Fifty states of purpose: Examining sense of purpose across the United States

ABSTRACT

Individual-level research has demonstrated the benefits associated with sense of purpose across multiple domains of life. The current study assessed the average level of purpose among citizens in each US state and the District of Columbia using data from the Gallup-Sharecare Well-being Index, a dataset consisting of a representative sample of 177,171 participants. Results demonstrated variation in sense of purpose across the US, with the highest purpose scores in Alaska (3.98) and the lowest in West Virginia (3.68). Using this purpose data, zero-order correlations were calculated between sense of purpose and sociodemographic, affective well-being, physical health, and occupational variables, as well as partial correlations controlling for age and income. Results supported several findings for purpose previously shown at the individual level, including that higher levels of purpose at the state level were associated with advantageous well-being, financial, and health conditions.

KEYWORDS:

• Purpose
• geographical psychology
• wellbeing
• health
• economics

Acknowledgements

We thank Gallup for the data access. This work was supported by the Seed Fund for Basic Research (#201709159014) awarded to the fourth author by the University of Hong Kong.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.