The Coddling of the American Mind

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The social world is particularly constrained in terms of the way we see information. There are companies and ideas that are percolating, trying to figure out ways to use these technologies to expand those visions. But I think we're at an interesting point where the societal forces have been going on now for decades. And then it's met technology and it's a kind of double whammy that we haven't figured out yet.

Shermer and Schulz discuss: an operational definition of the “good life” or “happiness” or “well being” • the reliability (or unreliability) of self-report data in social science • relative roles of genes, environment, hard work, and luck in how lives turn out • personality and to what extent it can be scientifically measured and studied • factors in early childhood that shape mental health in mid and late life • generational differences: • the impact of loneliness • misconceptions about happiness • what social fitness is and how to exercise it • what most people get wrong about achievement, and more…

Marc Schulz is the associate director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development and the Sue Kardas PhD 1971 Chair in Psychology at Bryn Mawr College. He also directs the Data Science Program and previously chaired the psychology department and Clinical Developmental Psychology PhD program at Bryn Mawr. Dr. Schulz received his BA from Amherst College and his PhD in clinical psychology from the University of California at Berkeley. He is a practicing therapist with postdoctoral training in health and clinical psychology at Harvard Medical School. His new book, co-authored with Robert Waldinger, is The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness.