Life Goal Content and Health Outcomes: Associations with Mental Health and Health Behaviours Among Turkish University Students

Abstract

Life goals are described as a general psychological resource for health, but whether goals of different content relate equally to mental health and to health behaviour is unknown. Participants were 408 students at a Turkish state university (71.1% women; mean age 21.76 years, SD = 4.20) who completed the Life Goals Scale, distinguishing career, relationship, and body-related goals, together with measures of psychological well-being, psychological distress, cognitive flexibility, physical activity, and nutritional risk. Regression models adjusted for gender, age, grade level, body mass index, and faculty used heteroscedasticity-consistent standard errors, and the two domains were compared using case bootstrapping. Goal setting was associated with all five indicators (β = 0.110 to 0.384), and the association was stronger for the mental health block than the behavioural block (Δβ = 0.129, 95% CI [0.049, 0.205]). However, this difference was carried by cognitive flexibility. Specifically, with that indicator excluded, the contrast fell to 0.077 and was no longer reliable. The two behavioural coefficients did not differ (Δβ = 0.086), and the association with nutritional risk was small and weakly supported. With the three subscales entered simultaneously, physical activity was related to body-related goals alone (β = 0.227, p < 0.001) and not to career (β = 0.032) or relationship goals (β = 0.012). Among the three goal contents assessed, what a goal is about, rather than goal setting as such, appears to distinguish which health behaviour it accompanies.