What constitutes a life well-lived? A new Michigan State University-led study is turning to a common cultural artifact to find out: the obituary.

In the study, published in the journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, or PNAS, researchers from MSU, Boston College and Arizona State University analyzed 38 million obituaries from the U.S. spanning 30 years to examine what values people are most remembered for, how cultural events and time change how people are remembered, and how legacy reflections reinforce societal expectations of a life well-lived based on demographics.

This research introduces a new framework for the psychological study of legacy by shifting focus from how individuals wish to be remembered to how they are actually remembered by others.

“Obituaries serve as a unique source of information about how societies value different kinds of lives,” said David Markowitz, an associate professor of communication in the MSU College of Communication Arts and Sciences and lead author of the study. “They reveal broader patterns of remembrance by showing who is remembered, for what contributions, and how cultural values are expressed through these acts of memory.”