provide regular contact with teachers; one can attend Dharma talks but doesn't meet with teachers regularly, and he found himself getting lost and hopeless without personal guidance.

The second cohort began at Harvard Law School by Sheldon and Eleanor Gluck, studying juvenile delinquency in children from Boston's poorest families known to an average of five social service agencies for problems including domestic violence, severe mental illness, and severe physical illness; there were 456 inner city men, fewer than 40 still alive.

Much of the Harvard study's data is derived from self-report, with most years requiring about an hour to 90 minutes to complete lengthy questionnaires every two years, plus periodic interviews that last four hours, medical records review, and increasingly lab visits with videotaping and stress testing.

Waldinger's Zen teacher is James Ford, whose own teacher is John Tarrant, who is still living and teaching in the west.

Boston in 1938 was 97.4% white, so the study could not have included people of color due to the demographics of the era; waves of migration of people of color didn't occur until after World War II.