The DOI matches its Crossref record; 22 of the 22 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Purpose in Life as a Predictor of Mortality Across Adulthood
Open accessAbstract
Having a purpose in life has been cited consistently as an indicator of healthy aging for several reasons, including its potential for reducing mortality risk. In the current study, we sought to extend previous findings by examining whether purpose in life promotes longevity across the adult years, using data from the longitudinal Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) sample. Proportional-hazards models demonstrated that purposeful individuals lived longer than their counterparts did during the 14 years after the baseline assessment, even when controlling for other markers of psychological and affective well-being. Moreover, these longevity benefits did not appear to be conditional on the participants’ age, how long they lived during the follow-up period, or whether they had retired from the workforce. In other words, having a purpose in life appears to widely buffer against mortality risk across the adult years.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“A growing body of findings from longitudinal epidemiological studies show that purpose predicts reduced morbidity (e.g., reduced risk of Alzheimer ' s disease and mild cognitive impairment, as well as reduced risk of stroke and myocardial infarction) and extended longevity (10, 16 -21).”
From Purpose in life and use of preventive health care services (2014) · cites this paper as [21]
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe check wasn’t confident either way, so it gives no verdict — never disputed.
In the citing paper
“reduce mortality risk (Hill & Turiano, 2014)”
From To Nostalgize (2015) · cites this paper as Hill & Turiano, 2014
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Regression Models and Life-Tables
Cox, D. R. (1972) · Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B: Statistical Methodology · doi:10.1111/j.2517-6161.1972.tb00899.x · Cited by 39,793
Regression Models and Life-Tables
Cox, D. R. (1992) · Springer Series in Statistics · doi:10.1007/978-1-4612-4380-9_37 · Cited by 26,297
Happiness is everything, or is it? Explorations on the meaning of psychological well-being.
Ryff, C. D. (1989) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.57.6.1069 · Cited by 14,847
The structure of psychological well-being revisited.
Ryff, C. D., & Keyes, C. L. M. (1995) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037//0022-3514.69.4.719 · Cited by 10,285
Does positive affect influence health?
Pressman, S. D., & Cohen, S. (2005) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/0033-2909.131.6.925 · Cited by 2,087
The effect of age on positive and negative affect: A developmental perspective on happiness.
Mroczek, D. K., & Kolarz, C. M. (1998) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.75.5.1333 · Cited by 1,623
Checking the Cox model with cumulative sums of martingale-based residuals
LIN, D. Y., WEI, L. J., & YING, Z. (1993) · Biometrika · doi:10.1093/biomet/80.3.557 · Cited by 1,432
Time counts: Future time perspective, goals, and social relationships.
Lang, F. R., & Carstensen, L. L. (2002) · Psychology and Aging · doi:10.1037/0882-7974.17.1.125 · Cited by 1,324
The Development of Purpose During Adolescence
Damon, W., Menon, J., & Cotton Bronk, K. (2003) · Applied Developmental Science · doi:10.1207/s1532480xads0703_2 · Cited by 1,216
Emotions, morbidity, and mortality: new perspectives from psychoneuroimmunology.
Kiecolt-Glaser, J. K., McGuire, L., Robles, T. F., & Glaser, R. (2002) · Annual Review of Psychology · doi:10.1146/annurev.psych.53.100901.135217 · Cited by 1,176
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- 10.1037/0022-3514.69.4.719 · DOI · Paper page
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Items 501–515 of 515
On the Human Condition: The Game of Life, the Meaning Race, and the Dilemmas of ExistencePreprint
Tobore, T. O. (2026) · SSRN Electronic Journal · doi:10.2139/ssrn.7027418
Flores, M. N., Harris, E. C., Aronson, L., Bb, M., Federico, K., Hundert, E. M., & Schwartz, A. W. (2026) · Journal of the American Geriatrics Society · doi:10.1111/jgs.70592
Barrita, A. M., Moreno, O., Giuliani, N. G., & Bravo, A. J. (2026) · Journal of Prevention and Health Promotion · doi:10.1177/26320770261462184
Evidence‐Informed Positive Organizational Psychology Activities
Shemiakina, T., & Donaldson, S. I. (2026) · Wiley eBooks · doi:10.1002/9781394268757.ch13
Taylor, S., Williams, G. A., Morgan, J., & Egeto-Szabo, K. (2026) · Journal of Humanistic Psychology · doi:10.1177/00221678261469982
Happiness, Pleasure and Longevity
Brouillard, P., & Jangid, K. K. (2026) · Journal of Psychology and Neuroscience · doi:10.47485/2693-2490.1178
Lilly, F. R. W., Owens, J., Irla, C., Noonan, K., Moran, C., & Vidal, C. (2026) · Cogent Psychology · doi:10.1080/23311908.2026.2733818
Li, J., Ye, S., Li, S., Yufang, X., & Nikmat, A. W. (2026) · Journal for the Study of Spirituality · doi:10.1080/20440243.2026.2722033
Lee, M., Garza-Gonzalez, S. M., Schaefer, S. M., Bourassa, K., & Brown, C. K. (2026) · Research Square · doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-11292832/v1
Death as Deviant: Mortality Timing and Life-Course Deviance
Mowen, T. J., & Weber, J. (2026) · Deviant Behavior · doi:10.1080/01639625.2026.2748529
Strange attractors: purpose, synchronicity, flow, and the neurodynamics of meaning
Kotler, S., Michael, M., Friston, K. J., & Kelso, S. (2026) · Neuroscience of Consciousness · doi:10.1093/nc/niag063
Analyzing the Impact of Social Isolation on Aging: Health, Mental State and Cognitive Functions
Lal, S. (2025) · Critical Debates in Humanities, Science and Global Justice · doi:10.68709/001c.143110 · Cited by 3
Okuno, I., Ahmad, I., Shirayama, Y., Okamoto, M., Yu, S. J., Lin, C.-P., Yang, C., & Yuasa, M. (2026) · European Journal of Investigation in Health Psychology and Education · doi:10.3390/ejihpe16110171
Xu, B. P., & Shi, H. (2026) · Precision Nutrition · doi:10.1097/pn9.0000000000000149
Metadata
- Authors
- Hill, P. L., & Turiano, N. A.
- Affiliations
- Carleton University (CA)
- University of Rochester Medicine (US)
- Venue
- Psychological Science
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2014-05-08
- Volume
- 25
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- 1482-1486
- ISSN
- 0956-7976 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-9280
- PMC
- PMC4224996
- OpenAlex
- W2154766191
- Cited by
- 516
- References
- 22
- Citations by year
- 2026: 39 · 2025: 39 · 2024: 45 · 2023: 43 · 2022: 49 · 2021: 42 · 2020: 54 · 2019: 47 · 2018: 32 · 2017: 31 · 2016: 63 · 2015: 27 · 2014: 5
- FWCI
- 63.44
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Psychological Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute on Aging (P01AG020166)
- National Institute of Mental Health (T32-MH018911-23, T32MH018911)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Aging and Gerontology Research
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction
- Social Sciences › Health › Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology
- Keywords
- meaning of life, mortality, longevity, healthy aging, well-being, MIDUS, retirement, life satisfaction, psychological well-being
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Aged, Aging, Female, Follow-Up Studies, Humans, Longevity, Male, Middle Aged, Mortality, Motivation, Prognosis, United States, Proportional Hazards Models, Value of Life, Young Adult
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
