Work hard in school, graduate from a top college, establish a high-paying professional career, enjoy the long-lasting reward of happiness. This is the American Dream—and yet basic questions at the heart of this competitive journey remain unanswered. Does competitive success, even rarified entry into the Ivy League and the top one percent of earners in America, deliver on its promise? Does realizing the American Dream deliver a good life? In Redefining Success in America, psychologist and human development scholar Michael Kaufman develops a fundamentally new understanding of how elite undergraduate educations and careers play out in lives, and of what shapes happiness among the prizewinners in America. In so doing, he exposes the myth at the heart of the American Dream. Returning to the legendary Harvard Student Study of undergraduates from the 1960s and interviewing participants almost fifty years later, Kaufman shows that formative experiences in family, school, and community largely shape a future adult’s worldview and well-being by late adolescence, and that fundamental change in adulthood, when it occurs, is shaped by adult family experiences, not by ever-greater competitive success. Published research on general samples shows that these patterns, and the book’s findings generally, are broadly applicable to demographically varied populations in the United States. Leveraging biography-length clinical interviews and quantitative evidence unmatched even by earlier landmark studies of human development, Redefining Success in America redefines the conversation about the nature and origins of happiness, and about how adults develop. This longitudinal study pioneers a new paradigm in happiness research, developmental science, and personality psychology that will appeal to scholars and students in the social sciences, psychotherapy professionals, and serious readers navigating the competitive journey. “ Redefining Success in America: A New Theory of Happiness and Human Development sets out to explore one of the enduring beliefs in developed societies: that an elite education and career success lead to a happy life. The book’s conclusion, which may surprise some readers, is that finding love, setting up a home, and raising children are more important for happiness than educational attainment and professional achievements. . . . The author marshals a range of data from different interviewees to develop his key argument. . . . I enjoyed reading this book, and it will aid researchers wishing to develop their own qualitative projects into happiness and well-being.” -- Mark Cieslik, Northumbria University ― Contemporary Sociology “Is the prospect of economic security enough to guarantee a happy life? In Redefining Success in America , Kaufman challenges this mythical belief of a happily-ever-after. . . . Critiquing the use of the cross-sectional, self-report survey method commonly used in happiness research, Kaufman uses in-depth, longitudinal interview data to explore the meaning of ‘happiness’ and to develop a paradigm that is ‘holistic, specific, and context-sensitive.’ . . . Redefining Success in America will be most intriguing and thought-provoking to readers interested in understanding the role that the sensemaking of subjective experiences plays in people’s happiness.” -- So Yeon Shin ― Harvard Educational Review "Kaufman’s book is timely, given the current nationwide college cheating scandal, and many American parents’ apparent obsession with elite colleges. Is it true that graduating from a highly selective, name-brand college guarantees a happy and successful life? Kaufman explores this question using data from a relatively small sample of (presumably all white) men who attended Harvard in the early 1960s, delving into their college life experiences via archival interview transcripts, then tracking down and interviewing those same men decades later when they were nearly sixty years old. Creating a qualitatively rich measure of happiness—the 'Scale of Intrapsychic Brightness and Darkness' (bright: secure, invested in others, possessing a sense of play and spirituality, hopeful; dark: on guard and self-protective, secluded, struggling, pessimistic)—Kaufman explores long-term stability and change in happiness and predictors of happiness, including early family experiences, career success, and important adult relationships. Illustrated with detailed case examples and supplemented by more quantitative survey results from a larger group of Harvard men, results indicate four-year immersion in arguably the most elite of undergraduate colleges is, in fact, no guarantee of 'success in America.' . . . Highly recommended." -- C. J. Jones, California State University, Fresno ― Choice "The fifty-fifth reunion . . . heard a presentation on a new book, Redefining Success in America , by Michael B. Kaufman, MBA ’94, now a psychologist. He exhumed records from the legendary Harvard Student Study, based