People almost universally value having good character, happiness, health, meaning, and relationships, followed by religion/spirituality and money: Commonalities but also variation in priorities across 22 countries in the Global Flourishing Study

People almost universally value having good character, happiness, health, meaning, and relationships, followed by religion/spirituality and money: Commonalities but also variation in priorities across 22 countries in the Global Flourishing Study | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article People almost universally value having good character, happiness, health, meaning, and relationships, followed by religion/spirituality and money: Commonalities but also variation in priorities across 22 countries in the Global Flourishing Study Tim Lomas, Chris Felton, R. Noah Padgett, Zhuo Job Chen, Brendan Case, and 5 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-8089196/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted 10 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Ascertaining how people are faring in life is difficult since wellbeing is multidimensional and people invariably do better in some ways than others. A further complication that renders such assessments more complex is people can vary in the importance they place on different dimensions of wellbeing. Thus even if we can reliably assess how well people are doing in various domains, unless one can contextualise these assessments through the lens of people’s own priorities, one will have a skewed understanding of their wellbeing. We explore this issue by examining cross-sectional data from 131,487 people across 22 countries in the Wave 1 “mid-year” survey of the Global Flourishing Study (GFS), which includes a set of items in which people rate, on a 0–10 scale of importance, seven key outcomes. Strikingly, people strongly valued many aspects of flourishing in common across cultures, indicating perhaps some universality, on average deeming “being a good person” to be most important (8.9), followed closely by “being healthy” (8.8),“having good relationships” (8.7), and “being happy” and “having a meaningful life” (both 8.5), then slightly lower “having plenty of money to do what you want” (8.0) and lastly “having a religious or spiritual life” (7.0). There was some cross-cultural variation, however, with seven countries putting health first (China, Germany, Israel, Japan, Nigeria, Poland, and South Africa) and three religion/spirituality (Kenya, Nigeria, and Tanzania). We also analyzed seven sociodemographic correlates of these responses. While there were myriad differences in priorities, some general trends were observed, including that females had higher importance ratings than males on all outcome variables, people with more education gave higher ratings on all values except religion, and all importance ratings increased with age except for happiness and money. The data advance our understanding, especially cross-culturally, on what people perceive as mattering in life. happiness wellbeing flourishing cross-cultural Global Flourishing Study Introduction How can we judge how well people are doing? This question is central to policymakers and others striving to improve society 1 , 2 . Numerous metrics exist, of course, including those that distil assessments into a single unit, such as life satisfaction. While such measures have value, they risk obscuring the multifaceted nature of flourishing and the way that people can do well in some respects and poorly in others (VanderWeele et al., 2025; VanderWeele and Johnson, 2025). There is value, therefore, in multidimensional assessments. To that end, this paper explores Wave 1 mid-year data from the Global Flourishing Study (GFS), a panel study in 22 countries, with anticipated five years of data collection, involving a 109-item questionnaire covering six main domains of flourishing in a framework developed by VanderWeele 3 : happiness and life satisfaction; mental and physical health; meaning and purpose; character and virtue; close social relationships; and financial and material stability. The GFS also includes numerous items on religion/spirituality, plus other aspects that collectively provide a broad picture of human wellbeing. A vital issue though is understanding respondents’ own priorities, i.e., how people themselves value these domains. Even if we can reliably assess how people are faring in different domains, unless we understand how important people consider these domains, our understanding of wellbeing will be limited, since the relevance of any given domain to a person’s wellbeing depends in part upon how much that domain matters to them 4 , 5 . Thus here we explore a set of items in the GFS that ask people to appraise, on a 1–10 scale of importance, the six domains of VanderWeele’s framework, plus religion/spirituality (which is not among those domains, which focused on what was seemingly universally valued, but is nevertheless considered, for many, a vital part of human life 6 , 7 ). Before turning to the study itself, this Introduction briefly considers research into values and priorities. There is a considerable literature, especially in economics, exploring people’s preferences and priorities around different aspects of life. For a start, understanding these are important in constructing indices, where one would want to know what weight to grant various components, such that a component that matters more figures more prominently in the calculation. But even if not constructing an index, but simply a dashboard capturing preferences across dimensions, one would still want to know their relative importance. Various techniques have been developed for assessing these. Economists have historically favoured “revealed preference” methods 8 , which look at actual behaviour as evidence of preferences, with such data valued as being relatively immune to the risks inherent in self-report surveys (such as social desirability responding) 9 . However, there is an increasing openness to “stated preference” methods, especially if carefully designed 10 . Most common are questions about people’s “willingness-to-pay” for particular goods and services 11 . However, stated preference methods can take various forms, including surveys yielding answers “in the form of monetary amounts, choices, ratings, or other indications of preference” 12 , or likewise in which people simply “directly rank/weight the alternative components” in some way 13 . In that respect, one could perhaps regard the seven “importance” items in the GFS mid-year survey, outlined above, as one such approach. Among the most widely researched such surveys—at least regarding flourishing and wellbeing—is the OECD’s “Better Life” Index 14 . This defines wellbeing multidimensionally, involving 11 key domains, and their website ( www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/ ) asks visitors to “Rate the topics according to their importance to you” on a 0–5 scale, as follows: housing; income; jobs; community; education; environment; civic engagement; health; life satisfaction; safety; and work-life balance. The measure has generated an extensive literature, with a Google Scholar search in November 2025 identifying 81 papers with “OECD” and “Better Life” in the title alone. As one example, an analysis of almost 88,000 website users since 2011 found that health, education, and life satisfaction matter the most in OECD countries 15 . Moreover, beyond these basic preferences, various interesting nuances were observed, including in relation to sex (e.g., men assign more importance to income than women, while women value community and work-life balance more than men), age (e.g., environment, housing, civic engagement, safety and health become more important with age, whereas life satisfaction, education, work-life balance, jobs and income are particularly important for those under 35), and region (e.g., civic engagement is particularly important in South America, while safety and work-life balance matter greatly in Asia-Pacific nations). Aside from such findings per se, the survey has also generated lively debate about the best way to actually weight the dimensions (in relation to respondents’ importance scores) when conducting analyses 16 . Besides the Better Life Index, many other analyses of preferences have been conducted, such as around the UN Development Programme’s Human Development Index 17 , with various analyses and debates around cross-cultural variation in priorities 18 . Much of the OECD importance ratings concern objective aspects of flourishing, and while subjectively life satisfaction is included, for example, meaning and purpose is not. Much of the economic literature focuses on how to weight different aspects of life to provide a value/preference-sensitive assessment of how well life is going. A slightly different, and indeed complementary, approach, embraced particularly in psychology, has been to identify different value profiles to help understand why some people value certain aspects of life more than others. The most influential framework in that regard is Schwartz’s 19 work on “universals in the content and structure of values,” where values are defined as “desirable goals, varying in importance, that serve as guiding principles in people's lives.” Based on empirical tests in 20 countries, he identified “ten motivationally distinct value types that were likely to be recognized within and across cultures,” and found moreover that across societies “there is surprising consensus regarding the hierarchical order of the values” 20 : benevolence, universalism, self-direction, security, conformity, hedonism, achievement, tradition stimulation, and lastly power. These values were assessed and identified using a survey involving 56 component values (which were then grouped through analyses to create the overarching values), in which people rate the extent to which each is a “guiding principle in my life” on a nine-point scale (from “supreme importance” at 7, to “not important” at 0, and “opposed to my values” at -1). However, despite the relative consensus in importance observed by Schwartz, some studies have found meaningful cross-cultural variation. A study of 31 European countries, for example, reported conformity, tradition, benevolence, self-direction, and hedonism exerted a positive average influence on subjective wellbeing, while universalism and power exerted a negative average influence 21 . There were “very different and sometimes opposing effects across countries” though, including even in relation to value congruency (the fit of personal values with prevailing values in the culture), which was negatively related to wellbeing in some countries but positively in others. Cross-cultural variation in values and priorities is fascinating, but remains understudied, especially from a global comparative perspective. Many analyses of values and preferences focus only on single countries, while those that do take an international approach tend to prioritise societies that Henrich and colleagues 22 described as relatively WEIRD (i.e., Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, Democratic). Although one cannot simplistically classify places in a binary way as WEIRD versus non-WEIRD—as each element of the acronym is a spectrum upon which countries may be variously situated 23 —most of the world is not as WEIRD as places like the US and Western Europe, from where most research in prestigious journals has originated, or even, for example, as the OECD countries more broadly (per the various analyses of the Better Life Index). There is a need for more international analyses of values and priorities, especially among places outside the relatively “WEIRD” category. Hence the value of the GFS, which includes roughly nationally representative samples from 22 countries, many of which could be regarded as relatively non-WEIRD: in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China (including separately both Hong Kong [S.A.R of China] and also the mainland, meaning the GFS has 23 distinct populations), Egypt, Germany, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Philippines, Poland, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Tanzania, Turkey, UK, and US. In this study we use Wave 1 “mid-year” data (N = 131,487) to explore wellbeing importance ratings along two lines. First, we assess how the distribution of ratings varies across the GFS countries. Second, we evaluate whether ratings vary by seven socio-demographic categories, including: age, gender, marital status, employment status, religious service attendance, education status, and immigration status. Country-specific estimates for sociodemographic variation and candidate predictors analyses were pooled across countries meta-analytically, providing insight into patterns that may be somewhat consistent across countries as well as possible variation across countries. Methods The study design, sampling, and survey development for the GFS are described in detail elsewhere, including overall summaries of the GFS 24 and its methodology 25 – 27 , questionnaire design 28 , 29 , 30 , translation process 31 , survey sampling design 32 , analytic methodology 33 , 34 , codebook 35 , and statistical analysis code 36 . The preregistrations for the analyses reported in this study were submitted on March 24, 2025, and are available via https://osf.io/ab9sk . Study Sample This study focuses on the subset of the GFS participants (N = 131,487) who participated in the mid-year retention survey. The full GFS panel includes approximately nationally representative samples from the 22 countries (N = 207,919). The countries were selected to (1) maximize coverage of the world’s population, (2) ensure geographic, cultural, and religious diversity, and (3) prioritize feasibility in Gallup’s existing data collection infrastructure. Data for Wave 1, which involved an expansive 109-item questionnaire 28 , were collected from March 2022 to January 2024, except in mainland China (March/April of 2024). Data for the mid-year retention survey were collected from November of 2023 through December 2024. In China, Hong Kong (S.A.R. of China), Japan, Sweden, and the United States, the mid-year retention survey was administered concurrently with the Wave 2 Annual Survey 26 . The mid-year retention survey included 14 questions, including the seven items on values that are the focus of our paper, with data from 131,487 participants (the analytic sample for this study). Sampling Design The panel recruitment design varied by country to ensure the samples from the different countries were approximately nationally representative 32 . For the mid-year survey, five attempts were made to contact participants who were taking the telephone survey. Participants taking the survey via the web received an initial invitation followed by five reminders to participate in the online survey across all channels through which a respondent had consented to receive communications, including email, SMS, and WhatsApp 35 . The contact attempts were made on different days of the week and times of day to maximize the possibility of retention. The mid-year retention survey can be used to obtain approximately nationally representative estimates using nonresponse-adjusted sampling weights. These adjusted weights were obtained by post-stratifying the Wave 1 sampling weights using either census data or a reliable secondary source 35 . All adjustments to weights were performed separately by country. Measures Outcome variables. Values were assessed with seven items, all preceded by the following prompt: “Now, please think about a ladder with the top of the ladder at ten being "extremely important" and the bottom of the ladder at zero being "not at all important." How important are each of the following to you? You can use any number between 0 and 10.” The following outcomes were then presented in turn to the respondent: “Being happy,” “Being healthy,” “Having a meaningful life,” “Being a good person,” “Having good relationships,” “Having a good religious or spiritual life,” and “Having plenty of money to have what you want.” Demographic Variables . Continuous age was classified as 18–24, 25–29, 30–39, 40–49, 50–59, 60–69, 70–79, and 80 or older. Gender was assessed as male, female, or other. Marital status was assessed as single/never married, married, separated, divorced, widowed, and domestic partner. Employment was assessed as employed, self-employed, retired, student, homemaker, unemployed and searching, and other. Service attendance was assessed as more than once/week, once/week, one-to-three times/month, a few times/year, or never. Immigration status was dichotomously assessed with: “Were you born in this country, or not?” Religious tradition/affiliation with categories of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Sikhism, Baha’i, Jainism, Shinto, Taoism, Confucianism, Primal/Animist/Folk religion, Spiritism, African-Derived, some other religion, or no religion/atheist/agnostic; precise response categories varied by country. Racial/ethnic identity was assessed in some, but not all, countries, with response categories varying by country. For additional details on the assessments see the GFS codebook 35 or Crabtree et al. 29 Analysis Descriptive statistics for the analytic sample, weighted to be approximately nationally representative within each country, were estimated for each demographic variable. Overall distribution of values. The mean value ratings were estimated separately for each country and ordered from highest to lowest along with 95% confidence intervals, and robust standard errors. Overall estimated value ratings for each variable were obtained using random-effects meta-analyses to pool the country-specific value ratings. Demographic variation in values. Variation in the average value ratings across demographic categories were estimated, with all analyses initially conducted by country (as featured in the Online Supplement, for which details are provided below). Country-specific value ratings within each specific socio-demographic category were pooled using random-effects meta-analyses to obtain an overall estimated value rating. Additionally calculated, and provided in the Online Supplement—though not the main Results section here due to lack of space—were 95% confidence intervals, standard errors, upper and lower limits of a prediction interval across countries, heterogeneity (τ), and I 2 where appropriate for a given outcome/analysis for evidence concerning variation within a particular estimate across countries 42 . Meta-analysis was employed over hierarchical modelling so as not to presume measurement invariance. Within each country, a global test of variation of average value rating across levels of each particular demographic variable was conducted, and a pooled p-value across countries reported concerning evidence for variation within any country 37 . Bonferroni corrected p-value thresholds are provided based on the number of demographic variables 38 , 39 . Religious affiliation/tradition and race/ethnicity were used, when available, and presented in the Online Supplement but were not meta-analysed since the availability of these response categories varied significantly by country. Forest plots of estimates are available in the Supplementary files. All meta-analyses were conducted in R 40 using the metafor package 41 . Missing Data All missing variables are imputed using multivariate imputation by chained equations, with five imputed datasets generated 42 , 43 . To account for variation in the assessment of certain variables across countries (e.g., religious affiliation/tradition and race/ethnicity), the imputation process was conducted separately in each country. This within-country imputation approach ensured that the imputation models accurately reflected country-specific contexts and assessment methods. Sampling weights were included in the imputation model to account for specific-variable missingness that may have been related to probability of inclusion in the study. Accounting for Complex Sampling Design The GFS used different sampling schemes across countries based on availability of existing panels and recruitment needs 25 . All analyses accounted for the complex survey design components by including weights, primary sampling units, and strata. The use of mid-year retention survey data to estimate approximately nationally representative statistics assumes that the subsample of retained observations from Wave 1 in the mid-year sample can be projected to be nationally representative after post-stratification adjustments to weights. Additional methodological detail, including accounting for the complex sampling design is provided elsewhere 32 . Data Availability Data for the Global Flourishing Study are available through the Center for Open Science ( https://www.cos.io/gfs-access-data ). Ethics Approval Ethical approval was granted by the institutional review boards at Baylor University (IRB Reference #: 1841317) and Gallup (IRB Reference #: 2021-11-02). Gallup is a multi-national corporation, and its IRB covers all countries included in the GFS. The research conformed to the principles of the Helsinki Declaration. Informed Consent Informed consent was obtained following ethical approval, during the respondent recruitment stage of fieldwork, and was obtained at the start of the survey data collection, which spanned March 2022 to January 2024, except in mainland China (March/April of 2024), and with exact dates varying by country. The exact wording varies across countries depending on the local laws and regulations governing data protection. Subsequent surveys include a consent statement that reminds respondents that participation in the survey is optional and their personal information will not be shared by anyone outside of Gallup. Author Contributions T.J.V. and B.R.J. led the overall study of which this paper reports a subset of results. T.L. conceptualized, designed, and planned the paper, in collaboration with all authors. C.F. and R.N.P. analyzed the data and prepared the tables. T.L. wrote the first draft and subsequent revisions. All authors provided feedback of the various drafts of the manuscript, helped edit and refine the text, and reviewed the final version. Funding The GFS was supported by funding from the John Templeton Foundation (grant #61665), Templeton Religion Trust (#1308), Templeton World Charity Foundation (#0605), Well-Being for Planet Earth Foundation, Fetzer Institute (#4354), Well Being Trust, Paul L. Foster Family Foundation, and the David and Carol Myers Foundation. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of these organizations. Results There are 10 main tables. As described below in further detail, Table 1 provides a summary of the sample, Table 2 is a descriptive analysis of the mean importance ranking in each country for each value, Table 3 provides a meta-analytic summary of the demographic relations with each of the seven values across all countries, and Tables 4–10 each consider a single value and report demographic relations with that value’s importance rating across all countries. In the Online Supplement, these 10 tables are augmented by 191 separate tables to give more cross-cultural nuance across the 23 locations. The reason for so many supplementary tables is that, compared to most other papers reporting GFS findings, the present paper is essentially combining seven papers (one for each value) into one. Most other Wave 1 papers focus on a single item, such as “balance in life,” and separately analyse its socio-demographic factors 44 and childhood predictors 45 . Here by contrast we are analysing seven items, since they are intrinsically connected and it makes more sense to consider them all together rather than separately. The supplementary tables thus begin with seven tables, one for each item, reporting the mean rating by socio-demographic category: S1a (“being a good person”); S2a (“good relationships”); S3a (“happiness”); S4a (“health”); S5a (“meaning”); S6a (“money”); S7a (“religion/spirituality”). Then, Tables 2–24 present the data separately for each of the 23 places, presenting each in turn, with eight tables per country (a-h), beginning with a demographic summary for the country (“a”), and then versions of the seven general tables for that country (“b-h”). In terms of our main tables, Table 1 begins by showing the summary statistics for the seven main socio-demographic categories explored in our analyses: age / age cohort; sex (“gender”); marital status; employment; religious service attendance; education; and immigration status. Table 1 also provides statistics for religious affiliation and country (which are not featured in the other analyses). The summary statistics are also available for each country separately in the Supplementary files (Tables S2a, S9b, S10a, etc. … S24a). [Table 1 here] Table 2 shows the mean overall ratings for the seven values for each location, as well as across the GFS as a whole (in the bottom row), and also the average value rating in each country (in the right-most column). In terms of the GFS as a whole, “being a good person” was rated as most important (8.9), followed closely by “being healthy” (8.8),“having good relationships” (8.7), and “being happy” and “having a meaningful life” (both 8.5), then slightly lower “having plenty of money to do what you want” (8.0) and lastly “having a religious or spiritual life” (7.0). However, as one can see, there are myriad country-level nuances—such as health being the top ranked value in seven countries (China, Germany, Israel, Japan, Nigeria, Poland, and South Africa) and religion/spirituality in three (Kenya, Nigeria, and Tanzania)—as we consider in the Discussion. [Table 2 here] Table 3 shows the mean overall ratings for the seven values, except rather than differentiated by country (per Table 2), it is in terms of the seven socio-demographic factors. Some of the most striking general trends include that females had higher ratings than males on all variables, people with more education gave higher ratings on all values except religion, and all ratings generally increased with age (albeit only marginally) except for happiness and money, and those attending religious service more than weekly give higher rating on all values except money. We will consider further details and interpretation of the results in the Discussion. Statistical details for all these means (e.g., CI) are available in the Supplementary files, separated by item, including across the GFS as a whole (Table S1 a [good person], S1b [good relationships], S1c [happiness], S1d [health], S1e [meaning], S1f [money], and S1g [religion/spirituality]), and separated by country (as, following the demographic summary [Table a], Tables b [good person], c [good relationships], d [happiness], e [health], f [meaning], g [money], and h [religion/spirituality], e.g., with Argentina being S2a, S2b, S2c, S2d, S2e, S2f, S2g, and S2h). [Table 3 here] Finally, Tables 4–10 essentially combine consideration of country-level differences (per Table 2) and socio-demographic differences (per Table 3), showing the socio-demographic variation across all countries. Given the vast amount of relevant data, these findings are presented in separate tables for each value, beginning here in Table 4 with being a “good person,” followed by relationships (Table 5), happiness (6), health (7), meaning (8), money (9), and religion (10). Overall, across the GFS as a whole, the highest ratings for being a good person were among those who are: older (i.e., aged over 60); female; married, divorced, or widowed; retired; attend religious services frequently (especially more than once a week); more educated (especially over 16 years); and born in a different country to the one in which they now live. However, within these general trends there was considerable country-specific variation; indeed, there is such a wealth of data in these main tables (which are in themselves a condensed summary of the country-specific tables in the Supplementary files) that we cannot begin to offer even a cursory summary, let alone a comprehensive one. By way of illustration though, let us just highlight some country-specific exceptions to the third general trend noted above in relation to Table 3, namely that all ratings increased with age except for happiness and money. While many places did have a general upward progression, there was considerable variation in terms of which age group(s) actually had the highest ratings—with sometimes this distinction held jointly by more than one group. We encourage readers to study the Table to see further such nuances along these lines. [Table 4 here] Table 5 combines the country-level differences and socio-demographic differences for good relationships. Across the GFS as a whole, the highest ratings for relationships were among those who are: older (especially aged over 70); female; widowed; retired; attend religious services frequently (especially more than once a week); and more educated (from nine years upwards); with immigration status making no difference. Given the great amounts of detail contained, it will again suffice to just note the country-specific exceptions to the third general trend of all ratings increasing with age except for happiness and money, while many places again had a general upward progression, a strict linear progression was only observed in Argentina and Japan, with ratings falling for the very oldest group in nine places (by as much as 1.8 in China), while some countries had quite different patterns (e.g., there was a consistent downward trend in Israel); moreover, the over-80s only actually had the highest ratings in 12 places, with considerable variation elsewhere in which age group had the highest ratings. [Table 5 here] Table 6 combines the country-level differences and socio-demographic differences for happiness. Across the GFS as a whole, the highest ratings for happiness were among those who are: younger (especially under 29); female; married or divorced; a student; attend religious services frequently (especially more than once a week); more educated (especially over 16 years); and born in a different country to the one in which they now live. Let us again also briefly note the that amidst the general trend of all ratings increasing with age except for happiness and money—meaning that ratings for happiness overall slightly decreased with age (albeit only from 8.6 to 8.5)—here was considerable variation, and the highest ratings were in fact only among those 18–24 in seven places, with considerable variation elsewhere in which age group had the highest ratings. [Table 6 here] Table 7 combines the country-level differences and socio-demographic differences for health. Across the GFS as a whole, the highest ratings for health were among those who are: older (especially over 80); female; divorced; retired, self-employed, or a student; attend religious services (especially either a few times a year or more than once a week); more educated (especially over 16 years); and born in a different country to the one in which they now live. Let us again briefly note the country-specific exceptions to the general trend of all ratings increasing with age except for happiness and money, where we should note that for health the values were in fact equal for most groups (8.8), only rising marginally for those aged 80+ (to 8.9), and indeed only nine places had the highest ratings among those aged 80+, with considerable variation elsewhere in which age group had the highest ratings. [Table 7 here] Table 8 combines the country-level differences and socio-demographic differences for meaning. Across the GFS as a whole, the highest ratings for meaning were among those who are: either aged 25–29 or over 80; female; divorced; self-employed; attend religious services frequently (especially more than once a week); more educated (especially over 16 years); and born in a different country to the one in which they now live. Again noting the country-specific exceptions to the three general trend of all ratings increasing with age except for happiness and money, we should first note that for meaning the values were in fact equal for most groups (8.4), only rising marginally for those aged 80+—and indeed only nine places had the highest ratings among those aged 80+— but also those 25–29 (to 8.5), with considerable variation elsewhere in which age group had the highest ratings. [Table 8 here] Table 9 combines the country-level differences and socio-demographic differences for money. Across the GFS as a whole, the highest ratings for money were among those who are: younger (especially 18–24); female; single and never married; a student; attend religious services just somewhat frequently (either a few times a year or 1–3 times a month); and more educated (especially over 16 years); while immigration status made no difference. Again just noting he country-specific exceptions to the general trend of all ratings increasing with age except for happiness and money—meaning that ratings for money overall slightly decreased with age—the highest ratings were in fact only among those aged 18–24 in eight places, with considerable variation elsewhere in which age group had the highest ratings. [Table 9 here] Finally, Table 10 combines the country-level differences and socio-demographic differences for religion. Across the GFS as a whole, the highest ratings for religion/spirituality were among those who are: older (especially over 80); female; widowed; a homemaker; attend religious services (especially more than once a week); and less educated (especially under 8 years); while immigration status made no difference. Finally, one again noting the country-specific exceptions to the general trend of all ratings increasing with age except for happiness and money, here the pattern was actually quite consistent, with the highest ratings among those aged 80 + in 15 countries, but then with still seven countries in which a different group had the highest ratings. [Table 10 here] Discussion Key Findings There are four headline findings: (1) some degree of universality; (2) the importance of good character; (3) socio-demographic variation; and (4) cross-cultural variation. In this first section we briefly address each of these, before the second section considers them in relation to each of the main items. Firstly then, at least five of these seven items were, across countries, rated as highly important (e.g. ≥8.5, even if “highly” is a somewhat subjective appraisal), led by being a good person (a pooled mean rating of 8.9 across the GFS countries), followed closely by health (8.8), relationships (8.7), and happiness and meaning (8.5), with money (7.6) and religion/spirituality (7.0) slightly behind. That these are all widely appreciated across disparate societies runs counter to relativistic narratives that people’s priorities are highly contingent on their cultural context, and lends credence to arguments for a common human nature where these are broadly shared. At least, the data provide fairly strong empirical support for VanderWeele’s (2017) claim that these five aspects of flourishing (happiness, health, meaning, character, and relationships) are nearly universally valued across people, cultures, and contexts. One might even suggest the data support the idea of relatively universal human priorities or “valuations” 46 —a notion both extensively argued for and against over the decades. On the supportive side, various theorists have proposed taxonomies in this arena they believe hold true across cultures, from Maslow 47 , 48 to Schwartz 19 , with a strong body of supporting empirical evidence 49 . On the other hand, some scholars—such as in cultural anthropology, or psychologists who identify as culturalist or indigenous 50 —might reject such universals, taking a relativistic stance. Relatedly, it has been argued that people in the West are somehow unusual, as per Henrich’s book “The WEIRDest people in the world: How the West became psychologically peculiar and particularly prosperous” 51 (though Henrich’s argument is more concerned with personality and cognition and doesn't have much to do with the outcomes here). However, our data would suggest they may not actually be that “weird,” and the idea of universals has some merit. That said, Berry et al. caution against creating a false dichotomy between relativist and universalist positions; they identify four perspectives in cross-cultural scholarship—extreme relativism, moderate relativism, moderate universalism, and extreme universalism—and suggest most scholars tend towards moderate stances 52 . Our findings perhaps point towards moderate universalism, suggesting there are broad universals, but those are not completely inevitable or ubiquitous, and there is at least some cross-cultural variation. Moreover, one must acknowledge that the items here are quite generic, making it easier to find broad agreement, and were more detail sought about specifics then perhaps more meaningful relativistic variation would have been observed. While there was considerable agreement for instance in the importance of being a good person, one might perhaps anticipate more disagreement if we sought to ascertain precisely what kind of qualities people thought such goodness involved or required. Applying a moderate universalism lens also allows one to recognize that there may be multiple valid taxonomies for approaching flourishing. While the domains in this study derive from VanderWeele’s (2017) framework, this is not necessarily an exhaustive taxonomy. On a related point, arguments towards universality are not undercut by the fact that the various universalist frameworks differ . There are myriad ways of carving up the conceptual territory, and it is not necessarily that one among Maslow, Schwarz, VanderWeele, etc. is right and the rest wrong; all can be valid but partial, capturing some truths yet not comprehensively exhausting the terrain nor providing the only correct conceptual delineation. A second related headline concerns the top-ranked values themselves; contrary to more materialistic perspectives that might suppose people would prioritise money, this was relatively de-prioritized. That said, as a methodological caveat, we must be sensitive to the fact that the question framing is not entirely standardized across the items, and abstraction isn't balanced, which is a limitation we return to in the Conclusion. In that regard, the money item is the only one that references an instrumental use of “to do what you want...,” and moreover uses “want” rather than for example “to meet my basic needs,” which is a struggle for many people around the world, and which more people might potentially endorse relative to the “want” language. Nevertheless, linguistic caveats about the money item aside, it was still striking to see issues of character and morality take first place, even above—albeit only slightly—that of health. It has been suggested by some critics of the GFS and VanderWeele’s framework that their emphasis on character and virtue has a somewhat “Christian, EuroAmerican” flavour 53 , but the data here point to the universal importance of these qualities. Relatedly, there is perhaps some alignment here with Schwartz’s observation that across societies “there is surprising consensus regarding the hierarchical order of the values” 20 , with the first two being benevolence then universalism. While these are not identical to “being a good person,” there is perhaps enough conceptual overlap to suggest that our findings are along the same lines as Schwartz’s. However, the other two headlines are that there was nevertheless meaningful variation. Thirdly then, this includes socio-demographic variation. With age, for example, while the importance of most values tends to be higher at older ages, the reverse is true of happiness and money, especially the latter: comparing 18–24 and 80 + age groups, while happiness matters slightly more to the young (8.6 versus 8.5), the gap for money is rather wider (7.8 versus 7.2). More broadly, some trends for certain groups were quite consistent across the items; this is not about having different priorities, but seemingly assigning higher importance to values generally . This applies especially to sex/gender, with females having higher ratings than males on all values (with the biggest gap for religion/spirituality), although this does not hold across all countries (as noted in the commentary in the Results section). This result may merit more attention and further investigation: while there is work on sex/gender differences around values, this usually focuses on differing priorities (e.g., women placing greater emphasis on benevolence and men on power 54 , 55 ), and there does not seem to be much on women caring more in general (except for example when using “caring” in a caregiving sense 56 ). Other categories also saw generally higher ratings from certain groups, though also evidence, per prior literature, of variation in priorities. More education was associated with higher ratings on nearly all values, except for religion/spirituality, in which the reverse was the case (which aligns with research suggesting less educated respondents attribute more importance to security, tradition, and conformity values 57 ), although again this is not true in all countries. Religious attendance was also a factor, with the lowest ratings across items consistently—although not in all countries—being among those who never attend and the highest consistently among those who attend the most (except for money, in which this pattern was reversed); this would seem to corroborate research that religious commitment seems to turn up the “dial” on whatever beliefs and values people hold 58 . Our fourth headline finding concerned cultural variation. First, as with certain socio-demographic groups, countries differed in the extent to which they assign importance to the values generally, from Indonesia at the top (with a mean of 9.2 across all seven items) to Japan and Sweden at the bottom (7.1). We must of course be wary of cultural stereotypes and also the interpretive challenges in assuming the items function the same way across cultures. However, the generally low ratings found in Japan, for example, may reflect notions that Japanese culture leans towards being self-effacing and downplaying any positive self-reporting 59 (with Japan in fact ranking last on many variables in the GFS 24 ). However, similar phenomena are perhaps less likely at play in Sweden which had much higher rankings on many GFS well-being variables 24 , but not on importance ratings. There was also variation in the placement and prioritization of values themselves. While being a good person was (marginally) first overall, this was only the case in 14 countries, with these also differing in degree of elevation. It mattered most in Spain, not because Spain had the highest mean (which was Argentina and Brazil, at 9.5), but because Spain had the biggest gap (0.4) between the mean for this item (9.2) and all other items (with relationships and happiness second at 8.8), followed by a three-tenth’s point gap in Australia, Argentina, Brazil, UK, and US, two-tenth’s in Hong Kong, India, Mexico, and Philippines, one-tenth in Egypt, Sweden, Turkey, and equal in Indonesia. Five places then ranked health as their top value instead (China, Germany, Israel, Japan, Poland, South Africa), while health and religion were joint top in Kenya and Nigeria, and religion alone first in Tanzania. We further consider such variation in the next section, briefly reviewing each value to see how the headline findings play out in each case. Value Dynamics The top-ranked value overall was being a good person. Although at 8.9 this was only slightly ahead of health (8.8) and relationships (8.7), and was also not first in nine countries, its pre-eminence, however marginal, was nevertheless notable and moreover encouraging. While one can find claims that humans are inherently selfish and individualistic 60 , our results align with Schwartz 20 —who, as noted, reported the top-ranked values in his schema were benevolence and universalism—in suggesting people tend to prioritize issues of morality and character. Whether they succeed in actually being a good person is another matter, especially since moral sentiments don’t always translate into moral actions 61 . One must also reckon with the possibility of social desirability shaping people’s responses, which pertains to all self-report research but may be especially pertinent with items pertaining to character and ethics 62 . But against these more cynical readings, however, is the genuine possibility that people really do want to be good, even if they struggle in practice 63 , 64 . It is also intriguing to note, per the third and fourth headline findings, socio-economic and cultural variation around this value. Some variation has already been alluded to above, since it applies across most values; as with others, being good matters more to people who are female, older, more educated, and attend religious services. Other variation is more specific; while being good was either ranked first or second in 20 countries, for example, it was fourth in Poland and South Africa (albeit only marginally), and fifth in Japan (at just 6.8, notably lower than health at 8.0). Besides showing generically that value priorities do vary somewhat by country, further research would be useful in exploring the significance of this value placing somewhat lower in these countries. Is there any connection, for example, between Japan’s notably low scores on flourishing and its relative downplaying of this value? From a critical methodological perspective though, one also wonders whether the Japanese translation of “good person” may somehow not quite capture moral sensibilities that generally apply in that particular country, as we reflect on further in the Conclusion. In second place on importance ratings overall was health, and indeed it was top in seven countries. Its importance is widely recognized, with Maslow, for instance, placing physiological needs—which is essentially synonymous with health—as a foundational layer of his hierarchy, on which all other layers ultimately depend 65 , 66 . Can we also learn something about the factors that drive people to value health by considering the seven countries in which it was ranked top? Might health be prioritized more in places where it is relatively lacking, for example, since people often place greater emphasis on goods they don’t have (while taking for granted ones they do) 68 . The picture is more complex, though; if GFS countries are ranked on life expectancy 69 , while South Africa, Kenya, and lastly Nigeria are bottom, the others who rated health at the top do quite well on life expectancy, especially Japan (2nd ), followed by Israel (5th ), Germany (8th ), Poland (9th ), and China (11th ). Nor is it easy to discern any obvious cultural grouping, with these countries dispersed across the continents, and all with their own unique societal dynamics (e.g., vis-à-vis healthcare systems). Once again, while health may be universally valued, more work will be needed to explore why certain populations place it at a particular premium (such as Japan, with a rating of 8.0 versus 6.8 for being a good person). More work will also be needed to understand the impact of socio-demographic factors. As such, besides the recurring general patterns noted above (e.g., higher ratings for people who are female, older, more educated, and attend religious services), it is hard to draw firm conclusions about the kind of background or circumstances that would lead to prioritization of health. Ranked third overall in importance rating is good relationships, the significance of which is recognized in most value frameworks, such as Maslow’s emphasis on love and belonging. Relatedly, empirical analyses of the factors that support wellbeing invariably place relationships as among the most impactful and necessary 70 . It is worth emphasizing the relative universality of relationships being deemed important. There is a well-worn claim, for example, first brought to widespread attention by Hofstede 71 , Triandis 72 , and others 73 , that Western cultures tend to be comparatively individualistic, whereas those in the East are more collectivistic, as now explored and to some extent corroborated in hundreds of studies 74 . Yet scholars increasingly acknowledge the picture may be more complex, with research in the Gallup World Poll for instance suggesting Western cultures may be less individualistic than they are often assumed to be 75 . While we note that individualism is not actually at odds with valuing relationships, it was nevertheless notable that prototypically Western countries were generally in line with the GFS as a whole in highly valuing relationships, with means for this item in both the UK and US ranking second (meaning they actually valued it higher in relative terms than non-Western countries such as China, Egypt, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Nigeria, and Turkey, where it was ranked third). Nuances aside, the overall trend is towards relationships being universally valued. Some evidence for this universality is perhaps also indicated by the lack of any clear pattern regarding this value in for many of the socio-demographic factors (other than the recurrent trends, noted repeatedly above, of higher ratings for people who are female, older, more educated, and attend religious services). That these disparate experiences do not seem to impact the importance of relationships perhaps points to the ubiquity and tenacity of this value. Placing joint fourth overall in importance was happiness, whose universal appeal was also notable. We noted above that the narrative of the West as particularly individualistic may not be accurate, and, with happiness, a reverse stereotype may also need overturning. It has been argued that a focus on happiness may be a particularly Western concern, as per critical responses to the emergence of positive psychology 76 , 77 , with articles like “Dreaming the American dream: Individualism and positive psychology” 78 , which suggested its “American roots are evident” in features like its “endorsement of self-fulfillment as the ultimate life goal.” While such critiques may have some merit, happiness does appear to be universally valued. Moreover, to the extent there is cultural variation in its prioritization, prototypically Western countries in fact seem to value it slightly less in relative terms, since it is ranked second in Israel, Japan, Poland, South Africa, and Spain, third in Argentina, Mexico, and India, fourth in Germany, Philippines, Sweden, and UK, fifth in Australia, Brazil, Egypt, Hong Kong, Nigeria, Tanzania, Turkey, and US, sixth in China and Indonesia, and last in Kenya. Further research into why this variation exists will be valuable, but even as it stands one can see that places like the UK and US in fact somewhat downplay the importance of happiness relative to many other countries, and so the charge that prioritization of happiness is a particularly Western concern seems undermined. Also ranked joint-fourth in overall importance is meaning. Its parity with happiness is intriguing, and helps shed further light on another debate in fields like psychology, namely the distinction between “hedonic” and “eudaimonic” wellbeing. Although happiness is a contested construct, it is often interpreted through a hedonic lens, encompassing outcomes such as positive affect 79 . Then, in contrast, academia has embraced the classical Greek notion of eudaimonia, celebrated by Aristotle as the “activity of the soul in accordance with virtue,” and is viewed by some as qualitatively better than crude pleasures 80 . Such ideas are captured in Ryff’s model of “psychological wellbeing” 81 , for example, which has six dimensions but with meaning/purpose in life and personal growth usually given priority as being closest to the spirit of eudaimonia 82 (although Ryff's framework includes no references to “virtue,” which probably disqualifies it from being authentically Aristotelian). However, scholars have also critiqued the hedonic-eudaimonic binary, with some suggesting there is “little evidence of discriminant validity” 83 , with the parity between happiness and meaning in our data perhaps lending credence to this critique. That said, although happiness and meaning were comparable in importance when averaged across the GFS countries, when looking instead at specific countries, this parity was actually only observed in Egypt, with a 0.1 difference in 11 places (Brazil, Germany, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Philippines, Tanzania, and US), 0.2 in five (Hong Kong, South Africa, Sweden, Turkey, UK), 0.3 in two (Australia, India), 0.4 in two (Argentina, Spain), and fully 1.1 in Poland (with happiness at 8.9 versus meaning at 7.8). Thus, while there may be close affinities between the two values, one must still be aware of some cross-cultural variation in that regard. The penultimate value is money, which while still important is rather less so overall than those above, being separated by 0.9 points from meaning and happiness in joint fourth (at 8.5 versus 7.6). Here though we must immediately emphasize the country-level variation, which was relatively stark, from 5.7 in Sweden to 8.8 in Indonesia. Moreover, money generally seems more important in the poorer countries; if one ranks GFS countries on (a) GDP-per-capita, and (b) the importance of money, one finds a strong inverse correlation of -0.52. Above we raised the idea that health might be prioritized more in places where it is relatively lacking, but found the data did not support such an interpretation. With money though, such an explanation does seem applicable. There is a massive literature on the relationship between money and wellbeing, including a complex debate on whether the former can buy the latter 84 . While the question is not conclusively settled, one might venture that probably most scholars agree that, if people are poor, wealth increases really can improve wellbeing, above all for the simple reason that it allows people to better meet their basic needs. After these are met however, increases do not necessarily substantially improve wellbeing—as per well-documented concepts like income satiation 85 —and the relationship becomes weaker and more complicated 86 . In light of our data, one wonders whether people have an intuitive sense of these dynamics? Might those in poorer places rate money as more important, not just because they are relatively lacking in it, but also perhaps are more aware of the positive impact having more would have on their lives? Conversely, is it possible that many people in richer countries tend to deprioritize money, not only because this need is relatively satiated, but because now most have a sense that simply acquiring more will not necessarily improve their wellbeing? We should also note though that the item did not ask about having “enough money,” but having “plenty of money to have what you want,” so the implication is not merely need satiation but freedom to satisfy wants and desires too. Either way, these possibilities merit further investigation. As do the socio-demographic factors, which were also intriguing, especially in that some variables one might most expect to affect this value appeared not to, including present employment status (with the same rating for unemployed and employed people), which perhaps suggests that the extent to which people value money doesn’t depend closely on the amount of money they actually have (aligning with studies that show value orientations like materialism have a relatively strong trait-like personality component 87 ). Finally, mean for the religion/spirituality item was lowest of the seven items, though this also had the greatest national variation, from 9.3 for Egypt, Indonesia, and Tanzania, to merely 2.4 for Sweden. Such variation is one reason religion/spirituality is not part of VanderWeele’s framework, since while there is broad consensus that its six domains are “at least a part of what we mean by flourishing”—as corroborated above—this is not so with religion/spirituality. Significant numbers of people would not regard it as important, not only in Sweden, but other mostly secular Western countries that also rate it as less important, including Germany (4.0), UK (4.4), Australia, and Spain (both 4.8). Some might counter that religion/spirituality is a vital aspect of flourishing, and that secular people are in some way fundamentally missing what is most important 6 , while conversely, critics of religion/spirituality might point to the harms it can sometimes bring 88 or suggest that people can find its benefits (e.g., meaning and community) in secular ways, and argue that this is what has indeed happened in Northern Europe 89 . While it is beyond our scope to resolve these debates, the data certainly align with well-established metrics on religiosity in various countries. Countries here that placed the highest importance on religion are not only officially nearly 100% religious 90 , but, in a recent survey by Pew for example, 100% of Indonesians said religion is “important” to them (with Kenya at 97%, Nigeria and Philippines at 96%, India at 95%, Brazil at 89%, and South Africa and Turkey at 88%). By contrast, religion was only important to 44% in the UK, 40% in Spain, 36% in Germany, 31% in Australia, 29% in Japan, and lastly just 20% in Sweden 91 . Besides the national variation, there are myriad notable socio-demographic patterns, as already highlighted above, such as higher ratings among people who are female (which applied to all values, but the gap was largest for this one) and of lower education (in contrast to all other values, which had higher ratings from those with more education). All these dynamics merit more research attention going forward. Conclusion Let us conclude my summarizing the results through the prism of their policy implications, of which there are at least three. First, we should anchor human flourishing policy in shared human priorities, while allowing for local nuance. Our results indicate strong cross-cultural convergence on certain values—particularly good character, health, relationships, happiness, and meaning—suggesting these can serve as a common foundation for policy frameworks. Policymakers can use this convergence to justify adopting multidimensional wellbeing indices for international comparison and collaboration. However, cultural variation—for example, the relatively higher salience of religion in some countries or health in others—shows that implementation should remain flexible. At a national level, wellbeing measurement systems and programmatic priorities should be tailored to local value hierarchies to maximize public legitimacy and relevance, rather than imposing one-size-fits-all solutions. Second, we should integrate socio-demographic variation into program design. Evidence that women, older adults, and more religiously active individuals consistently rate all values more highly—and that younger adults prioritize money and happiness relatively more—implies that homogenous interventions will have uneven resonance. Policy design should therefore segment target groups based not only on socioeconomic status but also on demographic patterns in value priorities. For instance, health-promotion programs may find stronger uptake among older populations, while financial literacy and early-career support initiatives may better align with younger adults’ stated priorities. Embedding such segmentation into national wellbeing strategies could improve engagement and outcomes across diverse groups. Third, we should recognize material needs as a constraint on value fulfilment. The inverse relationship between GDP-per-capita and the importance placed on money suggests that financial security enables people to prioritize non-material domains of flourishing. In lower-income contexts, policies that improve economic stability—through job creation, social safety nets, and affordable access to basic goods—are likely to have spillover effects on other wellbeing domains by freeing cognitive and emotional resources. Conversely, in wealthier settings where money is deprioritized, policy attention may more effectively focus on “post-materialist” goals such as social connection, civic engagement, and meaning-making. This sequencing—meeting basic economic needs first, then investing in higher-order aspects of flourishing—can inform domestic social policy and the design of international development aid. That said, it is also notable that poorer countries actually tend to have higher ratings on meaning, character, and relationships than the richer ones, and so it does not appear to be the case that people in the latter have been enabled by their freedom from want to pursue or prioritize meaning or friendship in a way that eludes those in poorer places – seemingly quite the reverse, in fact! This point does not necessarily undermine the other points above, such as meeting basic economic needs being an important investment in potentially enhancing higher-order values as well. But once these needs have been met, people may still need encouragement or assistance in some way to prioritize these other domains of flourishing (e.g., rather than continuing to seek greater wealth). The achieving of the material needs in more disadvantaged contexts, may in fact require relationships and provide meaning complicating the dynamics further. There are, of course, limitations to the study. There is first a general caveat around the mid-year retention survey data relating to attrition and weighting procedures. The use of Wave 1 and mid-year retention survey data to estimate approximately nationally representative statistics assumes that the subsample of retained observations from Wave 1 in the mid-year sample can be projected to be nationally representative after post-stratification adjustments to weights with similar quality as the full Wave 1 sample. Additionally, the analyses assume stability in the population between the Wave 1 and mid-year survey data collection so that the used population targets are still nationally representative, which may not hold exactly. Another methodological limitation is the potential for order effects, with the order of presentation constant across countries. Even if this was an issue here though, we cannot tell the direction the influence may have operated (e.g., whether asking about value A before value B nudges people to either give a higher or lower rating for value B). Nevertheless, exploring order effects, including perhaps randomising the order of the items for different participants, would be a useful exercise in future research. A third issue is that although the seven items had a common stem, we caution against assuming that items are fully equivalent both within and across countries. For example, variation in phrasing may artificially inflate or suppress ratings for certain items, not because they are valued differently but because of how wording shapes the way items are interpreted. As noted above, for example, the money item (i.e., “having plenty of money to do what you want”) emphasizes discretionary funds rather than more basic financial security, which could lead people to rate it as less important than other items not phrased instrumentally. Finally, a major constraint is that we have only assessed seven values, and moreover just used a single item for each. On the latter point, there are trade-offs between breadth and depth in the GFS, and with prioritization of greater comprehensive conceptual coverage, most constructs are assessed with a single item. Some disadvantages of using single-item assessments can be partially mitigated by using large sample sizes, which partially mitigate issues of statistical power, but do not mitigate issues of reliability or conceptual coverage, which is unquestionably a limitation of the items in the GFS. Then, in terms of the limitations arising from only assessing seven values, this choice was guided by VanderWeele’s six-domain flourishing framework plus religion/spirituality. As he himself acknowledges, while the six main domains are “arguably at least a part of what we mean by flourishing,” they are not exhaustive of it. It is possible that other values are important to people but are not included here. Such considerations are especially pertinent if one takes the view that some values are somewhat culturally specific, so there may be values that are especially important in certain cultures whose omission in this kind of survey limits our understanding of that particular place. For example, Japan had fairly low ratings for all values here, especially when compared to other countries for being a “good person” (at 6.8). One wonders whether this, and the other values, adequately tap into priorities in Japan. For example, one analysis suggested that Japan, China, Korea, and Taiwan, are influenced by Confucian values, especially interpersonal harmony, relational hierarchy, and traditional conservatism 92 . Even more broadly, an article on “What do Japanese value most” by a popular Japanese website highlighted: respect (especially for elders), honour, loyalty, humility, harmony, cooperation, education and self-improvement, hard work and dedication, commitment to family, and pursuit of perfection 93 . While a few of these are perhaps represented by some values in our study (e.g., good relationships), many do not fit easily in the taxonomy applied here, so one wonders whether we are adequately assessing what really matters to people in Japan, which is a concern that could potentially apply to all countries. Our hope is that this study lays the foundation for future research exploring these contextual nuances in greater detail. 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J Cross Cult Psychol 42:186–205 Kim U, Yang K-S, Hwang K-K (2006) Contributions to Indigenous and Cultural Psychology. In: Kim U, Yang K-S (eds) Indigenous and Cultural Psychology: Understanding People in Context. Springer US, Boston, MA, pp 3–25. & Hwang, K.-K.) Henrich J (2020) The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous Penguin UK Berry JW, Poortinga YH, Segall MH, Dasen PR (2002) Cross-Cultural Psychology: Research and Applications (2nd Ed.) Cambridge University Press Kaufman SB (2021) Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization. Penguin Bridgman T, Cummings S, Ballard J (2019) Who built Maslow’s pyramid? A history of the creation of management studies’ most famous symbol and its implications for management education. Acad Manage Learn Educ 18:81–98 Schwartz SH, Rubel-Lifschitz T (2009) Cross-national variation in the size of sex differences in values: Effects of gender equality. 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Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 34–69 Whyte J (2019) Springer International Publishing, Cham,. In praise of selfish individualism. in From Self to Selfie (eds. Kennedy, A. & Panton, J.) 27–43 10.1007/978-3-030-19194-8_3 Batson CD, Thompson ER, Seuferling G, Whitney H, Strongman JA (1999) Moral hypocrisy: Appearing moral to oneself without being so. J Pers Soc Psychol 77:525–537 Tan HC, Ho JA, Teoh GC, Ng S (2021) I. Is social desirability bias important for effective ethics research? A review of literature. Asian J Bus Ethics 10:205–243 Sun J, Goodwin GP (2020) Do people want to be more moral? Psychol Sci 31:243–257 Sun J, Wilt J, Meindl P, Watkins HM, Goodwin GP (2024) How and why people want to be more moral. J Pers 92:907–925 Schwartz SH et al (2012) Refining the theory of basic individual values. J Pers Soc Psychol 103:663–688 Protasi S (2016) Varieties of envy. Philos Psychol 29:535–549 Lomas T et al (2025) The Global Flourishing Study national report card: A case study in comparative wellbeing assessment across 22 countries involving 77 subjective and 34 objective metrics. In preparation Helliwell JF, Putnam RD (2004) The social context of well–being. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 359:1435–1446 Hofstede G (1980) Culture’s Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values. Sage, Beverly Hills, CA Triandis H (1988) Collectivism v. individualism: A reconceptualisation of a basic concept in cross-cultural social psychology. in Cross-cultural studies of personality, attitudes and cognition 60–95Springer Markus HR, Kitayama S (1991) Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychol Rev 98:224–253 Santos HC, Varnum MEW, Grossmann I (2017) Global Increases in Individualism. Psychol Sci 28:1228–1239 Lomas T et al (2022) Complexifying individualism versus collectivism and West versus East: Global diversity in perspectives on self and other in the Gallup World Poll. J Cross-Cultural Psychol 54:61–89 Held BS (2004) The negative side of positive psychology. J Humanist Psychol 44:9–46 Ehrenreich B (2010) Smile or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World Granta books Becker D, Marecek J (2008) Dreaming the American dream: Individualism and positive psychology. Soc Personal Psychol Compass 2:1767–1780 Diener E (1984) Subjective well-being. Psychol Bull 95:542–575 Aristotle (1986) Nicomachean Ethics (Translated by M. Ostwald) Macmillan, New York Ryff CD (1989) Happiness is everything, or is it? Explorations on the meaning of psychological well-being. J Pers Soc Psychol 57:1069–1081 Osin EN, Voevodina EY, Kostenko V (2023) Yu. A growing concern for meaning: Exploring the links between ego development and eudaimonia. Front Psychol 14 Disabato DJ, Goodman FR, Kashdan TB, Short JL, Jarden A (2016) Different types of well-being? A cross-cultural examination of hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. Psychol Assess 28:471–482 Lomas T (2023) Exploring associations between income and wellbeing: new global insights from the Gallup World Poll. J Posit Psychol 1–18. 10.1080/17439760.2023.2248963 Jebb AT, Tay L, Diener E, Oishi S (2018) Happiness, income satiation and turning points around the world. Nat Hum Behav 2:33–38 Howell RT, Howell CJ (2008) The relation of economic status to subjective well-being in developing countries: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin vol. 134 536–560 Preprint at https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.134.4.536 Pilch I, Górnik-Durose ME (2016) Do we need dark traits to explain materialism? The incremental validity of the Dark Triad over the HEXACO domains in predicting materialistic orientation. Pers Individ Dif 102:102–106 Barnes DM, Meyer IH (2012) Religious affiliation, internalized homophobia, and mental health in lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals. Am J Orthopsychiatry 82:505–515 la Cour P, Hvidt NC (2010) Research on meaning-making and health in secular society: Secular, spiritual and religious existential orientations. Soc Sci Med 71:1292–1299 CIA. The World Factbook (2025) The World Factbook https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/religions/ Evans J, Lesage K, Miner W, Starr KJ, Corichi M (2025) Believing in spirits and life after death is common around the world. Pew Res Cent Zhang YB, Lin M-C, Nonaka A, Beom K (2005) Harmony, hierarchy and conservatism: A cross-cultural comparison of Confucian values in China, Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. Communication Res Rep 22:107–115 Japan Nihon (2023) What do Japanese value most. Japan Nihon Tables Tables are available in the Supplementary Files section. Additional Declarations Competing interest reported. Tyler J. VanderWeele reports partial ownership and licensing fees from Gloo, Inc. The remaining authors have no competing interests to declare. Supplementary Files GFSvaluessociodemographicssupplement.pdf Tables.docx Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Review Version 1 posted Editorial decision: Revision requested 25 Mar, 2026 Reviews received at journal 23 Feb, 2026 Reviewers agreed at journal 03 Feb, 2026 Reviews received at journal 30 Jan, 2026 Reviewers agreed at journal 06 Jan, 2026 Reviewers invited by journal 05 Jan, 2026 Editor assigned by journal 30 Dec, 2025 Editor invited by journal 10 Dec, 2025 Submission checks completed at journal 02 Dec, 2025 First submitted to journal 02 Dec, 2025 You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-8089196","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":607204173,"identity":"e0080e1c-ff31-43a9-9ae4-72205d657128","order_by":0,"name":"Tim Lomas","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAA9ElEQVRIiWNgGAWjYDACdjBpk8DAwMPADBUzYGBgw62DB6IsjXQth0nQYs/MfHTDjz/n8+Rn9x5gLqi5l9g/+/AGhg9lh/HYwpZ2s7ftdrHBnXMJzDOOFSfOOJdWwDjjHD4tPGY3eBtuJ26QyDFg5mFLMGY4w2PAzNuGX8vNP3/OJc6fAdLyL8FYHqTlLwEtt3nYDiQ23MgBGZ4gZwDSwohPy2G2tNuybcmJG+6cMTjM25cgZ3iGreBgz7l0nFrY25uP3Xzzxy5x/uwew8c83xJ45M4wb3zwo8wapxYEkGBgOABjH8CtDE3LKBgFo2AUjAKsAAC9j1OVA0qCVgAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==","orcid":"","institution":"Harvard University","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Tim","middleName":"","lastName":"Lomas","suffix":""},{"id":607204174,"identity":"1d48b7f9-b936-47de-afd9-218d9bb60482","order_by":1,"name":"Chris Felton","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Baylor University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Chris","middleName":"","lastName":"Felton","suffix":""},{"id":607204175,"identity":"c42e212d-9fef-4771-a1aa-723966ccb53b","order_by":2,"name":"R. Noah Padgett","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Harvard University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"R.","middleName":"Noah","lastName":"Padgett","suffix":""},{"id":607204176,"identity":"3993c7b0-8bac-413e-aec3-289582bd1a7e","order_by":3,"name":"Zhuo Job Chen","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"University of North Carolina at Charlotte","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Zhuo","middleName":"Job","lastName":"Chen","suffix":""},{"id":607204177,"identity":"ab78b141-c900-463f-a58b-2c36df41fe01","order_by":4,"name":"Brendan Case","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Harvard University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Brendan","middleName":"","lastName":"Case","suffix":""},{"id":607204178,"identity":"24934c98-0579-43cd-898c-0733f4609499","order_by":5,"name":"Christos Makridis","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Arizona State University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Christos","middleName":"","lastName":"Makridis","suffix":""},{"id":607204179,"identity":"bcd17d34-b521-4d2b-9b45-4abe664b001b","order_by":6,"name":"Richard Cowden","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Harvard University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Richard","middleName":"","lastName":"Cowden","suffix":""},{"id":607204180,"identity":"c4c59e7d-8032-4c82-973e-81c326575624","order_by":7,"name":"Micael Dahlen","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Stockholm School of Economics","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Micael","middleName":"","lastName":"Dahlen","suffix":""},{"id":607204181,"identity":"6ea712e8-fe6b-4997-96ce-83fa0249adb0","order_by":8,"name":"Byron Johnson","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Baylor University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Byron","middleName":"","lastName":"Johnson","suffix":""},{"id":607204182,"identity":"a50d5f00-920c-4f17-a50b-ac6c22f98249","order_by":9,"name":"Tyler VanderWeele","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Harvard University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Tyler","middleName":"","lastName":"VanderWeele","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2025-11-11 17:23:24","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8089196/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8089196/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":104881035,"identity":"3cccb56c-d1ed-46fa-950d-6ed478e0f0c5","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-03-18 09:18:46","extension":"pdf","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":716183,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"manuscript.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8089196/v1/386f9ae1-ae0b-4a26-bc76-7bb2a1e82d2f.pdf"},{"id":104881034,"identity":"6f781ae8-e018-4d79-ba86-a09e5491e24b","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-03-18 09:18:41","extension":"pdf","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":4138009,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"GFSvaluessociodemographicssupplement.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8089196/v1/aa01a578440abddfd9365fae.pdf"},{"id":104881033,"identity":"7ee834a7-f7cf-4d6b-a4c2-dee1d20bee98","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-03-18 09:18:41","extension":"docx","order_by":3,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":442714,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"Tables.docx","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8089196/v1/84e1e146c3864798f549a833.docx"}],"financialInterests":"Competing interest reported. Tyler J. VanderWeele reports partial ownership and licensing fees from Gloo, Inc. The remaining authors have no competing interests to declare.","formattedTitle":"People almost universally value having good character, happiness, health, meaning, and relationships, followed by religion/spirituality and money: Commonalities but also variation in priorities across 22 countries in the Global Flourishing Study","fulltext":[{"header":"Introduction","content":"\u003cp\u003eHow can we judge how well people are doing? This question is central to policymakers and others striving to improve society\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003e,\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e. Numerous metrics exist, of course, including those that distil assessments into a single unit, such as life satisfaction. While such measures have value, they risk obscuring the multifaceted nature of flourishing and the way that people can do well in some respects and poorly in others (VanderWeele et al., 2025; VanderWeele and Johnson, 2025). There is value, therefore, in multidimensional assessments. To that end, this paper explores Wave 1 mid-year data from the Global Flourishing Study (GFS), a panel study in 22 countries, with anticipated five years of data collection, involving a 109-item questionnaire covering six main domains of flourishing in a framework developed by VanderWeele\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e: happiness and life satisfaction; mental and physical health; meaning and purpose; character and virtue; close social relationships; and financial and material stability. The GFS also includes numerous items on religion/spirituality, plus other aspects that collectively provide a broad picture of human wellbeing. A vital issue though is understanding respondents\u0026rsquo; own priorities, i.e., how people themselves value these domains. Even if we can reliably assess how people are faring in different domains, unless we understand how \u003cem\u003eimportant\u003c/em\u003e people consider these domains, our understanding of wellbeing will be limited, since the relevance of any given domain to a person\u0026rsquo;s wellbeing depends in part upon how much that domain matters to them\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e4\u003c/span\u003e,\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e5\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e. Thus here we explore a set of items in the GFS that ask people to appraise, on a 1\u0026ndash;10 scale of importance, the six domains of VanderWeele\u0026rsquo;s framework, plus religion/spirituality (which is not among those domains, which focused on what was seemingly universally valued, but is nevertheless considered, for many, a vital part of human life\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e6\u003c/span\u003e,\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e7\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e). Before turning to the study itself, this Introduction briefly considers research into values and priorities.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere is a considerable literature, especially in economics, exploring people\u0026rsquo;s preferences and priorities around different aspects of life. For a start, understanding these are important in constructing indices, where one would want to know what weight to grant various components, such that a component that matters more figures more prominently in the calculation. But even if not constructing an index, but simply a dashboard capturing preferences across dimensions, one would still want to know their relative importance. Various techniques have been developed for assessing these. Economists have historically favoured \u0026ldquo;revealed preference\u0026rdquo; methods\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e8\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e, which look at actual behaviour as evidence of preferences, with such data valued as being relatively immune to the risks inherent in self-report surveys (such as social desirability responding)\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e9\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e. However, there is an increasing openness to \u0026ldquo;stated preference\u0026rdquo; methods, especially if carefully designed\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e10\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e. Most common are questions about people\u0026rsquo;s \u0026ldquo;willingness-to-pay\u0026rdquo; for particular goods and services\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e11\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e. However, stated preference methods can take various forms, including surveys yielding answers \u0026ldquo;in the form of monetary amounts, choices, ratings, or other indications of preference\u0026rdquo;\u003csup\u003e12\u003c/sup\u003e, or likewise in which people simply \u0026ldquo;directly rank/weight the alternative components\u0026rdquo; in some way\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e13\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e. In that respect, one could perhaps regard the seven \u0026ldquo;importance\u0026rdquo; items in the GFS mid-year survey, outlined above, as one such approach.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAmong the most widely researched such surveys\u0026mdash;at least regarding flourishing and wellbeing\u0026mdash;is the OECD\u0026rsquo;s \u0026ldquo;Better Life\u0026rdquo; Index\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e14\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e. This defines wellbeing multidimensionally, involving 11 key domains, and their website (\u003cspan class=\"ExternalRef\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"RefSource\"\u003ewww.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e) asks visitors to \u0026ldquo;Rate the topics according to their importance to you\u0026rdquo; on a 0\u0026ndash;5 scale, as follows: housing; income; jobs; community; education; environment; civic engagement; health; life satisfaction; safety; and work-life balance. The measure has generated an extensive literature, with a Google Scholar search in November 2025 identifying 81 papers with \u0026ldquo;OECD\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;Better Life\u0026rdquo; in the title alone. As one example, an analysis of almost 88,000 website users since 2011 found that health, education, and life satisfaction matter the most in OECD countries\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e15\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e. Moreover, beyond these basic preferences, various interesting nuances were observed, including in relation to sex (e.g., men assign more importance to income than women, while women value community and work-life balance more than men), age (e.g., environment, housing, civic engagement, safety and health become more important with age, whereas life satisfaction, education, work-life balance, jobs and income are particularly important for those under 35), and region (e.g., civic engagement is particularly important in South America, while safety and work-life balance matter greatly in Asia-Pacific nations). Aside from such findings per se, the survey has also generated lively debate about the best way to actually weight the dimensions (in relation to respondents\u0026rsquo; importance scores) when conducting analyses\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e16\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e. Besides the Better Life Index, many other analyses of preferences have been conducted, such as around the UN Development Programme\u0026rsquo;s Human Development Index\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e17\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e, with various analyses and debates around cross-cultural variation in priorities\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e18\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e. Much of the OECD importance ratings concern objective aspects of flourishing, and while subjectively life satisfaction is included, for example, meaning and purpose is not.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMuch of the economic literature focuses on how to weight different aspects of life to provide a value/preference-sensitive assessment of how well life is going. A slightly different, and indeed complementary, approach, embraced particularly in psychology, has been to identify different value profiles to help understand why some people value certain aspects of life more than others. The most influential framework in that regard is Schwartz\u0026rsquo;s\u003csup\u003e19\u003c/sup\u003e work on \u0026ldquo;universals in the content and structure of values,\u0026rdquo; where values are defined as \u0026ldquo;desirable goals, varying in importance, that serve as guiding principles in people\u0026apos;s lives.\u0026rdquo; Based on empirical tests in 20 countries, he identified \u0026ldquo;ten motivationally distinct value types that were likely to be recognized within and across cultures,\u0026rdquo; and found moreover that across societies \u0026ldquo;there is surprising consensus regarding the hierarchical order of the values\u0026rdquo;\u003csup\u003e20\u003c/sup\u003e: benevolence, universalism, self-direction, security, conformity, hedonism, achievement, tradition stimulation, and lastly power. These values were assessed and identified using a survey involving 56 component values (which were then grouped through analyses to create the overarching values), in which people rate the extent to which each is a \u0026ldquo;guiding principle in my life\u0026rdquo; on a nine-point scale (from \u0026ldquo;supreme importance\u0026rdquo; at 7, to \u0026ldquo;not important\u0026rdquo; at 0, and \u0026ldquo;opposed to my values\u0026rdquo; at -1). However, despite the relative consensus in importance observed by Schwartz, some studies have found meaningful cross-cultural variation. A study of 31 European countries, for example, reported conformity, tradition, benevolence, self-direction, and hedonism exerted a positive average influence on subjective wellbeing, while universalism and power exerted a negative average influence\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e21\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e. There were \u0026ldquo;very different and sometimes opposing effects across countries\u0026rdquo; though, including even in relation to value congruency (the fit of personal values with prevailing values in the culture), which was negatively related to wellbeing in some countries but positively in others.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCross-cultural variation in values and priorities is fascinating, but remains understudied, especially from a global comparative perspective. Many analyses of values and preferences focus only on single countries, while those that do take an international approach tend to prioritise societies that Henrich and colleagues\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e22\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e described as relatively WEIRD (i.e., Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, Democratic). Although one cannot simplistically classify places in a binary way as WEIRD versus non-WEIRD\u0026mdash;as each element of the acronym is a spectrum upon which countries may be variously situated\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e23\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e\u0026mdash;most of the world is not \u003cem\u003eas\u003c/em\u003e WEIRD as places like the US and Western Europe, from where most research in prestigious journals has originated, or even, for example, as the OECD countries more broadly (per the various analyses of the Better Life Index). There is a need for more international analyses of values and priorities, especially among places outside the relatively \u0026ldquo;WEIRD\u0026rdquo; category. Hence the value of the GFS, which includes roughly nationally representative samples from 22 countries, many of which could be regarded as relatively non-WEIRD: in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China (including separately both Hong Kong [S.A.R of China] and also the mainland, meaning the GFS has \u003cem\u003e23\u003c/em\u003e distinct populations), Egypt, Germany, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Philippines, Poland, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Tanzania, Turkey, UK, and US. In this study we use Wave 1 \u0026ldquo;mid-year\u0026rdquo; data (N\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;131,487) to explore wellbeing importance ratings along two lines. First, we assess how the distribution of ratings varies across the GFS countries. Second, we evaluate whether ratings vary by seven socio-demographic categories, including: age, gender, marital status, employment status, religious service attendance, education status, and immigration status. Country-specific estimates for sociodemographic variation and candidate predictors analyses were pooled across countries meta-analytically, providing insight into patterns that may be somewhat consistent across countries as well as possible variation across countries.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Methods","content":"\u003cp\u003eThe study design, sampling, and survey development for the GFS are described in detail elsewhere, including overall summaries of the GFS\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan citationid=\"CR24\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e24\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e and its methodology\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan additionalcitationids=\"CR26\" citationid=\"CR25\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e25\u003c/span\u003e\u0026ndash;\u003cspan citationid=\"CR27\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e27\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e, questionnaire design\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan citationid=\"CR28\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e28\u003c/span\u003e,\u003cspan citationid=\"CR29\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e29\u003c/span\u003e,\u003cspan citationid=\"CR30\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e30\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e, translation process\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan citationid=\"CR31\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e31\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e, survey sampling design\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan citationid=\"CR32\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e32\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e, analytic methodology\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan citationid=\"CR33\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e33\u003c/span\u003e,\u003cspan citationid=\"CR34\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e34\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e, codebook\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan citationid=\"CR35\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e35\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e, and statistical analysis code\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan citationid=\"CR36\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e36\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e. The preregistrations for the analyses reported in this study were submitted on March 24, 2025, and are available via \u003cspan class=\"ExternalRef\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"RefSource\"\u003ehttps://osf.io/ab9sk\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan address=\"https://osf.io/ab9sk\" targettype=\"URL\" class=\"RefTarget\"\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec3\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003eStudy Sample\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis study focuses on the subset of the GFS participants (N\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;131,487) who participated in the mid-year retention survey. The full GFS panel includes approximately nationally representative samples from the 22 countries (N\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;207,919). The countries were selected to (1) maximize coverage of the world\u0026rsquo;s population, (2) ensure geographic, cultural, and religious diversity, and (3) prioritize feasibility in Gallup\u0026rsquo;s existing data collection infrastructure. Data for Wave 1, which involved an expansive 109-item questionnaire\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan citationid=\"CR28\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e28\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e, were collected from March 2022 to January 2024, except in mainland China (March/April of 2024). Data for the mid-year retention survey were collected from November of 2023 through December 2024. In China, Hong Kong (S.A.R. of China), Japan, Sweden, and the United States, the mid-year retention survey was administered concurrently with the Wave 2 Annual Survey\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan citationid=\"CR26\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e26\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e. The mid-year retention survey included 14 questions, including the seven items on values that are the focus of our paper, with data from 131,487 participants (the analytic sample for this study).\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eSampling Design\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe panel recruitment design varied by country to ensure the samples from the different countries were approximately nationally representative\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan citationid=\"CR32\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e32\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e. For the mid-year survey, five attempts were made to contact participants who were taking the telephone survey. Participants taking the survey via the web received an initial invitation followed by five reminders to participate in the online survey across all channels through which a respondent had consented to receive communications, including email, SMS, and WhatsApp\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan citationid=\"CR35\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e35\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e. The contact attempts were made on different days of the week and times of day to maximize the possibility of retention. The mid-year retention survey can be used to obtain approximately nationally representative estimates using nonresponse-adjusted sampling weights. These adjusted weights were obtained by post-stratifying the Wave 1 sampling weights using either census data or a reliable secondary source\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan citationid=\"CR35\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e35\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e. All adjustments to weights were performed separately by country.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eMeasures\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003eOutcome variables.\u003c/em\u003e Values were assessed with seven items, all preceded by the following prompt: \u0026ldquo;Now, please think about a ladder with the top of the ladder at ten being \"extremely important\" and the bottom of the ladder at zero being \"not at all important.\" How important are each of the following to you? You can use any number between 0 and 10.\u0026rdquo; The following outcomes were then presented in turn to the respondent: \u0026ldquo;Being happy,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;Being healthy,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;Having a meaningful life,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;Being a good person,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;Having good relationships,\u0026rdquo; \u0026ldquo;Having a good religious or spiritual life,\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;Having plenty of money to have what you want.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003eDemographic Variables\u003c/em\u003e. Continuous age was classified as 18\u0026ndash;24, 25\u0026ndash;29, 30\u0026ndash;39, 40\u0026ndash;49, 50\u0026ndash;59, 60\u0026ndash;69, 70\u0026ndash;79, and 80 or older. Gender was assessed as male, female, or other. Marital status was assessed as single/never married, married, separated, divorced, widowed, and domestic partner. Employment was assessed as employed, self-employed, retired, student, homemaker, unemployed and searching, and other. Service attendance was assessed as more than once/week, once/week, one-to-three times/month, a few times/year, or never. Immigration status was dichotomously assessed with: \u0026ldquo;Were you born in this country, or not?\u0026rdquo; Religious tradition/affiliation with categories of Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Sikhism, Baha\u0026rsquo;i, Jainism, Shinto, Taoism, Confucianism, Primal/Animist/Folk religion, Spiritism, African-Derived, some other religion, or no religion/atheist/agnostic; precise response categories varied by country. Racial/ethnic identity was assessed in some, but not all, countries, with response categories varying by country. For additional details on the assessments see the GFS codebook\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan citationid=\"CR35\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e35\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e or Crabtree et al.\u003csup\u003e29\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eAnalysis\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDescriptive statistics for the analytic sample, weighted to be approximately nationally representative within each country, were estimated for each demographic variable.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cb\u003eOverall distribution of values.\u003c/b\u003e The mean value ratings were estimated separately for each country and ordered from highest to lowest along with 95% confidence intervals, and robust standard errors. Overall estimated value ratings for each variable were obtained using random-effects meta-analyses to pool the country-specific value ratings.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cb\u003eDemographic variation in values.\u003c/b\u003e Variation in the average value ratings across demographic categories were estimated, with all analyses initially conducted by country (as featured in the Online Supplement, for which details are provided below). Country-specific value ratings within each specific socio-demographic category were pooled using random-effects meta-analyses to obtain an overall estimated value rating. Additionally calculated, and provided in the Online Supplement\u0026mdash;though not the main Results section here due to lack of space\u0026mdash;were 95% confidence intervals, standard errors, upper and lower limits of a prediction interval across countries, heterogeneity (τ), and I\u003csup\u003e2\u003c/sup\u003e where appropriate for a given outcome/analysis for evidence concerning variation within a particular estimate across countries\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan citationid=\"CR42\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e42\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e. Meta-analysis was employed over hierarchical modelling so as not to presume measurement invariance. Within each country, a global test of variation of average value rating across levels of each particular demographic variable was conducted, and a pooled p-value across countries reported concerning evidence for variation within any country \u003csup\u003e\u003cspan citationid=\"CR37\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e37\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e. Bonferroni corrected p-value thresholds are provided based on the number of demographic variables \u003csup\u003e\u003cspan citationid=\"CR38\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e38\u003c/span\u003e,\u003cspan citationid=\"CR39\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e39\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e. Religious affiliation/tradition and race/ethnicity were used, when available, and presented in the Online Supplement but were not meta-analysed since the availability of these response categories varied significantly by country. Forest plots of estimates are available in the Supplementary files. All meta-analyses were conducted in R\u003csup\u003e40\u003c/sup\u003e using the metafor package\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan citationid=\"CR41\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e41\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eMissing Data\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAll missing variables are imputed using multivariate imputation by chained equations, with five imputed datasets generated\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan citationid=\"CR42\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e42\u003c/span\u003e,\u003cspan citationid=\"CR43\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e43\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e. To account for variation in the assessment of certain variables across countries (e.g., religious affiliation/tradition and race/ethnicity), the imputation process was conducted separately in each country. This within-country imputation approach ensured that the imputation models accurately reflected country-specific contexts and assessment methods. Sampling weights were included in the imputation model to account for specific-variable missingness that may have been related to probability of inclusion in the study.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec8\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003eAccounting for Complex Sampling Design\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe GFS used different sampling schemes across countries based on availability of existing panels and recruitment needs\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan citationid=\"CR25\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e25\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e. All analyses accounted for the complex survey design components by including weights, primary sampling units, and strata. The use of mid-year retention survey data to estimate approximately nationally representative statistics assumes that the subsample of retained observations from Wave 1 in the mid-year sample can be projected to be nationally representative after post-stratification adjustments to weights. Additional methodological detail, including accounting for the complex sampling design is provided elsewhere\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan citationid=\"CR32\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e32\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eData Availability\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eData for the Global Flourishing Study are available through the Center for Open Science (\u003cspan class=\"ExternalRef\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"RefSource\"\u003ehttps://www.cos.io/gfs-access-data\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan address=\"https://www.cos.io/gfs-access-data\" targettype=\"URL\" class=\"RefTarget\"\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eEthics Approval\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eEthical approval\u003c/strong\u003e \u003cp\u003e was granted by the institutional review boards at Baylor University (IRB Reference #: 1841317) and Gallup (IRB Reference #: 2021-11-02). Gallup is a multi-national corporation, and its IRB covers all countries included in the GFS. The research conformed to the principles of the Helsinki Declaration.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eInformed Consent\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eInformed consent was obtained following ethical approval, during the respondent recruitment stage of fieldwork, and was obtained at the start of the survey data collection, which spanned March 2022 to January 2024, except in mainland China (March/April of 2024), and with exact dates varying by country. The exact wording varies across countries depending on the local laws and regulations governing data protection. Subsequent surveys include a consent statement that reminds respondents that participation in the survey is optional and their personal information will not be shared by anyone outside of Gallup.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAuthor Contributions\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eT.J.V. and B.R.J. led the overall study of which this paper reports a subset of results. T.L. conceptualized, designed, and planned the paper, in collaboration with all authors. C.F. and R.N.P. analyzed the data and prepared the tables. T.L. wrote the first draft and subsequent revisions. All authors provided feedback of the various drafts of the manuscript, helped edit and refine the text, and reviewed the final version.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003ch2\u003eFunding\u003c/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe GFS was supported by funding from the John Templeton Foundation (grant #61665), Templeton Religion Trust (#1308), Templeton World Charity Foundation (#0605), Well-Being for Planet Earth Foundation, Fetzer Institute (#4354), Well Being Trust, Paul L. Foster Family Foundation, and the David and Carol Myers Foundation. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of these organizations.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Results","content":"\u003cp\u003eThere are 10 main tables. As described below in further detail, Table\u0026nbsp;1 provides a summary of the sample, Table\u0026nbsp;2 is a descriptive analysis of the mean importance ranking in each country for each value, Table\u0026nbsp;3 provides a meta-analytic summary of the demographic relations with each of the seven values across all countries, and Tables\u0026nbsp;4–10 each consider a single value and report demographic relations with that value’s importance rating across all countries.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the Online Supplement, these 10 tables are augmented by 191 separate tables to give more cross-cultural nuance across the 23 locations. The reason for so many supplementary tables is that, compared to most other papers reporting GFS findings, the present paper is essentially combining seven papers (one for each value) into one. Most other Wave 1 papers focus on a single item, such as “balance in life,” and separately analyse its socio-demographic factors\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e44\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e and childhood predictors\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e45\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e. Here by contrast we are analysing \u003cem\u003eseven\u003c/em\u003e items, since they are intrinsically connected and it makes more sense to consider them all together rather than separately. The supplementary tables thus begin with seven tables, one for each item, reporting the mean rating by socio-demographic category: S1a (“being a good person”); S2a (“good relationships”); S3a (“happiness”); S4a (“health”); S5a (“meaning”); S6a (“money”); S7a (“religion/spirituality”). Then, Tables\u0026nbsp;2–24 present the data separately for each of the 23 places, presenting each in turn, with eight tables per country (a-h), beginning with a demographic summary for the country (“a”), and then versions of the seven general tables for that country (“b-h”).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn terms of our main tables, Table\u0026nbsp;1 begins by showing the summary statistics for the seven main socio-demographic categories explored in our analyses: age / age cohort; sex (“gender”); marital status; employment; religious service attendance; education; and immigration status. Table\u0026nbsp;1 also provides statistics for religious affiliation and country (which are not featured in the other analyses). The summary statistics are also available for each country separately in the Supplementary files (Tables S2a, S9b, S10a, etc. … S24a).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e[Table\u0026nbsp;1 here]\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTable\u0026nbsp;2 shows the mean overall ratings for the seven values for each location, as well as across the GFS as a whole (in the bottom row), and also the average value rating in each country (in the right-most column). In terms of the GFS as a whole, “being a good person” was rated as most important (8.9), followed closely by “being healthy” (8.8),“having good relationships” (8.7), and “being happy” and “having a meaningful life” (both 8.5), then slightly lower “having plenty of money to do what you want” (8.0) and lastly “having a religious or spiritual life” (7.0). However, as one can see, there are myriad country-level nuances—such as health being the top ranked value in seven countries (China, Germany, Israel, Japan, Nigeria, Poland, and South Africa) and religion/spirituality in three (Kenya, Nigeria, and Tanzania)—as we consider in the Discussion.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e[Table\u0026nbsp;2 here]\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTable\u0026nbsp;3 shows the mean overall ratings for the seven values, except rather than differentiated by country (per Table\u0026nbsp;2), it is in terms of the seven socio-demographic factors. Some of the most striking general trends include that females had higher ratings than males on all variables, people with more education gave higher ratings on all values except religion, and all ratings generally increased with age (albeit only marginally) except for happiness and money, and those attending religious service more than weekly give higher rating on all values except money. We will consider further details and interpretation of the results in the Discussion. Statistical details for all these means (e.g., CI) are available in the Supplementary files, separated by item, including across the GFS as a whole (Table \u003cspan class=\"InternalRef\"\u003eS1\u003c/span\u003ea [good person], S1b [good relationships], S1c [happiness], S1d [health], S1e [meaning], S1f [money], and S1g [religion/spirituality]), and separated by country (as, following the demographic summary [Table a], Tables b [good person], c [good relationships], d [happiness], e [health], f [meaning], g [money], and h [religion/spirituality], e.g., with Argentina being S2a, S2b, S2c, S2d, S2e, S2f, S2g, and S2h).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e[Table\u0026nbsp;3 here]\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFinally, Tables\u0026nbsp;4–10 essentially combine consideration of country-level differences (per Table\u0026nbsp;2) and socio-demographic differences (per Table\u0026nbsp;3), showing the socio-demographic variation across all countries. Given the vast amount of relevant data, these findings are presented in separate tables for each value, beginning here in Table\u0026nbsp;4 with being a “good person,” followed by relationships (Table\u0026nbsp;5), happiness (6), health (7), meaning (8), money (9), and religion (10). Overall, across the GFS as a whole, the highest ratings for being a good person were among those who are: older (i.e., aged over 60); female; married, divorced, or widowed; retired; attend religious services frequently (especially more than once a week); more educated (especially over 16 years); and born in a different country to the one in which they now live. However, within these general trends there was considerable country-specific variation; indeed, there is such a wealth of data in these main tables (which are in themselves a condensed summary of the country-specific tables in the Supplementary files) that we cannot begin to offer even a cursory summary, let alone a comprehensive one. By way of illustration though, let us just highlight some country-specific exceptions to the third general trend noted above in relation to Table\u0026nbsp;3, namely that all ratings increased with age except for happiness and money. While many places did have a \u003cem\u003egeneral\u003c/em\u003e upward progression, there was considerable variation in terms of which age group(s) actually had the highest ratings—with sometimes this distinction held jointly by more than one group. We encourage readers to study the Table to see further such nuances along these lines.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e[Table\u0026nbsp;4 here]\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTable\u0026nbsp;5 combines the country-level differences and socio-demographic differences for good relationships. Across the GFS as a whole, the highest ratings for relationships were among those who are: older (especially aged over 70); female; widowed; retired; attend religious services frequently (especially more than once a week); and more educated (from nine years upwards); with immigration status making no difference. Given the great amounts of detail contained, it will again suffice to just note the country-specific exceptions to the third general trend of all ratings increasing with age except for happiness and money, while many places again had a \u003cem\u003egeneral\u003c/em\u003e upward progression, a \u003cem\u003estrict\u003c/em\u003e linear progression was only observed in Argentina and Japan, with ratings falling for the very oldest group in nine places (by as much as 1.8 in China), while some countries had quite different patterns (e.g., there was a consistent \u003cem\u003edownward\u003c/em\u003e trend in Israel); moreover, the over-80s only actually had the highest ratings in 12 places, with considerable variation elsewhere in which age group had the highest ratings.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e[Table\u0026nbsp;5 here]\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTable\u0026nbsp;6 combines the country-level differences and socio-demographic differences for happiness. Across the GFS as a whole, the highest ratings for happiness were among those who are: younger (especially under 29); female; married or divorced; a student; attend religious services frequently (especially more than once a week); more educated (especially over 16 years); and born in a different country to the one in which they now live. Let us again also briefly note the that amidst the general trend of all ratings increasing with age except for happiness and money—meaning that ratings for happiness overall slightly \u003cem\u003edecreased\u003c/em\u003e with age (albeit only from 8.6 to 8.5)—here was considerable variation, and the highest ratings were in fact only among those 18–24 in seven places, with considerable variation elsewhere in which age group had the highest ratings.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e[Table\u0026nbsp;6 here]\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTable\u0026nbsp;7 combines the country-level differences and socio-demographic differences for health. Across the GFS as a whole, the highest ratings for health were among those who are: older (especially over 80); female; divorced; retired, self-employed, or a student; attend religious services (especially either a few times a year or more than once a week); more educated (especially over 16 years); and born in a different country to the one in which they now live. Let us again briefly note the country-specific exceptions to the general trend of all ratings increasing with age except for happiness and money, where we should note that for health the values were in fact equal for most groups (8.8), only rising marginally for those aged 80+ (to 8.9), and indeed only nine places had the highest ratings among those aged 80+, with considerable variation elsewhere in which age group had the highest ratings.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e[Table\u0026nbsp;7 here]\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTable\u0026nbsp;8 combines the country-level differences and socio-demographic differences for meaning. Across the GFS as a whole, the highest ratings for meaning were among those who are: either aged 25–29 or over 80; female; divorced; self-employed; attend religious services frequently (especially more than once a week); more educated (especially over 16 years); and born in a different country to the one in which they now live. Again noting the country-specific exceptions to the three general trend of all ratings increasing with age except for happiness and money, we should first note that for meaning the values were in fact equal for most groups (8.4), only rising marginally for those aged 80+—and indeed only nine places had the highest ratings among those aged 80+— but also those 25–29 (to 8.5), with considerable variation elsewhere in which age group had the highest ratings.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e[Table\u0026nbsp;8 here]\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTable\u0026nbsp;9 combines the country-level differences and socio-demographic differences for money. Across the GFS as a whole, the highest ratings for money were among those who are: younger (especially 18–24); female; single and never married; a student; attend religious services just somewhat frequently (either a few times a year or 1–3 times a month); and more educated (especially over 16 years); while immigration status made no difference. Again just noting he country-specific exceptions to the general trend of all ratings increasing with age except for happiness and money—meaning that ratings for money overall slightly \u003cem\u003edecreased\u003c/em\u003e with age—the highest ratings were in fact only among those aged 18–24 in eight places, with considerable variation elsewhere in which age group had the highest ratings.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e[Table\u0026nbsp;9 here]\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFinally, Table\u0026nbsp;10 combines the country-level differences and socio-demographic differences for religion. Across the GFS as a whole, the highest ratings for religion/spirituality were among those who are: older (especially over 80); female; widowed; a homemaker; attend religious services (especially more than once a week); and less educated (especially under 8 years); while immigration status made no difference. Finally, one again noting the country-specific exceptions to the general trend of all ratings increasing with age except for happiness and money, here the pattern was actually quite consistent, with the highest ratings among those aged 80 + in 15 countries, but then with still seven countries in which a different group had the highest ratings.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e[Table\u0026nbsp;10 here]\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Discussion","content":"\u003cp\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eKey Findings\u003c/strong\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThere are four headline findings: (1) some degree of universality; (2) the importance of good character; (3) socio-demographic variation; and (4) cross-cultural variation. In this first section we briefly address each of these, before the second section considers them in relation to each of the main items.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFirstly then, at least five of these seven items were, across countries, rated as highly important (e.g. ≥8.5, even if “highly” is a somewhat subjective appraisal), led by being a good person (a pooled mean rating of 8.9 across the GFS countries), followed closely by health (8.8), relationships (8.7), and happiness and meaning (8.5), with money (7.6) and religion/spirituality (7.0) slightly behind. That these are all widely appreciated across disparate societies runs counter to relativistic narratives that people’s priorities are highly contingent on their cultural context, and lends credence to arguments for a common human nature where these are broadly shared. At least, the data provide fairly strong empirical support for VanderWeele’s (2017) claim that these five aspects of flourishing (happiness, health, meaning, character, and relationships) are nearly universally valued across people, cultures, and contexts. One might even suggest the data support the idea of relatively universal human priorities or “valuations”\u003csup\u003e46\u003c/sup\u003e—a notion both extensively argued for and against over the decades. On the supportive side, various theorists have proposed taxonomies in this arena they believe hold true across cultures, from Maslow\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e47\u003c/span\u003e,\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e48\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e to Schwartz\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e19\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e, with a strong body of supporting empirical evidence\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e49\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e. On the other hand, some scholars—such as in cultural anthropology, or psychologists who identify as culturalist or indigenous\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e50\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e—might reject such universals, taking a relativistic stance. Relatedly, it has been argued that people in the West are somehow unusual, as per Henrich’s book “The WEIRDest people in the world: How the West became psychologically peculiar and particularly prosperous”\u003csup\u003e51\u003c/sup\u003e (though Henrich’s argument is more concerned with personality and cognition and doesn't have much to do with the outcomes here). However, our data would suggest they may not actually be that “weird,” and the idea of universals has some merit.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThat said, Berry et al. caution against creating a false dichotomy between relativist and universalist positions; they identify four perspectives in cross-cultural scholarship—extreme relativism, moderate relativism, moderate universalism, and extreme universalism—and suggest most scholars tend towards moderate stances\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e52\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e. Our findings perhaps point towards moderate universalism, suggesting there are broad universals, but those are not completely inevitable or ubiquitous, and there is at least some cross-cultural variation. Moreover, one must acknowledge that the items here are quite generic, making it easier to find broad agreement, and were more detail sought about specifics then perhaps more meaningful relativistic variation would have been observed. While there was considerable agreement for instance in the importance of being a good person, one might perhaps anticipate more disagreement if we sought to ascertain precisely what kind of qualities people thought such goodness involved or required. Applying a moderate universalism lens also allows one to recognize that there may be multiple valid taxonomies for approaching flourishing. While the domains in this study derive from VanderWeele’s (2017) framework, this is not necessarily an exhaustive taxonomy. On a related point, arguments towards universality are not undercut by the fact that the various universalist frameworks \u003cem\u003ediffer\u003c/em\u003e. There are myriad ways of carving up the conceptual territory, and it is not necessarily that one among Maslow, Schwarz, VanderWeele, etc. is right and the rest wrong; all can be valid but partial, capturing some truths yet not comprehensively exhausting the terrain nor providing the only correct conceptual delineation.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA second related headline concerns the top-ranked values themselves; contrary to more materialistic perspectives that might suppose people would prioritise money, this was relatively de-prioritized. That said, as a methodological caveat, we must be sensitive to the fact that the question framing is not entirely standardized across the items, and abstraction isn't balanced, which is a limitation we return to in the Conclusion. In that regard, the money item is the only one that references an instrumental use of “to do what you want...,” and moreover uses “want” rather than for example “to meet my basic needs,” which is a struggle for many people around the world, and which more people might potentially endorse relative to the “want” language. Nevertheless, linguistic caveats about the money item aside, it was still striking to see issues of character and morality take first place, even above—albeit only slightly—that of health. It has been suggested by some critics of the GFS and VanderWeele’s framework that their emphasis on character and virtue has a somewhat “Christian, EuroAmerican” flavour\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e53\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e, but the data here point to the universal importance of these qualities. Relatedly, there is perhaps some alignment here with Schwartz’s observation that across societies “there is surprising consensus regarding the hierarchical order of the values”\u003csup\u003e20\u003c/sup\u003e, with the first two being benevolence then universalism. While these are not identical to “being a good person,” there is perhaps enough conceptual overlap to suggest that our findings are along the same lines as Schwartz’s.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHowever, the other two headlines are that there was nevertheless meaningful variation. Thirdly then, this includes socio-demographic variation. With age, for example, while the importance of most values tends to be higher at older ages, the reverse is true of happiness and money, especially the latter: comparing 18–24 and 80 + age groups, while happiness matters slightly more to the young (8.6 versus 8.5), the gap for money is rather wider (7.8 versus 7.2). More broadly, some trends for certain groups were quite consistent across the items; this is not about having different priorities, but seemingly assigning higher importance to values \u003cem\u003egenerally\u003c/em\u003e. This applies especially to sex/gender, with females having higher ratings than males on \u003cem\u003eall\u003c/em\u003e values (with the biggest gap for religion/spirituality), although this does not hold across all \u003cem\u003ecountries\u003c/em\u003e (as noted in the commentary in the Results section). This result may merit more attention and further investigation: while there is work on sex/gender differences around values, this usually focuses on differing priorities (e.g., women placing greater emphasis on benevolence and men on power\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e54\u003c/span\u003e,\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e55\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e), and there does not seem to be much on women caring more in general (except for example when using “caring” in a caregiving sense\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e56\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e). Other categories also saw generally higher ratings from certain groups, though also evidence, per prior literature, of variation in priorities. More education was associated with higher ratings on nearly all values, except for religion/spirituality, in which the reverse was the case (which aligns with research suggesting less educated respondents attribute more importance to security, tradition, and conformity values\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e57\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e), although again this is not true in all countries. Religious attendance was also a factor, with the lowest ratings across items consistently—although not in all countries—being among those who never attend and the highest consistently among those who attend the most (except for money, in which this pattern was reversed); this would seem to corroborate research that religious commitment seems to turn up the “dial” on whatever beliefs and values people hold\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e58\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOur fourth headline finding concerned \u003cem\u003ecultural\u003c/em\u003e variation. First, as with certain socio-demographic groups, countries differed in the extent to which they assign importance to the values generally, from Indonesia at the top (with a mean of 9.2 across all seven items) to Japan and Sweden at the bottom (7.1). We must of course be wary of cultural stereotypes and also the interpretive challenges in assuming the items function the same way across cultures. However, the generally low ratings found in Japan, for example, may reflect notions that Japanese culture leans towards being self-effacing and downplaying any positive self-reporting\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e59\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e (with Japan in fact ranking last on many variables in the GFS\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e24\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e). However, similar phenomena are perhaps less likely at play in Sweden which had much higher rankings on many GFS well-being variables \u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e24\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e, but not on importance ratings. There was also variation in the placement and prioritization of values themselves. While being a good person was (marginally) first overall, this was only the case in 14 countries, with these also differing in degree of elevation. It mattered most in Spain, not because Spain had the highest mean (which was Argentina and Brazil, at 9.5), but because Spain had the biggest gap (0.4) between the mean for this item (9.2) and all other items (with relationships and happiness second at 8.8), followed by a three-tenth’s point gap in Australia, Argentina, Brazil, UK, and US, two-tenth’s in Hong Kong, India, Mexico, and Philippines, one-tenth in Egypt, Sweden, Turkey, and equal in Indonesia. Five places then ranked health as their top value instead (China, Germany, Israel, Japan, Poland, South Africa), while health and religion were joint top in Kenya and Nigeria, and religion alone first in Tanzania. We further consider such variation in the next section, briefly reviewing each value to see how the headline findings play out in each case.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cstrong\u003eValue Dynamics\u003c/strong\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe top-ranked value overall was being a good person. Although at 8.9 this was only slightly ahead of health (8.8) and relationships (8.7), and was also not first in nine countries, its pre-eminence, however marginal, was nevertheless notable and moreover encouraging. While one can find claims that humans are inherently selfish and individualistic\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e60\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e, our results align with Schwartz\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e20\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e—who, as noted, reported the top-ranked values in his schema were benevolence and universalism—in suggesting people tend to prioritize issues of morality and character. Whether they succeed in actually \u003cem\u003ebeing\u003c/em\u003e a good person is another matter, especially since moral sentiments don’t always translate into moral actions\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e61\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e. One must also reckon with the possibility of social desirability shaping people’s responses, which pertains to all self-report research but may be especially pertinent with items pertaining to character and ethics\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e62\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e. But against these more cynical readings, however, is the genuine possibility that people really do want to be good, even if they struggle in practice\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e63\u003c/span\u003e,\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e64\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e. It is also intriguing to note, per the third and fourth headline findings, socio-economic and cultural variation around this value. Some variation has already been alluded to above, since it applies across most values; as with others, being good matters more to people who are female, older, more educated, and attend religious services. Other variation is more specific; while being good was either ranked first or second in 20 countries, for example, it was fourth in Poland and South Africa (albeit only marginally), and fifth in Japan (at just 6.8, notably lower than health at 8.0). Besides showing generically that value priorities do vary somewhat by country, further research would be useful in exploring the significance of this value placing somewhat lower in these countries. Is there any connection, for example, between Japan’s notably low scores on flourishing and its relative downplaying of this value? From a critical methodological perspective though, one also wonders whether the Japanese translation of “good person” may somehow not quite capture moral sensibilities that generally apply in that particular country, as we reflect on further in the Conclusion.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn second place on importance ratings overall was health, and indeed it was top in seven countries. Its importance is widely recognized, with Maslow, for instance, placing physiological needs—which is essentially synonymous with health—as a foundational layer of his hierarchy, on which all other layers ultimately depend\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e65\u003c/span\u003e,\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e66\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e. Can we also learn something about the factors that drive people to value health by considering the seven countries in which it was ranked top? Might health be prioritized more in places where it is relatively lacking, for example, since people often place greater emphasis on goods they \u003cem\u003edon’t\u003c/em\u003e have (while taking for granted ones they do)\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e68\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e. The picture is more complex, though; if GFS countries are ranked on life expectancy\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e69\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e, while South Africa, Kenya, and lastly Nigeria are bottom, the others who rated health at the top do quite well on life expectancy, especially Japan (2nd ), followed by Israel (5th ), Germany (8th ), Poland (9th ), and China (11th ). Nor is it easy to discern any obvious cultural grouping, with these countries dispersed across the continents, and all with their own unique societal dynamics (e.g., vis-à-vis healthcare systems). Once again, while health may be universally valued, more work will be needed to explore why certain populations place it at a \u003cem\u003eparticular\u003c/em\u003e premium (such as Japan, with a rating of 8.0 versus 6.8 for being a good person). More work will also be needed to understand the impact of socio-demographic factors. As such, besides the recurring general patterns noted above (e.g., higher ratings for people who are female, older, more educated, and attend religious services), it is hard to draw firm conclusions about the kind of background or circumstances that would lead to prioritization of health.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRanked third overall in importance rating is good relationships, the significance of which is recognized in most value frameworks, such as Maslow’s emphasis on love and belonging. Relatedly, empirical analyses of the factors that support wellbeing invariably place relationships as among the most impactful and necessary\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e70\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e. It is worth emphasizing the relative \u003cem\u003euniversality\u003c/em\u003e of relationships being deemed important. There is a well-worn claim, for example, first brought to widespread attention by Hofstede\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e71\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e, Triandis\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e72\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e, and others\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e73\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e, that Western cultures tend to be comparatively individualistic, whereas those in the East are more collectivistic, as now explored and to some extent corroborated in hundreds of studies\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e74\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e. Yet scholars increasingly acknowledge the picture may be more complex, with research in the Gallup World Poll for instance suggesting Western cultures may be less individualistic than they are often assumed to be\u003csup\u003e75\u003c/sup\u003e. While we note that individualism is not actually at odds with valuing relationships, it was nevertheless notable that prototypically Western countries were generally in line with the GFS as a whole in highly valuing relationships, with means for this item in both the UK and US ranking second (meaning they actually valued it higher in relative terms than non-Western countries such as China, Egypt, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Nigeria, and Turkey, where it was ranked third). Nuances aside, the overall trend is towards relationships being universally valued. Some evidence for this universality is perhaps also indicated by the lack of any clear pattern regarding this value in for many of the socio-demographic factors (other than the recurrent trends, noted repeatedly above, of higher ratings for people who are female, older, more educated, and attend religious services). That these disparate experiences do not seem to impact the importance of relationships perhaps points to the ubiquity and tenacity of this value.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePlacing joint fourth overall in importance was happiness, whose universal appeal was also notable. We noted above that the narrative of the West as particularly individualistic may not be accurate, and, with happiness, a reverse stereotype may also need overturning. It has been argued that a focus on happiness may be a particularly Western concern, as per critical responses to the emergence of positive psychology\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e76\u003c/span\u003e,\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e77\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e, with articles like “Dreaming the American dream: Individualism and positive psychology”\u003csup\u003e78\u003c/sup\u003e, which suggested its “American roots are evident” in features like its “endorsement of self-fulfillment as the ultimate life goal.” While such critiques may have some merit, happiness does appear to be universally valued. Moreover, to the extent there \u003cem\u003eis\u003c/em\u003e cultural variation in its prioritization, prototypically Western countries in fact seem to value it slightly \u003cem\u003eless\u003c/em\u003e in relative terms, since it is ranked second in Israel, Japan, Poland, South Africa, and Spain, third in Argentina, Mexico, and India, fourth in Germany, Philippines, Sweden, and UK, fifth in Australia, Brazil, Egypt, Hong Kong, Nigeria, Tanzania, Turkey, and US, sixth in China and Indonesia, and last in Kenya. Further research into why this variation exists will be valuable, but even as it stands one can see that places like the UK and US in fact somewhat downplay the importance of happiness relative to many other countries, and so the charge that prioritization of happiness is a particularly Western concern seems undermined.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAlso ranked joint-fourth in overall importance is meaning. Its parity with happiness is intriguing, and helps shed further light on another debate in fields like psychology, namely the distinction between “hedonic” and “eudaimonic” wellbeing. Although happiness is a contested construct, it is often interpreted through a hedonic lens, encompassing outcomes such as positive affect\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e79\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e. Then, in contrast, academia has embraced the classical Greek notion of eudaimonia, celebrated by Aristotle as the “activity of the soul in accordance with virtue,” and is viewed by some as qualitatively better than crude pleasures\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e80\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e. Such ideas are captured in Ryff’s model of “psychological wellbeing”\u003csup\u003e81\u003c/sup\u003e, for example, which has six dimensions but with meaning/purpose in life and personal growth usually given priority as being closest to the spirit of eudaimonia\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e82\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e (although Ryff's framework includes no references to “virtue,” which probably disqualifies it from being authentically Aristotelian). However, scholars have also critiqued the hedonic-eudaimonic binary, with some suggesting there is “little evidence of discriminant validity”\u003csup\u003e83\u003c/sup\u003e, with the parity between happiness and meaning in our data perhaps lending credence to this critique. That said, although happiness and meaning were comparable in importance when averaged across the GFS countries, when looking instead at specific countries, this parity was actually only observed in Egypt, with a 0.1 difference in 11 places (Brazil, Germany, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Philippines, Tanzania, and US), 0.2 in five (Hong Kong, South Africa, Sweden, Turkey, UK), 0.3 in two (Australia, India), 0.4 in two (Argentina, Spain), and fully 1.1 in Poland (with happiness at 8.9 versus meaning at 7.8). Thus, while there may be close affinities between the two values, one must still be aware of some cross-cultural variation in that regard.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe penultimate value is money, which while still important is rather less so overall than those above, being separated by 0.9 points from meaning and happiness in joint fourth (at 8.5 versus 7.6). Here though we must immediately emphasize the country-level variation, which was relatively stark, from 5.7 in Sweden to 8.8 in Indonesia. Moreover, money generally seems more important in the poorer countries; if one ranks GFS countries on (a) GDP-per-capita, and (b) the importance of money, one finds a strong inverse correlation of -0.52. Above we raised the idea that health might be prioritized more in places where it is relatively lacking, but found the data did not support such an interpretation. With money though, such an explanation \u003cem\u003edoes\u003c/em\u003e seem applicable. There is a massive literature on the relationship between money and wellbeing, including a complex debate on whether the former can buy the latter\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e84\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e. While the question is not conclusively settled, one might venture that probably most scholars agree that, if people are poor, wealth increases really can improve wellbeing, above all for the simple reason that it allows people to better meet their basic needs. After these are met however, increases do not \u003cem\u003enecessarily\u003c/em\u003e substantially improve wellbeing—as per well-documented concepts like income satiation\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e85\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e—and the relationship becomes weaker and more complicated\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e86\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e. In light of our data, one wonders whether people have an intuitive sense of these dynamics? Might those in poorer places rate money as more important, not just because they are relatively lacking in it, but also perhaps are more aware of the positive impact having more would have on their lives? Conversely, is it possible that many people in richer countries tend to deprioritize money, not only because this need is relatively satiated, but because now most have a sense that simply acquiring more will not necessarily improve their wellbeing? We should also note though that the item did not ask about having “enough money,” but having “plenty of money to have what you want,” so the implication is not merely need satiation but freedom to satisfy wants and desires too. Either way, these possibilities merit further investigation. As do the socio-demographic factors, which were also intriguing, especially in that some variables one might most expect to affect this value appeared not to, including present employment status (with the same rating for unemployed and employed people), which perhaps suggests that the extent to which people value money doesn’t depend closely on the amount of money they actually have (aligning with studies that show value orientations like materialism have a relatively strong trait-like personality component\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e87\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFinally, mean for the religion/spirituality item was lowest of the seven items, though this also had the greatest national variation, from 9.3 for Egypt, Indonesia, and Tanzania, to merely 2.4 for Sweden. Such variation is one reason religion/spirituality is not part of VanderWeele’s framework, since while there is broad consensus that its six domains are “at least a part of what we mean by flourishing”—as corroborated above—this is not so with religion/spirituality. Significant numbers of people would \u003cem\u003enot\u003c/em\u003e regard it as important, not only in Sweden, but other mostly secular Western countries that also rate it as less important, including Germany (4.0), UK (4.4), Australia, and Spain (both 4.8). Some might counter that religion/spirituality \u003cem\u003eis\u003c/em\u003e a vital aspect of flourishing, and that secular people are in some way fundamentally missing what is most important\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e6\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e, while conversely, critics of religion/spirituality might point to the harms it can sometimes bring\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e88\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e or suggest that people can find its benefits (e.g., meaning and community) in secular ways, and argue that this is what has indeed happened in Northern Europe\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e89\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e. While it is beyond our scope to resolve these debates, the data certainly align with well-established metrics on religiosity in various countries. Countries here that placed the highest importance on religion are not only officially nearly 100% religious\u003csup\u003e90\u003c/sup\u003e, but, in a recent survey by Pew for example, 100% of Indonesians said religion is “important” to them (with Kenya at 97%, Nigeria and Philippines at 96%, India at 95%, Brazil at 89%, and South Africa and Turkey at 88%). By contrast, religion was only important to 44% in the UK, 40% in Spain, 36% in Germany, 31% in Australia, 29% in Japan, and lastly just 20% in Sweden\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e91\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e. Besides the national variation, there are myriad notable socio-demographic patterns, as already highlighted above, such as higher ratings among people who are female (which applied to all values, but the gap was largest for this one) and of lower education (in contrast to all other values, which had higher ratings from those with more education). All these dynamics merit more research attention going forward.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Conclusion","content":"\u003cp\u003eLet us conclude my summarizing the results through the prism of their policy implications, of which there are at least three. First, we should anchor human flourishing policy in shared human priorities, while allowing for local nuance. Our results indicate strong cross-cultural convergence on certain values—particularly good character, health, relationships, happiness, and meaning—suggesting these can serve as a common foundation for policy frameworks. Policymakers can use this convergence to justify adopting multidimensional wellbeing indices for international comparison and collaboration. However, cultural variation—for example, the relatively higher salience of religion in some countries or health in others—shows that implementation should remain flexible. At a national level, wellbeing measurement systems and programmatic priorities should be tailored to local value hierarchies to maximize public legitimacy and relevance, rather than imposing one-size-fits-all solutions.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSecond, we should integrate socio-demographic variation into program design. Evidence that women, older adults, and more religiously active individuals consistently rate all values more highly—and that younger adults prioritize money and happiness relatively more—implies that homogenous interventions will have uneven resonance. Policy design should therefore segment target groups based not only on socioeconomic status but also on demographic patterns in value priorities. For instance, health-promotion programs may find stronger uptake among older populations, while financial literacy and early-career support initiatives may better align with younger adults’ stated priorities. Embedding such segmentation into national wellbeing strategies could improve engagement and outcomes across diverse groups.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThird, we should recognize material needs as a constraint on value fulfilment. The inverse relationship between GDP-per-capita and the importance placed on money suggests that financial security enables people to prioritize non-material domains of flourishing. In lower-income contexts, policies that improve economic stability—through job creation, social safety nets, and affordable access to basic goods—are likely to have spillover effects on other wellbeing domains by freeing cognitive and emotional resources. Conversely, in wealthier settings where money is deprioritized, policy attention may more effectively focus on “post-materialist” goals such as social connection, civic engagement, and meaning-making. This sequencing—meeting basic economic needs first, then investing in higher-order aspects of flourishing—can inform domestic social policy and the design of international development aid. That said, it is also notable that poorer countries actually tend to have higher ratings on meaning, character, and relationships than the richer ones, and so it does not appear to be the case that people in the latter have been enabled by their freedom from want to pursue or prioritize meaning or friendship in a way that eludes those in poorer places – seemingly quite the reverse, in fact! This point does not necessarily undermine the other points above, such as meeting basic economic needs being an important investment in potentially enhancing higher-order values as well. But once these needs \u003cem\u003ehave\u003c/em\u003e been met, people may still need encouragement or assistance in some way to prioritize these other domains of flourishing (e.g., rather than continuing to seek greater wealth). The achieving of the material needs in more disadvantaged contexts, may in fact require relationships and provide meaning complicating the dynamics further.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThere are, of course, limitations to the study. There is first a general caveat around the mid-year retention survey data relating to attrition and weighting procedures. The use of Wave 1 and mid-year retention survey data to estimate approximately nationally representative statistics assumes that the subsample of retained observations from Wave 1 in the mid-year sample can be projected to be nationally representative after post-stratification adjustments to weights with similar quality as the full Wave 1 sample. Additionally, the analyses assume stability in the population between the Wave 1 and mid-year survey data collection so that the used population targets are still nationally representative, which may not hold exactly. Another methodological limitation is the potential for order effects, with the order of presentation constant across countries. Even if this was an issue here though, we cannot tell the \u003cem\u003edirection\u003c/em\u003e the influence may have operated (e.g., whether asking about value A before value B nudges people to either give a higher or lower rating for value B). Nevertheless, exploring order effects, including perhaps randomising the order of the items for different participants, would be a useful exercise in future research. A third issue is that although the seven items had a common stem, we caution against assuming that items are fully equivalent both within and across countries. For example, variation in phrasing may artificially inflate or suppress ratings for certain items, not because they are valued differently but because of how wording shapes the way items are interpreted. As noted above, for example, the money item (i.e., “having plenty of money to do what you want”) emphasizes discretionary funds rather than more basic financial security, which could lead people to rate it as less important than other items not phrased instrumentally.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFinally, a major constraint is that we have only assessed seven values, and moreover just used a single item for each. On the latter point, there are trade-offs between breadth and depth in the GFS, and with prioritization of greater comprehensive conceptual coverage, most constructs are assessed with a single item. Some disadvantages of using single-item assessments can be partially mitigated by using large sample sizes, which partially mitigate issues of statistical power, but do not mitigate issues of reliability or conceptual coverage, which is unquestionably a limitation of the items in the GFS. Then, in terms of the limitations arising from only assessing seven values, this choice was guided by VanderWeele’s six-domain flourishing framework plus religion/spirituality. As he himself acknowledges, while the six main domains are “arguably at least a part of what we mean by flourishing,” they are not \u003cem\u003eexhaustive\u003c/em\u003e of it. It is possible that other values are important to people but are not included here. Such considerations are especially pertinent if one takes the view that some values are somewhat culturally specific, so there may be values that are especially important in certain cultures whose omission in this kind of survey limits our understanding of that particular place. For example, Japan had fairly low ratings for all values here, especially when compared to other countries for being a “good person” (at 6.8). One wonders whether this, and the other values, adequately tap into priorities in Japan. For example, one analysis suggested that Japan, China, Korea, and Taiwan, are influenced by Confucian values, especially interpersonal harmony, relational hierarchy, and traditional conservatism\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e92\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e. Even more broadly, an article on “What do Japanese value most” by a popular Japanese website highlighted: respect (especially for elders), honour, loyalty, humility, harmony, cooperation, education and self-improvement, hard work and dedication, commitment to family, and pursuit of perfection\u003csup\u003e\u003cspan class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e93\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/sup\u003e. While a few of these are perhaps represented by some values in our study (e.g., good relationships), many do not fit easily in the taxonomy applied here, so one wonders whether we are adequately assessing what really matters to people in Japan, which is a concern that could potentially apply to all countries. Our hope is that this study lays the foundation for future research exploring these contextual nuances in greater detail.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"References","content":"\u003col\u003e\u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eVanderWeele TJ, Johnson BR (2025) Multidimensional versus unidimensional approaches to well-being. Nat Hum Behav 9:857\u0026ndash;863\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eVanderWeele TJ, Johnson BR (2025) Why we need to measure people\u0026rsquo;s well-being \u0026mdash; lessons from a global survey. Nature 641:34\u0026ndash;36\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eVanderWeele TJ (2017) On the promotion of human flourishing. \u003cem\u003eProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences\u003c/em\u003e 114, 8148\u0026ndash;8156\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWeziak-Bialowolska D et al (2021) Psychometric properties of flourishing scales from a comprehensive well-being assessment. 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Japan Nihon\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\u003c/ol\u003e"},{"header":"Tables","content":"\u003cp\u003eTables are available in the Supplementary Files section.\u003c/p\u003e"}],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":true,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":false,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":false,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":false,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"humanities-and-social-sciences-communications","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"palcomms","sideBox":"Learn more about [Humanities \u0026 Social Sciences Communications](http://www.nature.com/palcomms/)","snPcode":"41599","submissionUrl":"https://submission.springernature.com/new-submission/41599/3","title":"Humanities and Social Sciences Communications","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"stoa","reportingPortfolio":"Nature AJ","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false},"keywords":"happiness, wellbeing, flourishing, cross-cultural, Global Flourishing Study","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8089196/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8089196/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eAscertaining how people are faring in life is difficult since wellbeing is multidimensional and people invariably do better in some ways than others. A further complication that renders such assessments more complex is people can vary in the importance they place on different dimensions of wellbeing. Thus even if we \u003cem\u003ecan\u003c/em\u003e reliably assess how well people are doing in various domains, unless one can contextualise these assessments through the lens of people\u0026rsquo;s own priorities, one will have a skewed understanding of their wellbeing. We explore this issue by examining cross-sectional data from 131,487 people across 22 countries in the Wave 1 \u0026ldquo;mid-year\u0026rdquo; survey of the Global Flourishing Study (GFS), which includes a set of items in which people rate, on a 0\u0026ndash;10 scale of importance, seven key outcomes. Strikingly, people strongly valued many aspects of flourishing in common across cultures, indicating perhaps some universality, on average deeming \u0026ldquo;being a good person\u0026rdquo; to be most important (8.9), followed closely by \u0026ldquo;being healthy\u0026rdquo; (8.8),\u0026ldquo;having good relationships\u0026rdquo; (8.7), and \u0026ldquo;being happy\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;having a meaningful life\u0026rdquo; (both 8.5), then slightly lower \u0026ldquo;having plenty of money to do what you want\u0026rdquo; (8.0) and lastly \u0026ldquo;having a religious or spiritual life\u0026rdquo; (7.0). There was some cross-cultural variation, however, with seven countries putting health first (China, Germany, Israel, Japan, Nigeria, Poland, and South Africa) and three religion/spirituality (Kenya, Nigeria, and Tanzania). We also analyzed seven sociodemographic correlates of these responses. While there were myriad differences in priorities, some general trends were observed, including that females had higher importance ratings than males on all outcome variables, people with more education gave higher ratings on all values except religion, and all importance ratings increased with age except for happiness and money. The data advance our understanding, especially cross-culturally, on what people perceive as mattering in life.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"People almost universally value having good character, happiness, health, meaning, and relationships, followed by religion/spirituality and money: Commonalities but also variation in priorities across 22 countries in the Global Flourishing Study","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2026-03-18 09:18:36","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8089196/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0},{"type":"decision","content":"Revision requested","date":"2026-03-25T05:50:40+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorInvitedReview","content":"","date":"2026-02-23T13:47:30+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"9061489834115788202085109547756639410","date":"2026-02-03T10:03:58+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorInvitedReview","content":"","date":"2026-01-30T16:33:37+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"142643696678494257598106210576919981668","date":"2026-01-06T16:17:44+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewersInvited","content":"","date":"2026-01-05T12:38:52+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorAssigned","content":"","date":"2025-12-30T08:11:47+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorInvited","content":"","date":"2025-12-10T10:59:15+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"checksComplete","content":"","date":"2025-12-02T21:06:50+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"submitted","content":"Humanities and Social Sciences Communications","date":"2025-12-02T20:57:06+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"humanities-and-social-sciences-communications","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"palcomms","sideBox":"Learn more about [Humanities \u0026 Social Sciences Communications](http://www.nature.com/palcomms/)","snPcode":"41599","submissionUrl":"https://submission.springernature.com/new-submission/41599/3","title":"Humanities and Social Sciences Communications","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"stoa","reportingPortfolio":"Nature AJ","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"ed0c1193-2d3c-4a06-9a19-2fdbc5998d89","owner":[],"postedDate":"March 18th, 2026","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"under-review","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2026-05-12T07:42:02+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2026-03-18 09:18:36","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-8089196","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-8089196","identity":"rs-8089196","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"XKTyCvWXoU3ODBz1xrDgd","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}