What makes a happy and healthy life? That’s the question at the heart of the longest study on happiness, the Harvard Study of Adult Development, which began in 1938. Researchers have been following participants for 85 years, trying to untangle what it takes to thrive in this world. And the answer they found? Fulfilling relationships. In our debut episode of The Connection, we talk with the study’s researchers about why positive relationships are the essential ingredient to happiness. They’re the co-authors of  the new book, The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness.

Our guests

ROBERT WALDINGER, professor of psychiatry at Harvard University and director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development and  MARC SCHULZ, professor of psychology at Bryn Mawr College and associate director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development.