Gwendolyn Gardiner, Daniel I. Lee, Erica Baranski, David C. Funder, Maite Beramendi, Brock Bastian, Aljoscha Neubauer, Diego Cortez, Eric Roth, Ana Torres, Daniela S. Zanini, Kristina Petkova, Jessica Tracy, Catherine Amiot, Mathieu Pelletier-Dumas, Roberto González, Ana Rosenbluth, Sergio Salgado, Yanjun Guan, Yu Yang, Diego Forero, Andrés Camargo, Emmanouil Papastefanakis, Georgios Kritsotakis, Eirini Spyridaki, Evangelia Fragkiadaki, Željko Jerneić, Martina Hřebíčková, Sylvie Graf, Pernille Strøbæk, Anu Realo, Maja Becker, Christelle Maisonneuve, Sofian El-Astal, Vladimer Lado Gamsakhurdia, John Rauthmann, Matthias Ziegler, Lars Penke, Emma E. Buchtel, Victoria Wai-Lan Yeung, Ágota Kun, Peter Gadanecz, Zoltán Vass, Máté Smohai, Anagha Lavalekar, Meta Zahro Aurelia, Dian Kinayung, Vanessa Gaffar, Gavin Sullivan, Christopher Day, Eyal Rechter, Marco Perugini, Giulio Costantini, Augusto Gnisci, Ida Sergi, Vincenzo Paolo Senese, Francesca Mottola, Tatsuya Sato, Yuki Nakata, Shizuka Kawamoto, Asuka Komiya, Marwan Al-Zoubi, Nicholas Owsley, Chaning Jang, Georgina Mburu, Irene Ngina, Girts Dimdins, Rasa Barkauskiene, Alfredas Laurinavicius, Marijana Markovikj, Eleonara Serafimovska, Khairul A. Mastor, Elliott Kruse, Nairán Ramírez-Esparza, Jaap Denissen, Marcel Van Aken, Ron Fischer, Ike E. Onyishi, Kalu T. Ogba, Siri Leknes, Vera Waldal Holen, Ingelin Hansen, Christian Krog Tamnes, Kaia Klæva, Rukhsana Kausar, Nashi Khan, Muhammad Rizwan, Agustín Espinosa, Maria Cecilia Gastardo-Conaco, Diwa Malaya A. Quiñones, Paweł Izdebski, Martyna Kotyśko, Piotr Szarota, Joana Henriques-Calado, Florin Alin Sava, Olya Lvova, Victoria Pogrebitskaya, Mikhail Allakhverdov, Sergey Manichev, Oumar Barry, Snežana Smederevac, Petar Čolović, Dušanka Mitrović, Milan Oljača, Ryan Hong, Peter Halama, Janek Musek, Francois De Kock, Gyuseog Han, Eunkook M. Suh, Soyeon Choi, David Gallardo-Pujol, Luis Oceja, Sergio Villar, Zoltan Kekecs, Nils Arlinghaus, Daniel P. Johnson, Alice Kathryn O'Donnell, Clara Kulich, Fabio Lorenzi-Cioldi, Janina Larissa Bühler, Mathias Allemand, Yen-Ping Chang, Wei-fang Lin, Watcharaporn Boonyasiriwat, S. Adil Saribay, Oya Somer, Pelin Karakus Akalin, Peter Kakubeire Baguma, Alexander Vinogradov, Larisa Zhuravlova, Mark Conner, Jason Rentfrow, Alexa Tullett, Kyle Sauerberger, Douglas E. Colman, Joey T. Cheng, Eric Stocks, Huyen Thi Thu Bui
People in economically advantaged nations tend to evaluate their life as more positive overall and report greater well-being than people in less advantaged nations. But how does positivity manifest in the daily life experiences of individuals around the world? The present study asked 15,244 college students from 62 nations, in 42 languages, to describe a situation they experienced the previous day using the Riverside Situational Q-sort (RSQ). Using expert ratings, the overall positivity of each situation was calculated for both nations and individuals. The positivity of the average situation in each nation was strongly related to the economic development of the nation as measured by the Human Development Index (HDI). For individuals’ daily experiences, the economic status of their nation also predicted the positivity of their experience, even more than their family socioeconomic status. Further analyses revealed the specific characteristics of the average situations for higher HDI nations that make their experiences more positive. Higher HDI was associated with situational experiences involving humor, socializing with others, and the potential to express emotions and fantasies. Lower HDI was associated with an increase in the presence of threats, blame, and hostility, as well as situational experiences consisting of family, religion, and money. Despite the increase in a few negative situational characteristics in lower HDI countries, the overall average experience still ranged from neutral to slightly positive, rather than negative, suggesting that greater HDI may not necessarily increase positive experiences but rather decrease negative experiences. The results illustrate how national economic status influences the lives of individuals even within a single instance of daily life, with large and powerful consequences when accumulated across individuals within each nation. © 2023
Department of Psychology, Bielefeld University, Germany; Department of Psychology, University of California, Riverside, United States; Department of Psychology, California State University, East Bay, United States; Universidad de Buenos Aires; University of Melbourne; University of Graz; Universidad Católica Bolviana, La Paz; Federal University of Paraíba; Pontifical Catholic University of Goiás; Bulgarian Academy of Sciences; University of British Columbia; Université du Québec à Montréal; Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile; Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez; Universidad de La Frontera; The Chinese University of Hong Kong, China and Durham University Business School, Shenzhen, United Kingdom; ShanghaiTech University; Fundación Universitaria del Área Andina, Bogotá; Fundación Universitaria del Área Andina, Bogotá and Universidad de Ciencias Aplicadas y Ambientales, Bogotá; University of Crete; Hellenic Mediterranean University; Hellenic American University; University of Zagreb; Czech Academy of Sciences; University of Copenhagen; University of Warwick and University of Tartu; CLLE, Université de Toulouse, CNRS, UT2J, France; Univ Rennes, LP3C (Laboratoire de Psychologie: Cognition, Comportement, Communication), EA 1285, Rennes, F-35000, France; Al Azhar University-Gaza, Palestine; Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University; Bielefeld University 1; Humboldt Universität zu Berlin; University of Goettingen & Leipniz Science Campus Primate Cognition; The Education University of Hong Kong; Lingnan University; Budapest University of Technology and Economics; Karoli Gaspar University of the Reformed Church in Hungary; Jnana Prabodihini's Institute of Psychology, Pune; Univeritas Ahmad Dahlan; Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia; Coventry University, England, United Kingdom; Ono Academic College; University of Milan-Bicocca; University of Campania, “Luigi Vanvitelli”; Ritsumeikan University; Yamanashi University; Hiroshima University; University of Jordan; Busara Center for Behavioral Economics; University of Latvia; Vilnius University; Saints Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje; Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia; EGADE Business School Monterrey; Fundación Universidad de las Américas Puebla; Tilburg University; Utrecht University; Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington; University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria; University of Oslo; University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan; Government of Pakistan; Pontificia Universidad Católica del Peru; University of Philippines-Diliman; Kazimierz Wielki University; University of Warmia and Mazury; Institute of Psychology of The Polish Academy of Sciences; CICPSI, Faculdade de Psicologia, Universidade de Lisboa, Alameda da Universidade, Lisboa, 1649-013, Portugal; West University of Timisoara; St Petersburg State University; Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar-Sénégal; University of Novi Sad; National University of Singapore; Slovak Academy of Sciences; University of Ljubljana; University of Cape Town; Chonnam National University; Yonsei University; University of Barcelona; Universidad Autónoma de Madrid; Lund University; Université de Genève; University of Basel; University of Zurich; National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan; Chung Yuan Christian University, Taiwan; Chulalongkorn University; Kadir Has University; Cyprus International University; Eastern Mediterranean University, Department of Psychology, Cyprus; Makerere University; Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv; Polissia National University; University of Leeds; University of Cambridge; University of Alabama; University of California 1, Riverside; University of Connecticut; Idaho State University; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; University of Texas, Tyler, United States; Hanoi National University of Education
Research at a Glance
Register to unlock
Topics & SDG Alignment
Register to unlock
Collaboration
Register to unlock
Author Profile (Selected)
Register to unlock
References Overview
Register to unlock
Journal & Source
Register to unlock
Metadata & Integrity
Register to unlock