Harvard University

Department of Psychology

Board of Honors Tutors Information Form

Name: Robert J. Waldinger, M.D.

Position: Director, Study of Adult Development, Brigham and Women’s Hospital

Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

Institution: Brigham and Women’s Hospital

I would consider serving as (check all that apply):

__X__ Thesis Advisor

____Thesis Reader

_X__Research Placement (students interested in gaining research experience would be able to work in your laboratory as volunteers or for course credit)

Research Interests (It is best if you can describe specifically the kinds of projects you do that students could help work on or the general areas of expertise in which you are willing to advise students):

The Study of Adult Development is the longest longitudinal study of life span development ever conducted. Begun at the Harvard University Health Services in 1938 and continuing to this day, the Study has tracked the lives of two groups of men prospectively for nearly 70 years. The Harvard cohort, known as the “Grant Study,” is a group of 268 Harvard graduates from the classes of 1939-1941 selected for their physical and mental health and high achievement potential. The Inner-City cohort, known as the “Glueck Study,” is a group of 456 men who grew up in the inner-city neighborhoods of Boston. The men comprising the Inner-City cohort were originally selected as a non-delinquent comparison group in a study of juvenile delinquency by Harvard Law School professor Sheldon Glueck between 1940 and 1945. Approximately 100 Harvard men and 100 Inner-City men are living and remain active in the Study.

The Study is directed by Robert J. Waldinger, M.D., HMS Associate Professor of Psychiatry, after more than 30 years of leadership by George Vaillant, M.D., HMS Professor of Psychiatry. By tracking the lives of these two diverse samples from adolescence through adulthood into old age, we have been able to identify familial, childhood, and psychological variables that predict quality of adult life, physical and mental health, marriage and successful aging. The Study has a rich body of prospectively collected data spanning 67 years, including IQ at age 20, physician records of health status every 5 years, and social and occupational functioning and exposure to environmental stressors assessed every 2 years. Students have the opportunity to design research projects using this extensive database.

In the current phase of the study, we are collaborating with neuroscientists and geneticists in the HMS community (imaging, genetics, neuropathology, and neuropsychology) to take advantage of this rare longitudinal data to address key issues in the field of aging. Using neuroimaging, neuropsychological testing, and DNA, we will examine the interactions of behavior and biology in fostering healthy cognitive aging and the development of neurodegenerative disease (e.g. Alzheimer’s Disease) in those men still living.

A second study, the Close Relationships Project, is an observational study of couples, aimed at understanding how abuse in childhood and current violence in intimate adult relationships affect people’s capacities to manage emotional arousal when dealing with conflicts with intimate partners. By observing couples in the laboratory talking about problems in their relationships, our goal is to better characterize the interpersonal difficulties that plague the adult relationships of child abuse survivors, and that are compounded by re-victimization within an intimate relationship. Using comparison groups of violent and non-violent couples, and women with and without histories of childhood sexual abuse, we study how people express themselves emotionally, what they report about their subjective experiences, and how they react physiologically (autonomically) during discussions with their partners.

The initial data collection on 109 couples is finished. We are currently doing a follow-up of these couples at least one year after their visit to our laboratory. Our goal is to get a longitudinal view of how relationship violence, satisfaction, and interaction styles at one point in time relate to relationship stability and satisfaction over time. Ultimately, we expect that the results of this study will help us design better programs for prevention and treatment of family violence. Students can use data from this project to examine questions about how childhood trauma may be linked with adult relationship functioning.