Insights into the Human Condition Emerge from Historic Baylor-Led Global Flourishing Study
University leaders, scholars, lawmakers and more convened in Washington, D.C., on April 30 for the highly-anticipated release of the First Wave of findings from the landmark Global Flourishing Study. More than simply the data, they came together at Gallup headquarters for insights in to the human condition.
The Global Flourishing Study is a landmark five-year study, led at Baylor in partnership with Harvard University, Gallup and the Center for Open Science. Byron Johnson, Director of Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion, co-leads the project, representing the most comprehensive longitudinal study ever convened to uncover the factors that lead to human flourishing.
“It’s a topic that’s overwhelmingly important. If we can help figure out what makes people flourish or what hinders them from flourishing, maybe we’ll become more thoughtful as a society,” Johnson says. “That’s where this gets really exciting. There’s no better place than Baylor to lead a project that will can touch so many different aspects of our lives.”
Wave One Insights
Over a five-year period, GFS researchers are in annual contact with more than 200,000 people across over 20 geographically and culturally diverse countries. The participants speak 45 different languages and represent the spectrum of age groups, income levels, religions and more. As a longitudinal study, GFS does more than uncover correlation—it is designed to illuminate the roots of flourishing, both individually and societally.
With data from the First Wave of data now examined, three key initial insights emerged:
Global Differences in Flourishing: Many middle-income developing countries, like Indonesia, Mexico and the Philippines, were doing better the realms of meaning, purpose and relationships than the richer developed world.
“If you think about which countries emerge at the top of the highest flourishing averages, you see countries like Indonesia, the Philippines and Mexico. Then you compare that to countries with the top gross domestic product: the United States, Sweden and Germany,” Matthew Lee, Ph.D., Professor of the Social Sciences and Humanities at Baylor ISR and a member of the Global Study of Human Flourishing research team, said. “There is something going on in the high-income countries that is orienting human beings towards economic or other pursuits, but we may be neglecting the deep social relationships that help us find meaning and a sense of being fully alive.”
Younger Generations Lagging: Globally, younger people appear to be not doing as well their elders when compared to past generations. Many in the youngest age-group (18-24 year-olds) reported the lowest scores.
“There aren't that many universal findings because of the huge variation within countries, but there are some findings that are pretty shocking. And one is that young people are not doing well,” Johnson says. “You could argue that over the last 15 years, there's been a global rise in unhappiness. That's a trend that's happening in the Third World and in the developed world. And no one seems to be affected more than young people. So, as we think about the future, this gives us something that policymakers should be thinking about. What are we doing wrong? Can we blame it on the internet and social media? Hopefully we can unpack that with future waves of data.”
Spirituality is a Common Contributor: Across nearly every nation, religious service attendance appears to be an important element related to flourishing, with strong associations even in the most secular societies.
“This is one of those things that we were really curious about because the research in the West would indicate you should have found that. But most of the research is here in the West. So, for us to have a global sample and to find that religious service attendance matters across the world is very significant,” Johnson says. “And because our end size is so large, we're going to be able to look at different religious traditions, not just Christianity.”
These insights, along with the vast amounts of data to reach them, provide a treasure trove for scholars, policymakers, religious leaders and more to study as they seek answers to vexing questions in their own areas. Already, scholars are at work on over 100 papers for peer-reviewed journals, a number that will grow with time—and become even more meaningful when current data is compared to future findings.
“This is part of a broader conversation about flourishing—what does it mean and how is it experienced,” Lee said. “And, of course, one survey cannot answer that question completely. But we’ve already had so many conversations that we’re going to come back to and say, ‘how does that connect with what we’re seeing in the First Wave of the study?’ Once we have more waves of data, we can begin to control for baseline levels of these factors and see how things change over time. Then, we get a better understanding of how contexts shape individual experiences, and vice-versa.”
Innovative Human Flourishing Research
While researchers have long examined questions surrounding human flourishing and lives well lived, many have been done through a narrow lens. Concepts like happiness, wellness and life satisfaction have dominated much of the conversation. GFS innovates by focusing on a state of complete wellbeing through the interrelated concepts of social, emotional, cognitive, vocational and spiritual wellbeing. By examining these topics holistically, and building a treasure-trove of longitudinal data, GFS provides a dynamic new contribution to human flourishing research and equips leaders with data-driven information to make positive changes in their communities around the world.
“With so much tension and uncertainty across the globe, flourishing is something we can all come together on,” Johnson says. “By focusing on this collectively, we can work toward ways to improve economic development, reduce conflicts and help communities and countries rediscover their true meaning and purpose.”