What Is More Important for National Well-Being: Money or Autonomy? A Meta-Analysis of Well-Being, Burnout, and Anxiety Across 63 Societies

What is more important: to provide citizens with more money or with more autonomy for their subjective well-being? In the current meta-analysis, the authors examined national levels of well-being on the basis of lack of psychological health, anxiety, and stress measures. Data are available for 63 co...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of personality and social psychology 2011-07, Vol.101 (1), p.164-184
Main Authors: Fischer, Ronald, Boer, Diana
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Anxiety
Anxiety - ethnology
Anxiety - psychology
Autonomy
Biological and medical sciences
Burnout
Burnout, Professional - ethnology
Burnout, Professional - psychology
Citizens
Cross Cultural Differences
Cross-Cultural Comparison
Culture
Data Collection
Depression - ethnology
Depression - psychology
Economics
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Health
Human
Humans
Individualism
Individuality
Male
Mental health
Mental stress
Meta-analysis
Mobile phones
Money
Occupational Stress
Personal Autonomy
Personality Inventory - statistics & numerical data
Psychological Distress
Psychological Stress
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Psychometrics
Quality of Life - psychology
Research Applications
Social psychology
Social structure and organization
Social Values
Society
Socioeconomic Status
Sovereignty
Systematic review
Wealth
Well Being
Wellbeing
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Summary:What is more important: to provide citizens with more money or with more autonomy for their subjective well-being? In the current meta-analysis, the authors examined national levels of well-being on the basis of lack of psychological health, anxiety, and stress measures. Data are available for 63 countries, with a total sample of 420,599 individuals. Using a 3-level variance-known model, the authors found that individualism was a consistently better predictor than wealth, after controlling for measurement, sample, and temporal variations. Despite some emerging nonlinear trends and interactions between wealth and individualism, the overall pattern strongly suggests that greater individualism is consistently associated with more well-being. Wealth may influence well-being only via its effect on individualism. Implications of the findings for well-being research and applications are outlined.
ISSN:0022-3514
1939-1315
DOI:10.1037/a0023663