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We predicted that the relationship between helping strangers and life satisfaction would depend partially on the wealth of the country in which one lives. We argue that wealthy societies provide a wide range of welfare provisions for assisting their citizens. By contrast, people living in poorer countries with associated lower individualism, lower generalised trust, and higher religiosity have fewer financial and institutional supports for their daily welfare. They thus receive greater personal and interpersonal rewards for helping strangers in their societies and experience greater life satisfaction. Using a 137-country sample, we found that the relationship between helping strangers and life satisfaction was weaker in wealthier nations and in nations with more individualistic, more trusting, but less religious citizens. When all four moderators were used, only trust and religiosity remained significant moderators. In a supplementary mediated moderation model, we also found that trust and religiosity mediated the effect of national wealth on the relationship between kindness and life satisfaction. We conclude that the relationship between kindness and life satisfaction depends on various aspects of national culture that may reduce or increase people's dependence in their daily lives on the help of others as opposed to dependence on welfare institutions.

Mental well-being consists of hedonic/subjective, psychological, and social dimensions. Research has yet to determine how much of the variance in these three dimensions is stable or variable over time. This study used data from South Korea (

Generativity is defined as a concern for the well-being of future generations, which involves both caring and a will to extend the self into the future. Extant research indicates that generativity plays an important role in successful aging. The present study sought to examine the temporal relationship between self-acceptance and generativity over about 2 decades. The data were drawn from the three waves of the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) project, collected with intervals of about 10 years ( N = 4,167). The random-intercept cross-lagged panel model was used for data analysis. It was found that self-acceptance prospectively predicted generativity, whereas generativity did not predict self-acceptance. Thus, coming to terms with various aspects of one’s personality and past life contributes to higher future levels of generativity.

Abstract. This study examined the cross-group and temporal measurement invariance of the Satisfaction With Life Scale in Korea. A nationally representative sample ( N = 13,824) and a convenience sample collected at four-time points over approximately 14 months ( N = 338) were used. Full measurement invariance (i.e., equal factor loadings and intercepts) was supported across groups based on gender, age, education, data collection method (face-to-face versus non-face-to-face), and two alternative translations of the scale. Temporal measurement invariance was also supported. Accordingly, the same underlying construct is measured, and the items of the scale are understood and answered similarly across groups and across time in Korea. Supplemental analysis revealed that Item 5 was not invariant between Korea and Japan, with Korean respondents tending to rate this item higher than Japanese respondents.

The study aimed to explore the associations between the psychosocial and organizational factors, job satisfaction, and mental well-being of schoolteachers. A further aim was to examine whether job satisfaction mediated the relationship between these factors and mental well-being. A cross-sectional design was used to collect data using a self-reported questionnaire. Six hundred and nine schoolteachers were included in the final analyses. The relationships between the variables were tested in a path analysis model. The data fit the hypothesized model well. The results demonstrated that organizational justice, efficacy beliefs, and school climate were significantly associated with job satisfaction and that the relationships between these variables and mental well-being were mediated by job satisfaction. The findings have implications for programs targeted at promoting teachers’ well-being.

Mental balance, defined as a sense of tranquility resulting from inner peace and harmonious interactions with the external environment, is an important but largely overlooked aspect of well-being. Using data from the Gallup World Poll (N = 121,207), this study developed a global index of mental balance and a measure of preference for mental balance (as opposed to excitement) across 116 countries. The study examined the global and regional distribution of these two variables and their intercorrelations with a variety of social, economic, cultural, and well-being variables. The results showed that, whereas national wealth and sociopolitical context were the strongest predictors of experiencing mental balance, these variables were not associated with preference for mental balance.

Previous work from a socio-ecological perspective reveals that ecological stress has important effects on political, cultural, and psychological outcomes. However, that work has been limited by (1) a focus on distal forms of ecological stress that are hard for societies to control, and (2) a lack of large-scale conceptual replications. The present study aims to fill in these gaps by simultaneously testing the effects of both more distal ecological stress (e.g., climate) and more proximal ecological stress (e.g., water quality) on political restriction, political freedom, well-being, and societal confidence measurements. In a sample from the Gallup World Poll spanning over one and a half million participants and 159 nations, we found that while both kinds of ecological stress measurements predicted greater vertical political restriction, reduced horizontal political restriction, reduced well-being, and reduced freedom, only proximal forms of ecological stress predicted a loss in societal confidence. These results not only provide key conceptual replications of prior studies on new data, they also add previously unstudied outcomes and new ecological stressors. As a result, they help us better understand contributing factors to key societal issues such as freedom, well-being, and societal confidence.

Wellbeing has become an increasingly important priority worldwide. In the United Arab Emirates (UAE), much research and financial investment are being committed to increasing wellbeing. However, how the pursuit of happiness, as a driver of wellbeing, is not commonly investigated. In particular, fear of happiness and beliefs in its fragility challenge dominant Western views that happiness is desirable and actively pursued by all. How these lay beliefs of happiness are associated with individual levels of wellbeing and related behaviours have not been well explored. Accordingly, we sought to identify wellbeing profiles by examining mental health functioning, positive emotion, flourishing, cultural beliefs in the fear of happiness and fragility of happiness, physical activity and levels of reported sleep as well as demographics such as age and gender. Using a sample of 834 Emirati university students in the UAE, fear and fragility of happiness were used to develop wellbeing profiles. We found three profiles: ‘unstable’ moderate wellbeing,’ ‘fearful, moderate wellbeing,’ and ‘stable, high wellbeing.’ This is one of few studies to show that beliefs in the fear and fragility of happiness are related to lower subjective wellbeing and cluster with other behavioural factors, such that physical health indicators like physical activity and sleep were associated with greater subjective wellbeing and more stable wellbeing profiles. In sum, lay beliefs of happiness not only appear to influence wellbeing itself, but concomitant behaviours as well.

The Scale of Positive and Negative Experience (SPANE) is widely used to measure emotional experiences, but not much is known about its cross-cultural utility. The present study evaluated the measurement invariance of the SPANE across adult samples (N = 12,635; age range = 18-85 years; 58.2% female) from 13 countries (China, Colombia, Germany, Greece, India, Italy, Japan, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Spain, Turkey, and the United States). Configural and partial scalar invariance of the SPANE were supported. Three items capturing specific negative emotions (sad, afraid, and angry) were found to be culturally noninvariant. Our findings suggest that the SPANE's positive emotion terms and general negative emotion terms (e.g., negative and unpleasant) might be more suitable for cross-cultural studies on emotions and well-being, whereas caution is needed when comparing countries using the SPANE's specific negative emotion items., Marchionne Summer Research Fellowship from Washington State University; Total Worker Health(R) Dissertation Award from the Oregon Healthy Workforce Center, a Total Worker Health(R) Center of Excellence - National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health [U19OH010154], The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The U.S. data collection was funded in part by the Marchionne Summer Research Fellowship from Washington State University and the Total Worker Health (R) Dissertation Award from the Oregon Healthy Workforce Center, a Total Worker Health (R) Center of Excellence funded by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (Grant number U19OH010154).

The primary objective of this research is to develop an integrative framework for distinguishing and classifying well-being variables. Towards this end, rigorous data-descriptive methods are used to examine the centrality of well-being variables and to explore the underlying dimensions along which these variables differ. The study uses 14 well-being variables as postulated in the tripartite model of mental well-being, including variables from 3 clusters of hedonic, psychological and social well-being. Samples from Korea, Canada, Iran and the USA are used. Centrality is conceptualized and examined under a latent variable framework. Multidimensional scaling is used to examine the underlying dimensions in the structure of well-being variables. Results show that self-acceptance, environmental mastery and purpose in life are the most central variables, whereas the most peripheral variables are autonomy, social actualization and social coherence. Multidimensional scaling uncovered 2 dimensions underlying the well-being variables: “hedonic versus eudaimonic” and “personal versus social”, facilitating a dimensional understanding of well-being. The results contribute to building a consensus in the field of well-being to advance knowledge while avoiding reductionism. The findings have implications for creating, refining and broadening well-being theories, clarifying some of the conceptual and empirical confusions in the field, selecting well-being variables for different research purposes, developing new well-being scales and constructing well-being interventions.

People rely on their recent emotional experiences when constructing life satisfaction judgments. However, the role of positive and negative affect in life satisfaction across different age groups has rarely been examined in prior research. This study sought to investigate the contribution of positive and negative affect to life satisfaction across five age groups in a large sample of Serbians between 16 and 65 years of age (N = 3287, 59.9% females). Multi-group structural equation modeling was used to establish measurement invariance and to examine the relationships between affect and life satisfaction across the age groups. Full metric invariance was supported for life satisfaction and positive and negative affect across the groups. The results showed that positive affect had strong effects on life satisfaction across the groups, whereas negative affect had weak or nonsignificant effects. The effects of positive and negative affect on life satisfaction were found to be invariant across age groups. Our findings indicate that people rely more on positive emotional experiences than on negative emotional experiences when constructing life satisfaction judgments, and that age does not moderate the effects of affective experiences on life satisfaction.

The literature is rife with papers discussing the state of developed and developing economies with a number of commonalities around what drives life satisfaction. In sum, females, the educated and well off, younger and older generations, the married or partnered as well as employees with decent job prospects report higher life satisfaction. Yet, whether these hold true in a diverse, expatriate society transitioning from post-oil dependence to a knowledge economy, as is the case in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is unknown. Using survey data of a nationally representative sample collected by the Gallup Organization between the years of 2006 to 2017, we explore life satisfaction of more than 17,000 UAE residents and citizens. Our results show that the usual predictors found in other nations did not completely hold true. Age does not follow the usual U-shaped life satisfaction relationship in male or female citizens. Tertiary education contributes to life satisfaction only for men, but not women. Unemployment and the freedom to live one’s life as chosen have no significant impact. There remain culture-specific determinants of life satisfaction that require continued investigation, particularly in Middle Eastern nations such as the UAE.

We investigated the association between Internet access and citizens’ voicing their opinions to public officials and how age and national economy affect this association in the theoretical framework of civic engagement. Survey data collected from representative samples of residents of 126 countries were analyzed for the investigation (N = 226,716). The results of the generalized linear mixed models analyses show that Internet access is positively associated with voicing opinions to public officials and that age and national economy moderate the association. These results suggest that those who are older and those in comparatively less economically developed countries are more likely to become socially engaged once they have access to the Internet compared to those who are younger and those in developed countries. Implications of the findings and limitations of the study are discussed.

To determine prevalence, predictors and change over time of nurses' and student nurses' mental health and well-being, and explore nurses' perceptions, barriers and enablers of well-being.Longitudinal mixed-methods survey.Forty-nine students and registered nurses participated from Victoria, Australia. Data were collected from December 2019 to July 2020. Validated psychometrics and free-text response questions were employed. Analysis used latent growth curve modelling, Pearson product-moment correlations and thematic analysis.A strong positive correlation was found between self-determination and work well-being, and a strong negative correlation between work well-being and flight risk. Several moderate relationships were found; a moderate positive correlation between work well-being and nurse manager ability, leadership and support, and a moderate negative correlation between burnout and staffing and resource adequacy. Collegial nurse-physician relationships deteriorated. Three themes, physical health, psychological well-being and social connection, were identified as important for nurses' well-being.

To protect themselves from COVID-19, people follow the recommendations of the authorities, but they also resort to placebos. To stop the virus, it is important to understand the factors underlying both types of preventive behaviour. This study examined whether our model (developed based on the Health Belief Model and the Transactional Model of Stress) can explain participation in WHO-recommended and placebo actions during the pandemic. Model was tested on a sample of 3,346 participants from Italy, Japan, Poland, Korea, Sweden, and the US. It was broadly supported: objective risk and cues to action showed both direct and indirect (through perceived threat) associations with preventive behaviours. Moreover, locus of control, decision balance, health anxiety and preventive coping moderated these relationships. Numerous differences were also found between countries. We conclude that beliefs about control over health and perceived benefits of actions are critical to the development of interventions to improve adherence to recommendations.

Self-esteem (a positive attitude toward oneself) and self-efficacy (confidence in one's ability to perform actions that lead to desired outcomes) are predictors of affective well-being. However, there is a lack of longitudinal research on their relative importance in predicting positive and negative affect. This study sought to examine the relative strength of these 2 variables in predicting affective well-being. Data from the German Aging Survey (DEAS), collected in 4 waves between 2008 and 2017, were used. The random-intercept cross-lagged panel model was used for data analysis. Within-person results showed that self-esteem and self-efficacy did not predict future levels of negative affect. Self-esteem, but not self-efficacy, was found to be a predictor of future levels of positive affect. In addition, positive affect predicted future self-efficacy. A longitudinal mediation model showed that self-esteem predicted future self-efficacy via positive affect. Thus, self-esteem contributes directly to future levels of positive affect and indirectly to future levels of self-efficacy.

The dual-continua model of mental health distinguishes between mental illness (presence of mental disorders, such as depression) and mental well-being (presence of positive traits and abilities). This model also distinguishes between hedonic well-being (e.g., affect balance and life satisfaction) and eudaimonic well-being (i.e., optimal psychological and social functioning, as indicated for example by having a purpose in life). We examined the relationships between depressive symptoms (a common indicator of mental illness), life satisfaction, and eudaimonic well-being. The study used a sample of 17,056 participants from England whose data were collected at eight intervals of approximately two years over a 16-year period, from 2004 to 2019. The mean age of the sample in the first wave was 58.843 years, with a standard deviation of 12.617 years (women = 55.2%). We disentangled within- and between-person sources of variance to examine whether increases or decreases in one variable preceded changes in the other variables at the next time point. We found positive reciprocal relationships between life satisfaction and eudaimonic well-being and negative reciprocal relationships between the two well-being dimensions and depressive symptoms. These results suggest that within-person increases in well-being are followed by future decreases in depressive symptoms, and within-person increases in depressive symptoms are followed by future decreases in well-being. Therefore, low levels of mental well-being in older adults may be considered a risk factor for depression, and well-being interventions (such as those focused on meaning-making) may serve as a protective factor against depression in older adults.

Significance According to a fundamental assumption in the social sciences, the burden of lower socioeconomic status (SES) is more severe in developing nations. In contrast to this assumption, recent research has shown that the burden of lower SES is less—not more—severe in developing nations. In three large-scale global data sets, we show that national religiosity can explain this puzzling finding. Developing nations are more religious, and most world religions uphold norms that, in part, function to ease the burden of lower SES and to cast a bad light on higher SES. In times of declining religiosity, this finding is a call to scientists and policymakers to monitor the increasingly harmful effects of lower SES and its far-reaching social consequences., Lower socioeconomic status (SES) harms psychological well-being, an effect responsible for widespread human suffering. This effect has long been assumed to weaken as nations develop economically. Recent evidence, however, has contradicted this fundamental assumption, finding instead that the psychological burden of lower SES is even greater in developed nations than in developing ones. That evidence has elicited consternation because it suggests that economic development is no cure for the psychological burden of lower SES. So, why is that burden greatest in developed nations? Here, we test whether national religiosity can explain this puzzle. National religiosity is particularly low in developed nations. Consequently, developed nations lack religious norms that may ease the burden of lower SES. Drawing on three different data sets of 1,567,204, 1,493,207, and 274,393 people across 156, 85, and 92 nations, we show that low levels of national religiosity can account for the greater burden of lower SES in developed nations. This finding suggests that, as national religiosity continues to decline, lower SES will become increasingly harmful for well-being—a societal change that is socially consequential and demands political attention.

Rationale Although there is evidence that impaired executive functioning plays a role in addictive behavior, the longitudinal relationship between the two remains relatively unknown. Objectives In a prospective-longitudinal community study, we tested the hypothesis that lower executive functioning is associated with more addictive behavior at one point in time and over time. Methods Three hundred and thirty-eight individuals (19–27 years, 59% female) from a random community sample were recruited into three groups: addictive disorders related to substances (n = 100) or to behaviors (n = 118), or healthy controls (n = 120). At baseline, participants completed nine executive function tasks from which a latent variable of general executive functioning (GEF) was derived. Addictive behavior (i.e., quantity and frequency of use, and number of DSM-5 criteria met) were assessed using standardized clinical interviews at baseline and three annual follow-ups. The trajectories of addictive behaviors were examined using latent growth curve modeling. Results At baseline, we found weak to no evidence of an associations between GEF and addictive behavior. We found evidence for an association between a lower GEF at baseline and a higher increase in the quantity of use and a smaller decrease in frequency of use over time, but no evidence for an association with an increase in the number of DSM-5 criteria met. Conclusions Lower EFs appear to lead to a continuing loss of control over use, whereas addictive disorders may develop secondarily after a long period of risky use. Previous etiological models assuming lower EF as a direct vulnerability factor for addictive disorders need to be refined.

Abstract. Countries differ in their religiosity and these differences have been found to moderate numerous psychological effects. The burgeoning research in this area creates a demand for a country-level religiosity index that is comparable across a large number of countries. Here, we offer such an index, which covers 166 countries and rests on representative data from 1,619,300 participants of the Gallup World Poll. Moreover, we validate the novel index, use it to examine temporal change in worldwide religiosity over the last decade, and present a comprehensive analysis of country-level religiosity’s nomological network. The main results are as follows. First, the index was found to be a valid index of global religiosity. Second, country-level religiosity modestly increased between 2006 and 2011 and modestly decreased between 2011 and 2017 – demonstrating a curvilinear pattern. Finally, nomological network analysis revealed three things: it buttressed past evidence that religious countries are economically less developed; it clarified inconsistencies in the literature on the health status of inhabitants from religious countries, suggesting that their psychological and physical health tends to be particularly good once economic development is accounted for; and finally, it shed initial light on the associations between country-level religiosity and various psychological dimensions of culture (i.e., Hofstede’s cultural dimensions and country-level Big Five traits). These associations revealed that religious countries are primarily characterized by high levels of communion (i.e., collectivism and agreeableness). We are optimistic that the newly presented country-level religiosity index can satisfy the fast-growing demand for an accurate and comprehensive global religiosity index.

The old idea of climatic determinism of people’s thinking and acting is misleading because people continuously strive to create control over their lives. Perceived control over courses of action is often reduced by cold-induced or heat-induced stress. To restore control, rich people tend to use active internal strategies (e.g. buying or organizing) whereas poor people tend to adopt passive external strategies (e.g. seeking help or praying). To what extent might that strategic asymmetry in restoring control under stressful climate conditions affect psychosocial functioning? Here, we tentatively addressed this question by analyzing Gallup World Poll responses from 393948 inhabitants of 145 countries. Our multi-level findings suggest that both colder-than-temperate and hotter-than-temperate climates are positively linked to the psychosocial functioning of richer people, but negatively associated with the psychosocial functioning of poorer people. Additionally, poorer people tend to live less free and effective lives in colder than in hotter climates. These conscious and unconscious links among temperature-induced stresses, wealth-induced resources, and psychosocial functioning are cross-validated at individual and collective levels between eastern and western parts of the Earth. The results open up new windows on climato-economic theorizing, modelling and policy making.