Browsing by Subject "longevity"

Goals Length of human lifespan is an important measure of societal welfare. Mortality is largely linked to physical health, but psychological well-being has also been shown to predict mortality, happier people living longer lives. Psychological well-being can be construed as both subjective well-being (SWB) and eudaimonic well-being (EWB), and measures belonging to both of these constructs have been shown to individually predict mortality. No study to date has, however, compared these differing measures of psychological well-being as predictors of mortality. This study compares measures of life satisfaction (a part of SWB) and purpose in life (a part of EWB) as predictors of mortality. Methods The data used in this study comes from the Midlife in the US (MIDUS) survey, a large-scale longitudinal study spanning almost 20 years. MIDUS includes measures for life satisfaction and purpose in life, as well as data on mortality and many health behaviors with a sample of N=3768. Effects of life satisfaction and purpose in life on mortality were analysed with multiple Cox proportional hazards models. Results Life satisfaction predicts mortality when modeled alone, as does purpose in life. When modeled together, only purpose in life predicts mortality. This finding stands when additional health behavior variables are controlled, but when the sample is stratified by sex, the relation between life satisfaction and mortality also reaches marginal significance for women but not men. Conclusions This study shows that purpose in life might be a better predictor of mortality compared to life satisfaction. The results also give preliminary support for a hypothesis that purpose, and by proxy EWB, is closer to the evolutionary and physiological core of psychological well-being.