Objectives: Agency has been conceptualized as a drive toward mastery, control, and effective self-management. Such an agentic approach to life and its challenges may be life-prolonging, a hypothesis not previously investigated.
Method: In four studies, individual differences in agency were assessed in terms of the frequency with which agency-related words (e.g., "achieve," "fix," and "control") were mentioned in archived interviews or speeches (N = 210).
Results: Higher levels of linguistic agency predicted longer life-spans among prominent physicists (study 1: n = 60, β = .30, t = 2.30, p = .025), historians (study 2: n = 69, β = .29, t = 2.47, p = .016), psychologists (study 3: n = 45, β = .32, t = 2.35, p = .024), and American presidents (study 4: n = 36, β = .75, t = 2.74, p = .010) when adjusting for birth year. Considered from another angle, life-span longevity averaged 8 years longer at a high (+1 standard deviation) relative to low (-1 standard deviation) level of the linguistic agency continuum, a marked difference. Follow-up analyses indicated that these results could not be attributed to covarying levels of positive emotion, negative emotion, or social connection, as quantified in terms of other linguistic categories.
Conclusions: The investigation provides unique support for agentic perspectives on health, and several potential mechanisms are discussed.