Effect of emancipative values on life satisfaction across different levels of democracy: A cross-national analysis of the World Values Survey
Guillaume Barbalat, Nicolas Franck, Marco Improta, Marco Improta, Marco Improta
TL;DR
The study finds that personal values like freedom and equality don't always boost life satisfaction, and their impact depends on the level of democracy in a country.
Contribution
The novel contribution is showing that emancipative values have a negative main effect on life satisfaction, with a positive interaction in more democratic contexts.
Findings
Emancipative values had a negative main effect on life satisfaction.
A significant positive interaction was found between democracy and emancipative values.
Less democratic countries showed a negative effect of emancipative values.
Abstract
Emancipative values – advocating for personal freedoms, equality, and autonomy – are theorized to enhance life satisfaction by fostering empowerment and opportunities. The current study tested whether their impact is context-dependent, influenced by societal norms and institutional frameworks. We used data from wave seven of the World Values Survey (WVS) and the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) dataset, covering diverse countries and time periods. We examined the interaction between emancipative values and a country’s level of liberal democracy on life satisfaction using a random effects model accounting for country-level variations (random intercept and slope). The model was adjusted for individual-level variables, such as settlement size, income, and educational attainment, as well as country-level factors like lagged income per capita and regional affiliation. This approach allowed us…
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Taxonomy
TopicsPsychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction · Cultural Differences and Values · Social and Intergroup Psychology