Connection

The longest-running studies of human flourishing keep returning the same unfashionable answer: the quality of our relationships predicts health and happiness better than wealth, fame, or cholesterol. Connection is not a soft topic; it is one of the best-measured variables in the literature.

This collection gathers our research articles on that evidence. What decades of adult-development research actually show about good relationships — and what they cost to maintain. And why small, almost embarrassingly minor acts of reaching out are consistently undervalued by the people who perform them.

As everywhere in this journal, studies come from named institutions with canonical links, and statistics keep their caveats. The gratitude exercise below is the simplest evidence-based way to begin.