The Life History Research Society (LHRS) is a dynamic, informal, and multidisciplinary group of scholars dedicated to prospective longitudinal research examining various aspects of human development. While early longitudinal studies were often spearheaded by epidemiologists, psychiatrists, and psychologists, today these methods are embraced across a wide range of disciplines.
This growth is due not only to the compelling findings generated by longitudinal studies over the past 50 years—which have demonstrated their unique methodological strengths and contributions to knowledge—but also to the sustained efforts of key researchers and organizations like LHRS, who have championed collaborative, interdisciplinary research and knowledge exchange.
A bit of history of the Life History Research Society
Originally known as the Life History Research Society in Psychopathology, LHRS was founded in the late 1960s by a group of scholars from diverse fields who shared a deep interest in longitudinal research. Founding members included:
- Sarnoff Mednick (The New School for Social Research)
- Lee Robins (University of Washington)
- David F. Ricks (Columbia University)
- Robert D. Wirt (New School for Social Research)
- James D. Roff (Eastern Michigan University)
- Marl H. Pollack (Massachusetts General Hospital & Harvard Medical School)
- Saul B. Sells (Institute of Behavioral Research, Texas Christian University)
- Merril Roff (University of Minnesota)
- John S. Strauss (National Institute of Mental Health)
- William Pollin (National Institute of Drug Abuse)
- Alexander Thomas (New York University Medical Center)
The Society’s early meetings were small and by invitation only, with fewer than 50 participants. It was at the third meeting, held at Hillside Hospital in Glen Oaks, New York, in 1971, that LHRS was formally established.
In its early decades, LHRS became a hub for groundbreaking research, with many presentations leading to influential publications. These include:
- Life History Research in Psychopathology Volumes 1–4 (Roff & Ricks, 1970; Roff et al., 1972; Ricks et al., 1974; Wirt et al., 1975)
- The Origins and Course of Psychopathology (Strauss et al., 1977)
- Human Functioning in Longitudinal Perspective (Sells et al., 1980)
- Prospective Studies of Crime and Delinquency (Van Dusen & Mednick, 1983)
- Life-span Research on the Prediction of Psychopathology (Erlenmeyer-Kimling & Miller, 1986)
- Origins of Psychopathology (Ricks & Dohrenwend, 1983)
In the decades that followed, the leadership torch was taken up by other eminent scholars, including:
- Sir Michael Rutter (often referred to as “the father of child psychology”)
- Patricia Cohen (Columbia University)
- Jack Block (UC Berkeley)
- David Reiss (George Washington University)
- Jane Costello (Duke University)
- Barbara Maughan (King’s College London)
- David P. Farrington (Cambridge University)
- Terrie Moffitt & Avshalom Caspi (Duke University)
- Lisa Serbin (Concordia University)
- Sheilagh Hodgins (University of Montreal)
Research presented at LHRS meetings during this time continued to shape the field and was featured in several influential works, including:
- A special issue of Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health (1997), edited by Barbara Maughan and David P. Farrington
- Special sections of Psychiatry (1988 & 1991, edited by David Reiss)
- Straight and Devious Pathways from Childhood to Adulthood (Robins & Rutter, 1990)
- Coercion and Punishment in Long-term Perspectives (McCord, 1995)
- Where and When: Geographic and Generational Influences on Psychopathology (Cohen et al., 1988)
Today, LHRS continues to foster cross-disciplinary dialogue and innovation in longitudinal research, building on its rich history to support the next generation of developmental scientists.
See the table below for a list of past LHRS conferences, compiled from early publications and the generous input of LHRS members—special thanks to Barbara Maughan, Lisa Serbin, Sheilagh Hodgins, Linda Pagani, and Jeff Burke for their contributions. We are still verifying and completing this record, so if you have any information to help fill in the gaps (noted with question marks), please contact us at lifehistorysociety@gmail.com. Thank you!
Table summarising Life History Research Society meetings across the years
| Year | City, Country | Institution /organisers |
| 1967 | New York, USA (1 day meeting) | David F. Ricks (Teachers College, Columbia University) |
| 1968 | Minneapolis, USA (2-day conference) | Merril Roff (University of Minnesota) |
| 1969 | New York, USA | Sarnoff Mednick (New School for Social Research) & David F. Ricks (Teachers College, Columbia University) |
| 1970 | Minneapolis, USA | Merril Roff (The Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota) |
| 1971* | Glen Oaks (NY), USA | Max Pollack (Queens College, City University of New York and Hillside Hospital) |
| 1972 | St. Louis, USA | Lee Robins (Washington University in St. Louis) & Sarnoff Mednick (New School for Social Research) |
| 1976 | Forth Worth, TX, USA? | John S. Strauss? |
| 1979? | New York, USA? | Barbara Snell Dohrenwend (Columbia University School of Public Health) |
| 1980 | St. Louis, USA | Lee Robins (Washington University in St. Louis) |
| 1983? | ? | Katherine Van Dusen & Sarnoff Mednick? |
| 1985 | Montreal, Canada | Alex Schwartzman, Lisa Serbin & Debbie Moskowitz (Concordia University) |
| 1986? | North Carolina, USA | Jane Costello (Duke University) |
| 1987 | St. Louis, USA | Lee Robins (Washington University in St. Louis) |
| 1988 | Cape Cod, USA | Patricia Cohen (Columbia University) |
| 1990 | Keystone or Denver, USA | ? |
| 1992 | Philadelphia, USA | Joan McCord (Temple University) |
| 1993 | New York, USA | Patricia Cohen (Columbia University) |
| 1995 | Monterrey Cal., USA | Sarnoff Mednick (University of Southern California) |
| 1996 | London, UK | Barbara Maughan (Institute de Psychiatry, KCL) and David Farrington (University of Cambridge) |
| 1998 | Seattle, USA | Richard F. Catalano & David Hawkins (School of Social Work, University of Washington, Seattle) |
| 1999 | Kauai, HI, USA | Michael D. Maltz (Dept of Criminal Justice; University of Illinois at Chicago) |
| 2001 | St. Michael’s, Maryland, USA | Patricia Cohen (Columbia University), Sheppard Kellam and Margaret Ensminger (Johns Hopkins University) |
| 2002 | New York, USA | ? |
| 2004 | Charleston, SC, USA | Ron Prinz (University of South Carolina) |
| 2005 | Portland, Oregon | Deborah Capaldi and Tom Dishion (Oregon Social Learning Center) |
| 2007 | Atlanta | Carol Worthman & Patti Brennan (Emory University) |
| 2008 | Bad Nauheim, Germany | Sheila Hodgins (Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London) |
| 2010 | Montreal, Canada | Mark Ellenbogen (Concordia University) |
| 2012 | Richmond, UK | Sara Jaffee & Barbara Maughan (Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London) |
| 2014 | Pittsburgh, USA | Alison Hipwell and Jeffrey Burke (Pittsburgh University) |
| 2016 | Amsterdam, Netherlands | Hanneke Creemers and Machteld Hoeve (University of Amsterdam) |
| 2018 | Paris, France | Maria Melchor & Judith Van Der Waerden (Sorbonne Université, INSERM) |
| 2022 | Oxford, UK | Lucy Bowes (Oxford University) |
| 2024 | Montreal, Canada | Natalie Castellanos-Ryan & Isabelle Ouellet-Morin (Université de Montréal), Marie-Claude Geoffroy and Caroline Temcheff (McGill University) |
*It is believed that Sarnoff Mednick, David F. Ricks, Merril Roff and Max Pollack were who started the LHRS meetings, but the LHRS is officially founded only during the third meeting in 1971.
Examples of influential publications related to past LHRS meetings
COHEN, P., SLOMKOWSKI, C. & ROBINS, L.N. (Eds) (1997). Where and When: Geographic and Generational Influences on Psychopathology. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, in press.
Colman I, Murray J, Abbott R A, Maughan B, Kuh D, Croudace T J et al. (2009) Outcomes of conduct problems in adolescence: 40 year follow-up of national cohort, British Medical Journal, 338 :a2981 doi:10.1136/bmj.a2981
ERLENMEYER-KIMLING, L. & MILLER, N.E. (1986). Life-span Research on the Prediction of Psychopathology. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
JESSOR, R. & JESSOR, S.L. (1977). Problem Behavior and Psychosocial Development – A Longitudinal Study of Youth. New York: Academic Press.
Lewinsohn, P.M., Rohde, P., Seeley, J.R., Klein, D.N., & Gotlib, I.H. (2000). Natural course of adolescent major depressive disorder in a community sample: predictors of recurrence in young adults. American Journal of Psychiatry, 157, 1584– 1591.
Maughan, B. and Farrington, D.P. (1997), Editorial. Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health, 7, 261-264. https://doi.org/10.1002/cbm.189
MAUGHAN, B. & FARRINGTON, MCCORD, J. (Ed.) (1995). Coercion and Punishment in Long-term Perspectives. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Maughan, B., Rowe, R., Messer, J., Goodman, R. and Meltzer, H. (2004), Conduct Disorder and Oppositional Defiant Disorder in a national sample: developmental epidemiology. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 45, 609-621. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.2004.00250.x
Maughan, B., Stafford, M., Shah, I., & Kuh, D. (2014). Adolescent conduct problems and premature mortality: follow-up to age 65 years in a national birth cohort. Psychological Medicine, 44, 1077– 1086.
REISS, D. (Ed.) (1988). Special section: Delinquency, Drug Abuse and Alcoholism. Psychiatry 51.
REISS, D. (Ed.) (1991). Special section: Conduct Disorders in Childhood. Psychiatry 54.
RICKS, D. F. & DOHRENWEND, B. (Eds) (1983). Origins of Psychopathology: Problems in Research and Public Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
RICKS, D. F., THOMAS, A. & ROFF, M. (Eds) (1974). Life History Research in Psychopathology, Vol. 3. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
ROBINS, L. N. & RUTTER, M. (Eds) (1990). Straight and Devious Pathways from Childhood to Adulthood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
ROFF, M. & RICKS, D. F. (Eds) (1970). Life History Research in Psychopathology, Vol. 1. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
ROFF, M., ROBINS, L. N. & POLLACK, M. (Eds) (1972) Life History Research in Psychopathology, Vol. 2. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Rutter, M. (2010) Child and adolescent psychiatry: past scientific achievements and challenges for the future. European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 19, 689–703 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-010-0111-y
RUTTER, M., DUNN, J., PLOMIN, R., SIMONOFF, E., PICKLES, A., MAUGHAN, B., . . . EAVES, L. (1997). Integrating nature and nurture: Implications of person–environment correlations and interactions for developmental psychopathology. Development and Psychopathology, 9, 335-364. doi:10.1017/S0954579497002083
SELLS, S.B., CRANDALL, R., ROFF, M., STRAUSS, J.S. & POLLIN, W. (1980). Human Functioning in Longitudinal Perspectives: Studies of Normal and Psychopathic Populations. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins.
STRAUSS, J.S., BABIGIAN, H.M. & ROFF, M. (1977). The Origins and Course of Psychopathology. New York: Plenum.
VAN DUSEN, K. T. & MEDNICK, S. A. (Eds) (1983). Prospective Studies of Crime and Delinquency. Boston: Kluwer-Nijhoff.
WIRT, R.D., WINOKUR, G. & ROFF, M. (1975). Life History Research in Psychopathology, Vol. 4. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Other reference in text:
“Professor Sir Michael Rutter obituary”. The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 4 November 2023.
More to come…