Rachel Feltman: For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman.
How are you doing today, listeners? Would you say you’re flourishing? I’m guessing you probably wouldn’t—unless you have a particularly florid vocabulary.
But researchers are increasingly focused on the idea of “human flourishing,” a multifaceted measurement that aims to take a holistic look at our collective well-being. Basically, humans who are flourishing aren’t just happy. They have lives that are good across the board—and scientists want to get better at measuring that so they can figure out what factors contribute to this desirable state.
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Today’s guest is Victor Counted, an associate professor of psychology at Regent University in Virginia. He is also a faculty affiliate at the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University and part of the team behind the Global Flourishing Study, a five-year longitudinal survey of more than 200,000 individuals from 22 countries.
Thank you so much for coming on to chat with us today.
Victor Counted: Thank you. I’m really honored to, you know, be here.
Feltman: So tell me about the concept of flourishing. What does it mean to researchers?
Counted: I think it means kind of different things. In the past some people might call it our “well-being,” some could also say it’s our “quality of life,” but I think it’s kind of a construct that [has] been studied for centuries. But essentially I think it’s about how aspects of a person’s life [are] good, right? But the flourishing dimension emphasizes the need to think about a context, how aspects of our life are good in relation to our environment, and—which I think is very important. That extension or that definition allows us to think about flourishing as something that is multidimensional, that involves different things.
Let’s say with the PERMA model—positive emotion, engagement, [relationships], meaning and accomplishment—you could talk about flourishing from that lens, but also I think the current framework that we’re using, the one from Tyler VanderWeele, I think it’s more comprehensive in the sense that it goes beyond just positive emotions and, you know, the idea of [relationships] to touching things like our happiness and life satisfaction as a dimension, meaning and purpose as a dimension, character and virtue as a dimension, physical and mental health at—as a dimension, social relationships as a dimension, but also financial well-being and stability.
And so when you take that multidimensional approach it allows you to think about flourishing as something that encompasses different aspects of life—you know, particularly the idea of meaning and purpose, which, really, it’s not often talked about within the broader definition of flourishing.
Feltman: Mm-hmm.
Counted: You could talk about these dimensions of flourishing; it’s also important to think about what some might even call, let’s say, pillars of flourishing or pathways of flourishing. Currently one of the things we’ve done is to identify at least four pathways: one is work, the other is family, the other is education, and the last pathway would be religious communities.
And when we think about it—and in each particular culture or context the pathways to flourishing would differ, you know—but, like, for example, the four pathways that I mentioned are at least ones that we think that are universally, you know, agreed-upon and almost in any cultural context people would identify with this, although they might, you know, look at it in different ways. And the same thing with the dimensions of human flourishing that I mentioned earlier that are universally desired and to some degree an end in themselves.
Feltman: So how did you personally get interested in, in studying human flourishing?
Counted: I did my Ph.D. I looked at adult attachment and health and quality of [life] outcomes, and when I did this, you know, I knew I was always interested in health and quality of life and well-being [constructs], and during the time that I was studying this I kind of got involved and started collaborating with a colleague that was a part of the Human Flourishing Program, and, you know, I kind of came to the realization that all the things that I’ve actually been studying, it’s actually about human flourishing—that’s really what drives it, what [is] the crux of my work—and of course, I started to rethink how I look at things like health and quality of life outcomes. And also I’m also interested in how our environment ultimately shapes us and the psychological processes that kind of undergirds that. And so I think human flourishing became that very—well, that captures that.
Feltman: Mm-hmm, and you’re involved in the Global Flourishing Study. How does it work?
Counted: So essentially it’s a five-year study, and we have almost—about over 200,000 participants from 22 countries, and the interesting thing about it, these are nationally representative samples across 22 countries, and the plan is, we’re working with Gallup to collect this data. We’ve just collected Wave 1 data, and the papers for Wave 1 [are] already out. And we’re currently, with the Wave 2 data as well, it’s also out.
And, you know, we have a team of about 40-plus researchers from different disciplines and cultures and institutions, but mostly the project is hosted by Baylor University and Harvard Human Flourishing Program. A team of scholars, the brightest [minds] from around the world, and just, you know, doing, I think, one of the biggest social science research [projects] in modern history—I think it’s been wonderful. And of course, I would be remiss not to mention Tyler VanderWeele and Byron Johnson for their leadership in the project itself. So it’s, it’s been incredible, yeah.
Feltman: And were there any surprising findings in your first wave of results?
Counted: Yeah, we actually got some really interesting findings. One of them that really stuck out most would be the fact that young people are struggling …
Feltman: Mm.
Counted: Especially when you compare that to the past. There’s a U-shaped well-being curve that is often used to talk about well-being and how it develops or evolves over a lifespan, but one of the things that we found was that that is not really what is happening. We [found] that young people were not [flourishing as much] as we had anticipated or hoped.
Of course, that could be due to a number of reasons. Either some would say that it’s due to COVID-19, the impact of that. Some would also say the mental health challenges, even financial insecurity that came as a result of COVID, but also the loss of meaning as well, it’s also a part of that, and most of the individual papers in the study would point to some of those things, you know?
But I think that overall the disruption of the U-shaped traditional curve of well-being, it’s one thing to pay attention to, and what that simply means now is the fact that the curve itself is flat until about 50 years old, and that has huge implications for the mental health of young people and policies that shape that.
The other finding was also—you know, it’s not necessarily surprising—the fact that married people and those that were in [relationships], they were flourishing better compared to those that were not. And of course, you know, we can get a sense of why that is the case: because of the fact that they’re in supportive [relationships] and the social connection that they have in those relationships kind of, you know, helps [as well to] drive or sustain their well-being.
The other finding that I think also is interesting to point to would be the area of employment. Flourishing somehow reflects the status of one’s job. For example, people that are retired scored the highest in the flagship paper that we had compared to those that were not employed. Those that were also self-employed, you know, followed suit [with] those that were also employed by someone else. And it kind of tells you something: those that are—have some kind of stability in, in terms of their career or job stability tended to kind of feel more secure and happy compared to those that are maybe seeking for a job.
But also [interesting] as well would be the area of religious-service attendance; remember I mentioned that religion is also an important construct when we talk about a flourishing life and the idea that it’s not necessarily the fact that—and when we talk about religion most people will point to institutional religion …
Feltman: Mm-hmm.
Counted: But [talking] about religion broadly, in terms of the psychological aspect of religion. In fact, some of my colleagues, we talk about this as the “four Bs.” That religion helps us with the idea of belonging, right—when we form social support with people in our congregation that’s very important for our well-being and flourishing. Also the bonding that comes with that as well …
Feltman: Mm.
Counted: Whether it’s through the spiritual connection with the divine or the sacred. The behaving component: the moral component, the cultivation of character and virtue through, whether it’s religiouspractices or dogma or [theology], this engagement with one’s life. And also the believing part as well: [meaning that] religion, in some sense, helps us to form or embrace things like hope or forgiveness, you know, have some kind of certain spiritual convictions that help us to believe that we can do the impossible.
All those things become really fundamental, especially when we look at the results on religious attendance: that for most people that were frequently attending religious services … they scored higher on flourishing compared to those that never did or maybe attended [a] few times in a year, but that weekly attendance was really very fundamental to their well-being. And interestingly, also, across all the studies, all the individual papers—I’m talking about almost 100 papers, individual papers—it’s still pointing to the same thing, regardless of the culture, regardless of the context, even in secular contexts like Sweden. That was also very interesting.
But I do wanna say this, though: because some people who actually attended religious services also reported more pain and suffering, which is …
Feltman: Mm.
Counted: Kind of interesting as well. And, you know, we could think about why this is—might be the case. In some sense we know that religious communities would often provide support for people during hard times, and [many] people are drawn to … a religious community or faith because they’re seeking some kind of relief for their suffering or pain, but also, theologically, for most people, the way they conceptualize suffering, it’s also very different as well. Suffering could be something that is part of an embodiment of one’s faith, you know? So the fact that they are suffering doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not flourishing, if that makes sense.
Feltman: Mm.
Counted: So that, you know, kind of interesting.
But beyond this we also try to look at some of the childhood predictors or experiences that kind of predispose one to a flourishing life when they’re adults. Of course, people that had excellent health at a very young age, we noticed that they were flourishing as adults. Again, people that were attending religious services at a very young age—at the age of 12, for example—were flourishing as adults. People that had good relationships with their mother or their father, we saw them flourishing as adults.
But interestingly, though, we noticed those [whose] parents were divorced were not [flourishing as much], you know, as adults. And the same thing with those that were exposed to abusive relationships, whether it’s physical or sexual, were also really quite struggling to flourish. And also those that grew up in financially difficult [households], with families that were struggling financially, we saw them also struggling to flourish later as adults.
Now what this tells us is that flourishing is a lifespan thing, right? And so the way we raise our kids, the early experiences that we have ultimately become the foundation that kind of shapes what a flourishing life would be, you know, and just have implications in many ways, I think.
Feltman: Yeah, and how were the U.S.’s results in the beginning of the flourishing study?
Counted: Yeah, I think we found some, particularly with most of the Western context, we found some sort of interesting findings. One of the surprising results was the fact that [the] U.S. [was] not flourishing … as well as some others. For example, countries like Indonesia, Philippines, most of the non-Western countries, were really doing well across all the different dimensions. But for the U.S., for example, they were also doing well on financial stability, but unfortunately, the United States scored lower when it came to meaning and [relationships], right?
And, and this has [implications], and it, it does, in some way, [tell] us that having more money doesn’t necessarily mean people are happy or they’re doing well in life, and hopefully that kind of shapes or challenges the way that we kind of understand what aflourishing life is. You know, it’s not necessarily about success. It’s not about money; it’s not about material stuff. At the heart of that, it’s meaning and [relationships]. And also you could think about, politically, how the political landscape or dynamics within the U.S. might also be contributing to the breakdown of [relationships], right, and also tension around meaning. It’s very terrifying in many ways.
Feltman: So you’ve talked about, you know, some of the factors that might be out of our control or might be systemic that impact flourishing …
Counted: Mm.
Feltman: But to wrap us up, you know, what about things that we can control? You know, what are your takeaways in terms of what our listeners should learn from the flourishing study?
Counted: One of the [challenges], I guess—or [limitations], rather—from the Global Flourishing Study, I think, is the fact that most of the things that we studied, you know, we did it from an etic lens, we took an etic approach, which it essentially meant that we were looking at it universally, right? One of the things that can help us to better understand some of these findings would be the need to kind of take a more emic, context-sensitive approach, where we’re looking at individual cultures and societies to ask the question around: “Why are they scoring this on that? What might be happening? What are the underlying contextual factors that might be shaping what is happening in this context?”
But most importantly, also, I think it’s important that we think about the different areas or contexts to which we see that most societies or people are suffering, particularly with young people, particularly around issues or questions around purpose and meaning and [relationships], especially in the Western context, not just the U.S., but also in Europe, even in Australia. [Thinking about questions] around meaning and purpose—how can we create initiatives or support research or ideas that can help us accelerate and promote, really, the pursuit of meaning and purpose—I, I think that will go a long way [in] helping people to flourish and do well.
And really, also, I think this study is just a starting point. It’s kind of opened a door for more studies to kind of engage some of these ideas and, and topics. And my hope is that, you know, somehow we can come to the point where we can start to think about: “What would a flourishing goal look like for this community, for this context, or this particular continent or country?” Right? And as we start to talk about that it also means that we—it challenges the way that we look at: “What does flourishing look like for us?” And to understand that it has to be context-sensitive; not just that—also it has to kind of focus on the values, the things that we value, and start from there to kind of make changes and define what really shapes us and [makes] us happy.
Feltman: Well, thank you so much for coming on to chat today. This has been really interesting.
Counted: Thank you so much.
Feltman: That’s all for today’s episode. We’ll be back with our usual news roundup on Monday.
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Science Quickly is produced by me, Rachel Feltman, along with Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Naeem Amarsy and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Subscribe to Scientific American for more up-to-date and in-depth science news.
For Scientific American, this is Rachel Feltman. Have a great weekend!
