Subjective Well-Being and Prosociality Around the Globe: Happy People Give More of Their Time and Money to Others

Subjective well-being (SWB) is positively related to prosocial giving and helping others, but so far, research has not explored the association of individual aspects of well-being with prosocial behavior across the world. We used a representative sample from the Gallup World Poll across 163 countries from 2006 to 2017 to explore the relationship between each aspect of well-being and prosocial behavior ( N = 1,797,630). We found that different aspects of SWB are not equally associated with prosocial behavior: While life satisfaction and positive affect consistently predicted being more prosocial across the globe, negative affect did not consistently predict being more or less prosocial. We further explore economic and cultural moderators of these relationships. Our findings underline the importance of studying the effects of the different components of SWB separately, indicating that life satisfaction and positive emotions—more so than negative emotions—consistently predict being more prosocial across the globe.

Proximal versus distal ecological stress: Socio-ecological influences on political freedom, well-being, and societal confidence in 159 nations

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.

Happiness and the Quality of Government

This chapter uses happiness data to assess the quality of government. Our happiness data are drawn from the Gallup World Poll, starting in 2005 and extending to 2017 or 2018. In our analysis of the panel of more than 150 countries and generally over 1,500 national-level observations, we show that government delivery quality is significantly correlated with national happiness, but democratic quality is not. We also analyze other quality of government indicators. Confidence in government is correlated with happiness, however forms of democracy and government spending seem not. We further discuss three channels (including peace and conflict, trust, and inequality) whereby quality of government and happiness are linked. We finally summarize what has been learned about how government policies could be formed to improve citizens’ happiness.

3G Internet and Confidence in Government*

How does mobile broadband internet affect approval of government? Using Gallup World Poll surveys of 840,537 individuals from 2,232 subnational regions in 116 countries from 2008 to 2017 and the global expansion of 3G mobile networks, we show that, on average, an increase in mobile broadband internet access reduces government approval. This effect is present only when the internet is not censored, and it is stronger when the traditional media are censored. 3G helps expose actual corruption in government: revelations of the Panama Papers and other corruption incidents translate into higher perceptions of corruption in regions covered by 3G networks. Voter disillusionment had electoral implications: In Europe, 3G expansion led to lower vote shares for incumbent parties and higher vote shares for the antiestablishment populist opposition. Vote shares for nonpopulist opposition parties were unaffected by 3G expansion.

Impacts of colder and hotter climates on richer and poorer people’s daily functioning

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.

Subjective Well-Being and Prosociality Around the Globe: Happy People Give More of Their Time and Money to Others

Subjective well-being (SWB) is positively related to helping others, but so far research has not explored the association of individual aspects of well-being with prosocial behavior across the world. We used a representative sample (N = 1,433,078) from the Gallup World Poll (GWP) to explore the relationship between each aspect of well-being and prosocial behavior. We explored these associations between and within 161 countries. We found that different aspects of SWB are not equally associated with prosocial behavior: While life satisfaction and positive affect consistently predicted being more prosocial, negative affect did not consistently predict being less prosocial. Our findings underline the importance of studying the effects of the different components of SWB separately, indicating that, across the globe, it is satisfaction and positive emotions—not the lack of negative emotions—that are associated with being prosocial.

How global is the affordable housing crisis?

Purpose This paper aims to determine to what extent the housing affordability crisis is a “global” crisis and to what extent there is a variation across countries and over time, in who is concerned about housing affordability. Design/methodology/approach The author analyses data from about 500,000 respondents from over 140 countries and uses both descriptive statistics as well as regression analysis (using a random effects within between model [Bell et al., 2019]). Findings The findings show that concerns about housing affordability are widespread both within and across countries but the extent of these concerns depends greatly on the country, the subgroup and the indicator analysed. Moreover, in many countries, more people worry about other aspects of life than about housing affordability. Research limitations/implications The global diversity in the housing affordability crisis suggests that one should be cautious when extrapolating research findings for a given country to other countries or when proposing housing policy transfer across countries. Practical implications The specific nature of the housing affordability crisis varies substantially across countries. Policymakers thus should be aware that there is no guarantee that a housing affordability policy that was effective in one country will also be effective in another country. Originality/value This paper is original in its use of the Gallup World poll, a unique survey, which is done world-wide and hence is ideally suited for the purpose of this paper, providing a much more detailed picture of the global housing crisis than so far available in the literature.