ABSTRACT Widely embraced in popular culture and everyday discourse, the bucket list has become a culturally resonant tool for intentional living and identity exploration. Guided by Identity‐Based Motivation Theory and Pragmatic Prospection Theory, we examine the roles of bucket lists as identity‐driven tools that help consumers construct purpose in life. Using qualitative and quantitative content analysis, Study 1 analyzed 200 user‐generated bucket lists ( N = 4830 goals) from a popular online platform to examine goal type variety within and across bucket lists. The findings support that most lists feature multiple goal types, suggesting that bucket lists are used to construct and express multifaceted identities. Study 2 surveyed 208 participants with existing bucket lists and found that identity‐driven goal construction was significantly positively related to goal type variety and goal uniqueness. Having a wide range of goals was associated with a stronger sense of purpose, and this purpose was associated with higher life satisfaction. Unique goals, by contrast, were not significantly associated with purpose in life but were still related to greater life satisfaction, suggesting a different pattern of association with well‐being. These findings extend prior work by demonstrating that bucket lists are associated with psychological well‐being by serving as tools for both constructing and expressing unique, multifaceted, and future‐oriented identities.
Vredeveld et al. (Tue,) studied this question.