A Longitudinal Study of Social, Emotional, and Physical Wellness

The Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence (YCEI) is launching an unprecedented, multi-decade longitudinal study to illuminate how emotional intelligence, sports and movement, positive relationships, and nutrition intertwine to shape healthy development—from early adolescence into adulthood.

Where the Harvard study transformed our understanding of adult flourishing, this study brings a 21st-century lens to the formative years and the everyday contexts—schools, teams, families, and communities—where health and emotion skills are built.

* Waldinger, R. J., & Schulz, M. S. (2023). The Good Life: Lessons From the World's Longest Study of Happiness. Simon & Schuster.

Emotional, social, and physical development are inseparable:

• Movement and sports train attention, persistence, teamwork, and stress recovery
• Emotional intelligence (EI) skills—accurately recognizing, understanding, labeling, expressing, and regulating emotions—determine whether childhood experiences translate into resilience or risk.
• Childhood experiences, particularly having nurturing, secure relationships with caring adults are foundational to later mental health.
• Nutrition fuels the brain systems that enable focus, learning, and self-regulation and impacts mood and motivation.

This project will clarify which combinations of skills, routines, and environments—emotion skills practice, daily movement, team belonging, and nourishing food—most reliably forecast a life well-lived.

• How emotional intelligence skills amplify (or dampen) the benefits of sports and movement and vice versa on emotion regulation and overall mental health.
• The value of nurturing relationships for childhood development, including not only family, but the child’s entire microsystem of teachers, friends, mentors, and coaches.
  
• How the dynamics among emotional intelligence, movement, and nutrition predict long-term outcomes—graduation, purposeful work, satisfying relationships, mental health, and eventually markers linked to healthy aging.

Findings will generate practical playbooks for schools, districts, youth sports organizations, families, and public health agencies:

• When and why to teach emotional intelligence
• How to design opportunities for sports and physical education that also foster emotion regulation and belonging
• The critical role of healthy relationships in child development and adult mental health
• How to integrate nutrition education that supports both brain and body

Open-science practices and a community advisory board will ensure scientific rigor and public trust.

We are looking for committed RULER middle schools who can:

• Continue to implement the RULER approach over time as we follow and provide our team with annual information on level and fidelity of implementation.
• Support the recruitment of sixth grade students into our study, providing opportunities for us to meet with parents/caregivers and obtain consent through parent nights or other forms of communication
• Host our team for school visits when we can collect data from students annually each year. We will work with each site to determine the smoothest protocol, but this may include:
  • Identifying times when students can complete surveys (no more than 30 minutes)
    
  • Dedicating a space where we can meet with students individually or in small groups during the day of our visit to administer surveys

By participating in this study, you are contributing to the science of well-being and joining a coalition of forward-thinking schools. As partners of the YCEI, other benefits available to you include:

• Networking opportunities with leaders and educators from other participating sites.
• Additional workshops, PD sessions, or parent information nights as requested on a host of topics of your choice including emotional intelligence, adolescent development, creativity, nutrition and physical health, educator well-being, and more.
• Waived RULER subscription and conference attendance fees for each year of participation in the project.
• Exclusive annual reports of progress and findings from the study.
• Opportunities to present with the YCEI on the project at practitioner- and academic-facing conferences and events.
• Include your school’s name (if you wish) in the acknowledgements of any publications, presentations, or other media.
  

Funding Source: The Ubuntu Fund and Anonymous Gift

Team members: Marc Brackett, Jessica Hoffmann, Nikki Elbertson, Jennifer Seibyl, Whitney Sanders

Connection to Research Agenda: Emotion Science