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Carol D. Ryff, Ph.D., is Director of the Institute on Aging and
Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
She is a member of the MacArthur Research Network for Successful
Midlife Development, a Fellow of the American Psychological Association
(Division 20 - Adult Development and Aging) and the Gerontological
Society of America, a former fellow at the Center for Advanced Study
in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, and Consulting Editor for
two major APA journals (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
Psychology and Aging). Her work has been supported by the National
Institute on Aging, the National Institute of Mental Health, and
the MacArthur Foundation.
Dr. Ryff's research centers on the study of psychological well-being,
an area in which she has generated a theory-driven, empirically-based
approach to assessment of multiple dimensions of positive psychological
functioning. These assessment procedures have been
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translated to 18 different languages and are used in diverse studies
in fields of psychology, sociology, demography, epidemiology, and
health. Her own descriptive studies, conducted with nationally representative
survey samples, have documented sociodemographic correlates of well-being
(i.e., how positive mental health varies by age, gender, social
class, ethnic/minority status). Her explanatory studies have focused
on individuals' life experiences and their interpretations of them
to account for variations in well-being. Subsequent longitudinal
investigations of midlife development and old age are exploring
processes of resilience and vulnerability via the cumulation of
adversity and advantage. Multiple protective factors (biological,
psychological, social), hypothesized to promote resilience, are
currently under investigation. The linkages between positive mental
health and positive physical health are a primary focus in her ongoing
longitudinal studies.
Beyond her own program of studies, Dr. Ryff has catalyzed extensive
multidisciplinary research on topics related to life course development
(e.g., parenting; aging transitions; social relations, emotions,
and health). Since 1996, she has edited four books that summarize
recent findings in these areas.
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