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The present study addressed this gap by examining a large set of psychological, social, and demographic variables in a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults from the Health and Retirement Study. Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) was used to evaluate 47 predictors. Self-esteem emerged as the strongest predictor, followed by positive affect. The leading predictors were organized into six domains: adaptive self-related beliefs, affective well-being, perceived control, optimism, social engagement, and spirituality\/religiosity. Demographic variables were less predictive overall. 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