Systemic drivers and personal outcomes of flourishing: Integrating Harvard and SAGE frameworks through analysis of the Global Flourishing Study and the Gallup World Poll

Systemic drivers and personal outcomes of flourishing: Integrating Harvard and SAGE frameworks through analysis of the Global Flourishing Study and the Gallup World Poll | 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 Research Article Systemic drivers and personal outcomes of flourishing: Integrating Harvard and SAGE frameworks through analysis of the Global Flourishing Study and the Gallup World Poll Tim Lomas, Dennis Snower, Brendan Case, R. Noah Padgett, Chris Felton, and 9 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-7810593/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Flourishing is an increasingly prominent concept in scholarship on well-being, as for example reflected in the work of VanderWeele, who defines it expansively as “the relative attainment of a state in which all aspects of a person’s life are good, including the contexts in which that person lives.” Along these lines, this paper explores the integration of two complementary frameworks, one mainly focusing on people themselves, one more on their wider contexts. The former is the prerogative of VanderWeele’s own proposed individual measure, with six domains: happiness and life satisfaction; health, both mental and physical; meaning and purpose; character and virtue; close social relationships; and financial and material stability. Attending more to broader contexts is the SAGE approach of economist Dennis Snower, with four dimensions: solidarity; agency; material gain; and environment. We empirically explore their integration by analysing items pertaining to all 10 dimensions across two international datasets, the Global Flourishing Study (GFS) and the Gallup World Poll (GWP), together with objective data pertaining to material gain and the environment. The results show a complex picture depending on the data analysed. In the GFS, for instance, solidarity was generally positively correlated with average flourishing at the country level, but had an unexpectedly negative association with flourishing at the individual level. In the GWP, using different and more ad-hoc flourishing assessments, these associations were mostly positive, but conversely financial/material stability had negative associations with the SAGE domains. Equally surprising was that the objective measures of gain and the environment were negatively associated with personal flourishing (combined across the GFS and GWP). We take a first step toward accounting for these negative associations through various socio-economic hypotheses. well-being flourishing economics environment Full Text 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. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted 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. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. 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-7810593","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":534562365,"identity":"979124ed-1268-4edb-bc65-e84f6d16980d","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":534562366,"identity":"4cec8e08-b769-4cc5-b594-77874c950e4d","order_by":1,"name":"Dennis Snower","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Global Solutions Initiative","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Dennis","middleName":"","lastName":"Snower","suffix":""},{"id":534562367,"identity":"2ac98a27-31bf-4a0b-8881-a345ee0ead8e","order_by":2,"name":"Brendan Case","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Harvard University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Brendan","middleName":"","lastName":"Case","suffix":""},{"id":534562368,"identity":"a5d03724-6a68-4480-a1b0-a61bfcf9bc69","order_by":3,"name":"R. 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The remaining authors have no competing interests to declare.","formattedTitle":"Systemic drivers and personal outcomes of flourishing: Integrating Harvard and SAGE frameworks through analysis of the Global Flourishing Study and the Gallup World Poll","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"well-being, flourishing, economics, environment","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-7810593/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-7810593/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eFlourishing is an increasingly prominent concept in scholarship on well-being, as for example reflected in the work of VanderWeele, who defines it expansively as \u0026ldquo;the relative attainment of a state in which all aspects of a person\u0026rsquo;s life are good, including the contexts in which that person lives.\u0026rdquo; Along these lines, this paper explores the integration of two complementary frameworks, one mainly focusing on people themselves, one more on their wider contexts. The former is the prerogative of VanderWeele\u0026rsquo;s own proposed individual measure, with six domains: happiness and life satisfaction; health, both mental and physical; meaning and purpose; character and virtue; close social relationships; and financial and material stability. Attending more to broader contexts is the SAGE approach of economist Dennis Snower, with four dimensions: solidarity; agency; material gain; and environment. We empirically explore their integration by analysing items pertaining to all 10 dimensions across two international datasets, the Global Flourishing Study (GFS) and the Gallup World Poll (GWP), together with objective data pertaining to material gain and the environment. The results show a complex picture depending on the data analysed. In the GFS, for instance, solidarity was generally positively correlated with average flourishing at the country level, but had an unexpectedly negative association with flourishing at the individual level. In the GWP, using different and more ad-hoc flourishing assessments, these associations were mostly positive, but conversely financial/material stability had negative associations with the SAGE domains. Equally surprising was that the objective measures of gain and the environment were negatively associated with personal flourishing (combined across the GFS and GWP). We take a first step toward accounting for these negative associations through various socio-economic hypotheses.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"Systemic drivers and personal outcomes of flourishing: Integrating Harvard and SAGE frameworks through analysis of the Global Flourishing Study and the Gallup World Poll","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2025-10-28 16:46:18","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-7810593/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"ed0c1193-2d3c-4a06-9a19-2fdbc5998d89","owner":[],"postedDate":"October 28th, 2025","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"posted","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2026-04-17T18:40:06+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2025-10-28 16:46:18","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-7810593","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-7810593","identity":"rs-7810593","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"8U1c8b4HqxoKbykW_rLl7","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}