Sense of Mastery’s Association with 56 Health and Well-Being Outcomes: Evidence from 23 Countries/Territories

Background: Major global policy organizations (including the World Health Organization (WHO), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the World Economic Forum) increasingly treat mastery (and closely related factors) as cross-cutting priorities for health, education, and workforce success. These frameworks call on governments to cultivate environments that enhance people’s sense of mastery. Despite this growing consensus, a critical gap persists: we lack longitudinal, cross-cultural evidence necessary to validate mastery as a global target for health and social policy. Methods: To address this gap, we used an outcome-wide longitudinal design and analyzed nationally representative data from 23 countries/territories (N=207,919) to evaluate if baseline mastery predicted 56 health/well-being outcomes approximately one year later. Results: Higher baseline mastery was prospectively associated with better outcomes across 48 (of 56) outcomes. Associations were largest for psychological and relational well-being outcomes; associations with entrenched structural roles (e.g., employment) were minimal. Further, benefits were not uniform across countries/territories and amplified in contexts with higher human development index scores (HDI, a summary measure of health, education, and living standards). The correlation between HDI and breadth of mastery’s benefits was r=0.81. And the breadth of mastery’s benefits was also greater in more individualistic contexts (r=0.86). Conclusions: Mastery is a robust predictor of subsequent well-being across diverse contexts, but its influence appears context-dependent, with broader benefits in higher HDI and more individualistic settings.