What does it mean to live a good life? For centuries, philosophers, scientists and people of different cultures have tried to answer this question. Each tradition has a different take, but all agree: The good life is more than just feeling good − it’s about becoming whole.
More recently, researchers have focused on the idea of flourishing, not simply as happiness or success, but as a multidimensional state of well-being that involves positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning and accomplishment − an idea that traces back to Aristotle’s concept of “eudaimonia” but has been redefined within the well-being science literature.
Flourishing is not just well-being and how you feel on the inside. It’s about your whole life being good, including the people around you and where you live. Things such as your home, your neighborhood, your school or workplace, and your friends all matter.
We are a group of psychological scientists, social scientists and epidemiologists who are all contributors to an international collaboration called the Global Flourishing Study. The goal of the project is simple: to find patterns of human flourishing across cultures.
Do people in some countries thrive more than others? What makes the biggest difference in a person’s well-being? Are there things people can do to improve their own lives? Understanding these trends over time can help shape policies and programs that improve global human flourishing.
What does the flourishing study focus on?
The Global Flourishing Study is a five-year annual survey of over 200,000 participants from 22 countries, using nationally representative sampling to understand health and well-being. Our team includes more than 40 researchers across different disciplines, cultures and institutions.
With help from Gallup Inc., we asked people about their lives, their happiness, their health, their childhood experiences, and how they feel about their financial situation.
The study looks at six dimensions of a flourishing life:
Happiness and life satisfaction: how content and fulfilled people feel with their lives.
Physical and mental health: how healthy people feel, in both body and mind.
Meaning and purpose: whether people feel their lives are significant and moving in a clear direction.
Character and virtue: how people act to promote good, even in tough situations.
Close social relationships: how satisfied people are with their friendships and family ties.
Financial and material stability: whether people feel secure about their basic needs, including food, housing and money.
We tried to quantify how participants are doing on each of these dimensions using a scale from 0 to 10. In addition to using the Secure Flourish measure from Harvard’s Human Flourishing Program, we included additional questions to probe other factors that influence how much someone is flourishing.
For example, we assessed well-being through questions about optimism, peace and balance…
