Extending the Human Life Span: An Exploratory Study of Pro- and Anti-Longevity Attitudes

Abstract

Successful efforts by biologists to substantially increase the life span of non-human animals has raised the possibility of extrapolation to humans, which in turn has given rise to bioethical argumentation, pro and con. The present study converts these arguments into pro- and anti-longevity items on a questionnaire and examines the structure and correlates of the resultant life-extension domain. A 35-item Life-Extension Questionnaire (LEQ) was administered to a mixed-age sample of 164 respondents and a more age-homogeneous sample of 101 well-educated older adults. Demographic information (age, sex, ethnicity, education, marital status) was also obtained. In both samples, exploratory factor analysis of the LEQ (with Promax rotation) yielded three factors labeled Utopian Vision (UV), Personal Emotion Rejection (PER), and Social Economic Burden (SEB). Of the 35 LEQ items, 24 manifested similar factor loading patterns across the two samples—11 for UV, 9 for PER, and 4 for SEB. Coefficients of congruence further supported the case for factorial replication across the two samples. Chronological age correlated positively with UV factor scores in both samples, indicating a trend toward stronger prolongevity attitudes in older relative to younger cohorts. Individual differences in life-extension attitudes are seen as mirroring the differences among bioethicists in the domain.