Scientists examined 38 million obituaries and discovered what Americans really want from life

They say humans are not monoliths, and no person can be summed up in the same words as another, but a long list of obituaries says otherwise. In a recent research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers studied 38 million obituaries written over 30 years to find what Americans value most about a life well lived. The findings are as interesting as the study, reported by Study Finds on December 9.

After living an average life span of 72 to 73 years, humans compress their entire existence into less than 175 words in an obituary. While these words are chosen by their loved ones, they become the final words of the person that are showcased to the public to depict the life they lived. The study was led by David Markowitz, a Michigan State University communication scholar, alongside colleagues from Boston College and Arizona State University. They used a validated dictionary based on psychologist Shalom Schwartz’s theory of basic human values. The researchers studied 38 million obituaries from over 30 years and found that an overwhelmingly large number of Americans were remembered for their faith, love for others, and tradition. Among these, religion and tradition were two values that dominated obituaries more than other phrases, covering almost 80% and 76% in death notices, respectively.

According to the study, words such as "church," "bible," "faithful," and "praying" were seen more frequently than other terms such as achievement, power, or personal leisure. After these two values, the next most commonly used values were universalism (36% of obituaries), self-direction (30%), and hedonism (28%). Researchers also noted that the pandemic triggered major changes in how Americans remembered the lives they lost. Within the first month of COVID-19, benevolence-related wording in obituaries dropped sharply compared with the pre-pandemic era. Since then, benevolence-related wording has not returned. Researchers believe that the pandemic disrupted social ties and made it hard to describe the caring behaviors that usually make benevolence visible.

Similarly, gender also played a key role in how people perceived the life that was lived. Men are often remembered for achievement and power, while women are seen as warmer. While women's obituaries showcased slight variation across different age groups, as most of their values remained the same across the lifespan, men's obituaries displayed drastic changes across age groups. The values represented for a man in his 30s were much different from those of a man in his 80s. The findings in this study have been echoed in the 2005 research authored by Omega: Journal of Death and Dying, which examined 869 obituaries and found clear gender differences in how lives were portrayed. They found that men's obituaries contained more lines devoted to careers, and men were more likely to have accompanying photographs. Women were often shown at an age younger than their actual age at death, which reflected societal expectations about female appearance.

Beyond values, researchers also picked a random sample of 382,000 obituaries that described the deceased as "beloved." On the other hand, men's obituaries contained eight more words than women's, and older people had longer write-ups than young people. Research noted that gender and age stereotypes do not just affect the living but also the deceased for generations. The exemption of benevolence from obituaries since 2019 showcases how people learn to construct new meaning around death.

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