The Life Engagement Test: Assessing Purpose in Life
- 24 March 2006
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Springer Science and Business Media LLC in Journal of Behavioral Medicine
- Vol. 29 (3), 291-298
- https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-005-9044-1
Abstract
This article describes a 6-item scale, the Life Engagement Test, designed to measure purpose in life, defined in terms of the extent to which a person engages in activities that are personally valued. Psychometric data are presented including information about the scale's factor structure, internal consistency, test-retest reliability, convergent validity, discriminant predictive validity, and norms. The data suggest that the Life Engagement Test is psychometrically sound across different gender, age, and ethnic groups and is appropriate for wider use. Discussion centers on the use of the Life Engagement Test in behavioral medicine and health psychology research and recent associations that have begun to emerge between the scale and health-relevant outcomes.Keywords
This publication has 34 references indexed in Scilit:
- The Importance of Goal Disengagement in Adaptive Self-Regulation: When Giving Up is BeneficialSelf and Identity, 2003
- Expectancy × value effects: Regulatory focus as determinant of magnitude and direction.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1997
- Expectancy × value effects: Regulatory focus as determinant of magnitude and direction.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1997
- The MOS 36-ltem Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36)Medical Care, 1992
- The development of markers for the Big-Five factor structure.Psychological Assessment, 1992
- Behavior as the central outcome in health care.American Psychologist, 1990
- Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1988
- The CES-D ScaleApplied Psychological Measurement, 1977
- An Introduction to MotivationThe American Journal of Psychology, 1967
- Proposed hostility and Pharisaic-virtue scales for the MMPI.Journal of Applied Psychology, 1954