Purpose in life is a well-established contributor to positive well-being. However, for a more comprehensive understanding of purpose in life, further exploration is needed about the processes implicated in purpose from a cognitive and affective perspective. This scoping review aims to identify the cognitive and/or affective mechanisms (CAMs) correlating with purpose in life and to examine these relationships based on relevant existing literature. Using search terms related to CAMs and purpose in life, we conducted a comprehensive search across five databases (Web of Science, Medline, Pubmed, Scopus, and psycinfo) to identify those examining the relationship between these constructs. Ninety-nine manuscripts were selected for inclusion. Within these studies, 33 CAMs showed predominantly positive and significant associations with purpose in life. Our findings highlighted the cams empirically and theoretically implicated in purpose development, maintenance, and its association to positive wellbeing. We identified several gaps in current research including issues related to suboptimal measurement of purpose in life, and a lack of longitudinal and intervention studies. Overall, this study represents a foundational step in advancing an understanding CAMs implicated in purpose in life. This scoping review usefully informs the development and validation of future purpose in life measures, and the design of interventions aimed at enhancing purpose in life and wellbeing.

人生目标是积极幸福的一个公认的贡献者。然而，为了更全面地理解人生目的，需要从认知和情感的角度进一步探索人生目的所涉及的过程。本次范围界定审查旨在确定与生活目的相关的认知和/或情感机制（CAM），并根据相关现有文献检查这些关系。使用与 CAM 和生活目的相关的搜索术语，我们对五个数据库（Web of Science、Medline、Pubmed、Scopus 和 psycinfo）进行了全面搜索，以确定那些检查这些结构之间关系的人。九十九份手稿被选中纳入。在这些研究中，33 个 CAM 与生活目标显着呈积极且显着的关联。我们的研究结果强调了凸轮在经验和理论上与目标发展、维持及其与积极幸福感的关联。我们发现了当前研究中的一些差距，包括与生活目的测量欠佳相关的问题，以及缺乏纵向和干预研究。总体而言，这项研究代表了推进理解 CAM 与人生目的相关的基础性步骤。这一范围界定审查为未来生活目的衡量指标的制定和验证以及旨在增强生活目的和福祉的干预措施的设计提供了有用的信息。