Altruism increases when resources and cultural values provide objective and subjective means for pursuing personally meaningful goals; the more so in more individualistic societies

Rhoads, Shawn A., Devon Gunter, Rebecca Ryan, and Abigail Marsh. 2021. “Global Variation in Subjective Well-being Predicts Seven Forms of Altruism.” PsyArXiv. April 27. doi:10.31234/osf.io/k3y7u

Abstract: The geographic prevalence of various altruistic behaviors (non-reciprocal acts that improve others' welfare) is non-uniformly distributed. But whether this reflects variation in a superordinate construct linked to national-level outcomes or cultural values is unknown. We compiled data on seven altruistic behaviors across 48-152 nations, and found evidence that these behaviors reflect a latent construct positively associated with national-level subjective well-being (SWB) and individualist values, even controlling for national-level wealth, health, education, and shared cultural history. Consistent with prior work, we found that SWB mediates the relationship between two objective measures of well-being (wealth and health) and altruism (N=130). Moreover, these indirect effects increase as individualist values increase within the subset of countries (N=90) with available data. Together, results indicate that altruism increases when resources and cultural values provide objective and subjective means for pursuing personally meaningful goals, and that altruistic behaviors may be enhanced by societal changes that promote well-being.

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On average, people in more individualist countries donate more in subjectively and objectively measured forms of altruistic behavior : haritable donations, volunteering, everyday helping, blood donations, living kidney donations, bone marrow donor registrations, and humane treatment of non-human animals.