“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 on members of the classes of 1960 and 1961—including Stanley King’s in-depth interviews with 49 young men—and, during the past fifteen years, followed up with many of them. His resulting theory of happiness and human development looks beyond the pursuit of status and wealth to the factors that determine a fulfilling life: mutually beneficial relationships; awareness and pursuit of one’s own goals; and capacity to deal with serious setbacks. The class members’ lived experience perhaps suggested as much, but Kaufman’s talk was the first formal outreach by researchers to share the findings with the subjects who made it possible."

Harvard Magazine

“A must-read for anyone who wants to deeply understand psychological well-being.”

Ed Diener, coauthor of "Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth"

“Extraordinary, almost unbelievable, that Kaufman has been able to track down and study in depth subjects who were first investigated decades ago. Using his rare, longitudinal data, he develops a sophisticated understanding of happiness and life satisfaction. He shows why it is that financial success is not as central as it is often thought to be. Our culture, he argues convincingly, has sold to the younger generation a false promise that attending a prestigious college and attaining wealth is ‘a ticket to the good life.’ Redefining Success in America does just what the title promises; it provides an original and creative answer to the question: ‘What provides fulfillment?’”

James W. Anderson, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

“A superb book, unique for its use of grounded theory in the study of life-span patterns and in its formulation of a new life-span theory of happiness. In these ways, Redefining Success in America makes fundamental contributions. The equal emphasis on stability and change is very rare and admirable in developmental science. . . . As a life-course sociologist, I enjoyed this book greatly.”

Michael Shanahan, director of the Jacobs Center for Productive Youth Development, University of Zurich