Forging Culturally Sensitive Research on Social Wellbeing

The basic assumption of this project is that people across cultures have substantially different ideals for what constitutes a good life and how to achieve it. There has been too little bottom-up research devoted to the diverse ways in which people view wellbeing or imagine a rewarding, meaningful life. The aim of our project is to investigate processes of societal development by examining the role of psychological and cultural determinants that shape the desired directions of societal development and ideal wellbeing.   

Meeting the above aims will involve using Norway as one of our case studies, a country which repeatedly occupies top positions in various wellbeing rankings, including the Human Development Index (HDI).

Another step beyond the purely economic paradigm of societal development.

The economic paradigm that has dominated the modern era has helped satisfy people’s basic needs in a growing number of countries. Since the 2007–09 financial crisis, scientists and policy-makers have increasingly discussed the limitations of this growth-focused model. Innovative studies of social wellbeing call for new modes of measurement and new compasses to assess different styles of social self-realization. We advocate the idea that societal development should be conceptualized in a way that will let societies reflect their own culturally specific vision of what contributes to good lives for their people.   

Findings from our project will be relevant for societies at all levels of economic development. Many of the richest nations, whose economic prosperity has let them satisfy the basic needs of their citizens, now search for new guidelines for further development. In such a context, Scandinavians may have different ideas for their future than what Italians do. Europe in general seems to have development goals distinct from those of the United States. Confucian Asia has yet different ideals. Our approach will enable these differences to be illuminated and critically discussed.   

Furthermore, our project seeks to develop insights that can assist poorer societies in formulating their own pathways of development. Even in cases for which the emphasis on economic development may still be high, other aims may be harmonized with a prosperity pathway using culturally specific local and regional perspectives.   

Our study strives to fulfill the United Nations’ ‘decolonisation’ resolution from 1960, which states, “All peoples have the right to self-determination; by virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.”