The Longevity Project Reflections

Chapter 12 examines the effects of social connections on longevity, similarly to chapter 11.  The chapter’s main take away is that those who reap the benefits of longevity in regards to social connection are those who have the most meaningful connections, instead of those who felt well connected with a smaller social circle.  The chapter also looks into the significance of pets on longevity and it was extremely surprising to me that pets had no effect on life expectancy, even though they’re great stress relievers and reducing stress has  been a common trend for positive effects in this book.  I would like to know if this has changed in recent years or if the way we interact with our pets has, considering how many people I know whose pets are such a huge part of their life.  The other section I was curious about seemed to say that social ties do more for longevity than modern medicine and I think that the book should have explained that a bit more instead of leaving it to a few sentences.

The idea of the larger social circle having such a large impact makes sense to me.  When issues come up in life, the people that are there for you, or that you support aren’t always those who you expect.  I hope that in the future, I am able to be part of such a support network, not for the longevity aspect, but for the community.

Ch.13 delves more into the gender disparities that have been present throughout the novel.  Overall, it was found that more feminine people, regardless of sex, tend to live longer than more masculine people.  It was also discussed that men who are widowed tend to pass soon after their wives, while widowed women tended to live quite long lives after their husbands passed.  I don’t fully agree with using career paths to define masculinity and femininity, especially with my modern perspective, but it does make me wonder if these gender disparities in longevity would hold up in modern society considering the more relaxed gender roles.

Chapter 12 sought to determine which elements of social ties played a significant role in longevity. The authors discovered that those who had a larger social network lived longer and that the clearest benefit of social relationships came from helping others. This isn’t surprising because people who go out of their way to help others are generally conscientious people, and as we have learned, conscientiousness plays a huge role in longevity. One fact that did surprise me was that having a pet does not contribute to longevity. Owning a pet does not help you live longer because one cannot have human social interaction with a pet, but I feel as though pet owners must be conscientious. Can getting a pet help someone become conscientious?

Chapter 13 discussed the role of masculinity and femininity in longevity. The results were not surprising to me. Masculine men and women lived shorter lives because masculine behaviors can be somewhat dangerous. Additionally, masculine individuals tend to be more closed off and have less deep social connections. On the other hand, feminine men and women live longer lives because they have safer behaviors and because they are able to maintain stronger relationships. I am wondering which factor matters most to longevity. Is it conscientiousness, having a successful career, social ties, or femininity? I would predict that conscientiousness is the most important because it relates to all of the other factors. Those who are conscientious are driven so they are more likely to have a successful career. They are less likely to make dangerous decisions and they care more about life in general so I feel like they would make a bigger effort to be social and help others.

Chapter 12 of The Longevity Project analyzed the healthy life patterns and social networks that their subjects had been involved with. They discovered that those who made actual ties in the social networks, more engaged, and did more community service were the ones that lived the longest.

This chapter resonated with me as I’ve done over hundreds of hours of community service since I was 13 years old. This summer, I found an organization to volunteer with in Jacksonville because I had to do a small amount of community service as a legal consequence. At the beginning of the summer, I did not want to be spending my time doing this because I was in a new city, with a new internship, and wanted to explore other opportunities with the other 3 interns. However, after two shifts of working with the organization, I instantly felt gratification, self-worth, and enjoyed working with the people there. In the end, this experience was one I will look back on with positive remarks. I’ve decided that if I were to ever move to Jacksonville, I would volunteer with them again in a heartbeat. I hope my positive outlook and investment in the community will help me in the long run.

In chapter 13, the researchers  dove into the subject and reasonings of why women tend to outlive men. They were interested to see if it was a purely biological reason. Turns out, it is in fact not just biological and that more masculine men and women had increased mortality risk meanwhile individuals who were more feminine were relatively safe and protected. Also they discovered that women outlived men longer, and more exceptionally, after their spouse has died. This may be due to the fact that women or better at creating and taking part of social relationships that have been proved to prolong life.

I was intrigued by how the Terman study established how feminine or masculine someone was. By asking participants to rate their degree of preference for about a hundred occupations, they were able to create a scale. I see two limitations in this section of the book. First, they admitted that the analyses of men and women could not directly take sexual orientation into account. In today’s this is a massive hindrance because of all the individuals who have come out as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. Another limitation is that today’s working society and composition is not what it was like when this study was being done. More and more women are entering the workforce and are in positions that were mostly occupied by men in the 1900’s. Therefore, to create a rating on a scale of occupations that is constantly changing may not have been the best way to create masculine and feminine classifications of the participants

I was not surprised to read in chapter 12 that those with larger social networks lived longer, as this aligns with my own thoughts and opinions as well as with other pieces of the Terman study, particularly the religiosity portion. Additionally the finding that those who reached out and helped others (rather than just passively or indirectly having a large social network) had better longevity was not surprising to me either because not only does reaching out and being there for others provide one with a sense of fulfillment, the way in which it manifests (e.g. workout/diet groups, religious groups, people who reciprocate the care and comfort you provide to them, etc.) reasonably would lead to longer life.

I am not off put by the findings of chapter 12, as I would consider myself somewhat of a social butterfly. Additionally I feel my family and close friends all have decent social circles and considering the authors declared, “social relations should be the first place to look for improving health and longevity,” I would say we are all in pretty good standing.

With regards to chapter 13, I have normalized the fact that women live longer than men, but I too am just as curious as to why? The way the Terman study went about it was using a Masculinity-Femininity scale, which I found interesting—but the findings made sense. Those higher in femininity (more so females than men) lived longer because they, on average, had less risky lifestyles (e.g. less smoking, less drinking, “safer” jobs, etc.). I scored a -4. If you ask me, that just confirms I’m an emotionally intelligent, non-overly-masculine-fragile, male social butterfly. I like sports but HGTV and Say Yes to the Dress are my jams (thanks, mom); also, I am not too stubborn to go to the doctor and look out for myself at times when I may be alone. But for anyone out there reading this, just remember, you’re never truly alone).

Chapter 12 discusses the relationship between social connections/support and longevity of life. Social support was broken down into three main categories: size of social network, willingness to help others and support of friends, and lastly feelings that friends are there for you when needed. The authors state that the third element is least important when talking about health, which was backed up when they examine these feelings to longevity. However, the size of the network proved to very important to health, but helping others showed the most significant benefit of social networks. Another significant finding was that pets are not a substitute for social support. Pets alone do not increase the longevity of life. What bothered me about these chapters, was the lack of data. I felt there was a lot of broad statements that were not really backed up, such as feelings of support do not benefit longevity. Chapter 13 discusses how differences in masculinity and feminity correlate to survival. The authors found that masculinity relates more toward mortality, which explains the phenomena of women living longer than men. Women tend to be more feminine by nature, so therefore they tend to live longer. This also tells why men who do outlive their wives usually don’t live for much longer. These widowed husbands are not dying from a broken heart, but instead, they do not have a wife making sure they are on top of their health. But when a male is high in neuroticism, the widowed husband tends to worry about their health more.

I appreciated the test to examine our social support network. I would have hypothesized that I would score relatively high on a test like this and I was correct. I am a pretty sociable person with a lot of my immediate family living 15 minutes away from me. I also enjoy helping others and am often the “therapist” to many of my close friends. It was reassuring to know that helping others and just being apart of a support system for my friends is more beneficial than my own feelings of support. While I feel a lot of support from family, I do not always feel the same level of help from my friends that I offer them. So for this feeling to be the least important aspect of social support, makes me feel a little better about not feeling as much support from my friends. Chapter 13, aligned with everything I’ve seen in the past. My father would be classified as a “manly man,” never talks about his emotions and hated going to the doctor until recently. If not for my mother hounding him to take better care of his health, he would probably not be here today. It made sense to me that someone more feminine would be much more open to going to the doctor when in pain or talking about emotional struggles. When I was younger, I was just like my father and did not pay as much attention to the pains I was feeling. Had I been more open to doctors, I probably could have avoided some of my injuries.

For the future, I plan on continuing what I am doing. I hope to keep a large support system and to remain to be a support system for my friends. I enjoy helping others so knowing it aids in longevity is even more incentive to keep it up. I do plan on getting a pet or a few in the future, and it sucks knowing they can’t be a replacement for actual friends because pets love you unconditionally. But overall, this chapter just told me to keep doing what I’m doing, and the good don’t actually die young. Concerning Chapter 13, it told me to really value my health. While I still try to be the “tough guy” sometimes and brush off the pain, this will only increase mortality. While I can’t know when my time will come, I can do all that is my power to prevent in from coming any sooner than it has to be. By going to the doctor and not being afriad to talk about emotional struggles, I can increase my longevity.

I didn’t really find it that surprising that those who had a larger social network lived longer. This wasn’t very surprising to me because it makes a lot of sense, people who have many social relationships are able to help others and seek help in times of need. It is interesting that social relations are the first place to look for improving health and longevity. Unlike most of the chapters in the book, the topic of this chapter is easily fixable. What I mean by this is that if someone is not necessarily a social person they are not stuck with this disposition, they can easily make meet more people and become more social. I wish the book had different ways to look at sociability rather than it being self reported. I feel like there may be some error in self report, considering that people may think they are more social than they actually are. Another interesting statement in this chapter was that playing with pets isn’t associated with longer life. Many people think that playing with pets is beneficial to longevity because playing with pets can help to relieve stress, however playing with pets does not have a long term longevity affect. Overall, I thought this chapter was slightly contradictory to the previous chapters because researchers found that being social can also be bad for your health because it can lead to riskier behaviors.

Chapter 13 was one of my favorite chapters in the book so far. It was very interesting that the more masculine men and more masculine women had an increased mortality risk, while the more feminine women and the more feminine men were relatively protected. I liked how the researchers split participants up into 4 groups rather than just by biological sex. I do think that the survey they used to determine masculinity and femininity could have been better, because it seemed like the survey was a bit subjective to gender stereotypes associated with different jobs. It did make sense that feminine women and feminine men were less likely to die from all causes because they are ready to admit they need help. I also liked how the chapter also tied in points from the previous chapter, the women and less masculine men were able to establish and maintain deeper social connections, which often saved their lives. It is amazing to me how powerful social connections are because just helping another person or having someone who supports you can easily increase longevity.

I thought chapter 12 was interesting how only those that have a large social network tended to live longer. I would think that people such as John, who felt socially secure and supported would live just as long as someone who had a large circle of friends. I think someone could have a large group of friends, but I think it would be more important to look at how genuine and satisfying each friendship was.

I am not surprised that the quote “the good die early, and the bad die late” was not true. I think often times you do wonder and question why good people die for unexpected reasons, but I think the quote is more helpful for coping with such a loss and does not always appear true or something that you could possibly even research because what categorizes someone as “good” is very vague and subjective.

I was not surprised with the finding that playing with pets was not associated with living a longer life, but it does make me wonder what the true benefits of having a therapy or emotional support dog are. I know that I am happier when I am with my dog. I think maybe depending on the person a pet could be beneficial, but I do believe that it will not necessarily lead to a longer life.

In chapter 13, I had a problem with what was defined as “masculine” and what was defined as feminine.” The first sentence said, “Paul was a tough, masculine guy while James was more of a family man” How does James being a family man make him any less masculine? I did not like this section of this book because I just found it to be kind of irrelevant. I think when this research was first conducted it would have been more relevant, but I do not believe it to be as important today. Gender roles are less concrete today than they used to be and risky behaviors that used to be seen more in men, such as drinking and smoking are now seen just as often with women.

I thought it was interesting that men who had lost their wives lived longer if they had neurotic personalities and were not very masculine. I think more research should be done, but I think it is an interesting finding with the Terman participants.