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It will appear shortly on 10.2196/91716
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The Predictive Role of Wisdom and Life Purpose in Mental Well-Being among Middle-to-older Age Adults: A Multi-Analytical Approach
ABSTRACT
Background:
Positive aging, a concept found in positive psychology, serves as the theoretical foundation for this study. To age positively, one must manage hidden or unrecognized challenges, show flexibility in behavior and thought, adopt a positive outlook on problems involving regression, and make decisions that promote one’s well-being.
Objective:
This study examined the role of wisdom and life purpose on the mental well-being of middle-aged and older adults. We aimed to investigate the predictive role of wisdom and life purpose in mental well-being. More specifically we tested four hypotheses: Wisdom would exhibit a positive correlation with mental well-being, quality of life would exhibit a positive correlation with mental well-being, meaning and purpose would exhibit a positive correlation with mental well-being, and freedom would exhibit a positive correlation with mental well-being.
Methods:
The research employed a multi-analytical methodology combining covariance-based structural equation modeling and artificial neural network techniques to analyze data from 377 individuals aged 50 to 102 years.
Results:
Results from the covariance-based structural equation modeling indicate that meaning and purpose, wisdom, and quality of life significantly associated with the mental well-being, accounting for 71% of the explained variance. Additionally, the artificial network analysis yields exact forecasts of mental well-being. The artificial network model achieves accuracy of 82.1% and 73% on the training and test sets, respectively, for predicting mental well-being. Sensitivity analysis reveals that meaning and purpose are the most critical factors in explaining participants’ mental well-being.
Conclusions:
These findings have prominent theoretical implications for social psychology researchers and practical consequences for authorities involved in the care of older adults, who can use the results to develop strategic plans and take necessary actions. Clinical Trial: NA
Citation
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.