Grant Study of Adult Development, 1938-2000

The purpose of this study was to examine how a sample of men adapt to life. The original researchers perceived medical research to be too heavily weighted in the direction of disease, and designed the study to chart the ways in which a group of promising men coped with their lives over a period of time. As the study progressed, some data were collected from the wives of study participants. The study recruited 268 healthy men attending one of the United States' leading universities between 1938 and 1942. Of the 268 men originally chosen, 66 were from the classes of 1939 to 1941 and 202 from a seven percent sample taken from the classes of 1942 to 1944. Over the course of the study, 20 participants withdrew (7%) and 45 (17%) died before age 68. All of the participants were white males primarily drawn from a socio-economically privileged group. The academic achievement of the students chosen fell in the top five to ten percent of high school graduates. Data collection started during the participants' sophomore year in college and continued through senior year. After college graduation, participants received annual questionnaires until 1955. Since 1956, participants have received questionnaires every 2 years. The data were collected using a variety of methods including psychiatric interviews (only when the subjects were in college), follow-up questionnaires, institutional records, psychological tests, and medical examinations. Topics of interest included the participants' social history, intellectual functioning, academic achievement, personality assessment, psychological well-being, physiological and medical information, and biographical data. Complete physical examinations were conducted in 1969, 1974, 1984, and 1989. In addition, there are data from the participants' wives who filled out questionnaires in 1951, 1954, 1967, and 1975. The Murray Research Archive holds original record paper data from all waves (1938 through 2000).