The Importance of Forging Real Relationships at Work
By: Dr. Liz Girolami
Tags: Workplace, Relationships, Happiness, Gce Wellbeing, Workplace Culture

The Science: Strong Relationships Linked to Happier & Longer Lives.

In July 1988, a provocative Science paper by House and colleagues proposed a causal association between social relationships and mortality, based on the review of five large prospective studies. Now, more than two decades after House et al’s seminal review, a generation of research validates their conclusion: our social relationships, in and of themselves, can have an impact on our mortality.

“Social relationships, or the relative lack thereof, constitute a major risk factor for health — rivaling the effect of well established health risk factors such as cigarette smoking, blood pressure, blood lipids, obesity and physical activity.” — House, Landis and Umberson; Science 1988.

Similar findings were also reported in the Grant Study, one of the world’s longest studies of adult life, conducted by Harvard researchers. This extensive longitudinal study was launched in 1938 with the objective of tracking the health (both mental and physical aspects) of 268 Harvard sophomores over the course of their lives, in order to gain insight into what factors could be contributing to a healthy and happy life. The study was subsequently expanded to include the men’s wives and children (women were not in the original study as Harvard was all male at the time). It was also broadened so as to include general findings related to participants’ lives; such as success or failure in career or marriage. Though not a finding anticipated by the researchers; the results pointed to a strong association of relationships and how happy subjects were in their relationships with their overall health.

“When the study began, nobody cared about empathy or attachment. But the key to healthy aging is relationships, relationships, relationships.” -Dr. George Valliant, Grant Study Director- 1972–2004.

Photo by Cristina Gottardi on Unsplash

When reviewing the wealth of data; including numerous medical records, in-person interviews and questionnaires, researchers observed a strong correlation between the quality of men’s lives and their relationships with family, friends and the community.

Close relationships were found to be protective, helped delay mental and physical deterioration and were better predictors of long, happy lives than social class, IQ and even genetics.

For example, there was evidence that at age 50, people’s level of satisfaction with their relationships could better predict their physical health than their cholesterol level. Those study participants who maintained warm relationships lived longer and happier, while those leading more isolated lives died earlier.

“Loneliness kills. It’s as powerful as smoking or alcoholism.” -Dr. Robert Waldinger, (4th and current Grant Study Director).

Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash

In line with the Grant findings, and even closer to home, a Canadian study conducted by Dr. John Helliwell and PhD Candidate Hugh Shiplett, both of the University of British Columbia along with Dr. Christopher Barrington-Leigh of McGill University reported that after examining the extent of life satisfaction in over 1200 Canadian neighbourhoods, the most important factor driving overall happiness was a sense of community belonging. The researchers observed that rural areas tended to be happier compared to their urban counterparts, despite having relatively lower incomes. Similarly, the top 20 percent of happy neighborhoods didn’t vary significantly from the bottom 20 percent of neighborhoods in terms of household incomes or unemployment rates, however there was a difference in terms of how strong an attachment people felt to their community.

Interestingly, at the level of daily social interactions, there is evidence that that engaging regularly in deeper, high-quality conversations is linked with greater happiness. One recent study by Milek et al. examined the random daily social interactions of a diverse population of close to 500 participants by having them wear recording devices in their ears. Based on self-reporting, those participants who spent more time interacting and having more meaningful, substantive conversations were more satisfied with their lives. Furthermore, this was found to be irrespective of personality types, holding true for extroverts and introverts alike.