Life satisfaction and purpose in life are fundamental yet separate ways to evaluate one's life. Both positively predict physical health and longevity, making them key factors for length and quality of life. However, we do not know which of them predicts mortality, when controlling for the influence of each other. Given that purpose in life involves a more active engagement with life and can help to cope with suffering, we hypothesize that purpose in life could be a more direct prospective predictor of longevity, overshadowing any effect of life satisfaction, when the two are pitted against each other as prospective predictors of longevity. To examine these hypotheses, we utilized Midlife in the U.S. survey, which is a 23-year follow-up study, (
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Martela et al. (2024) studied this question.
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