The assumption of this project is that instead of searching for one universal pathway toward sustainable development that will be effective for all countries, international organizations should take into account  the preferred development pathways of different countries. Our research focuses on culturally specific recipes for social wellbeing, for instance, by comparing Nordic and Japanese ways of living a good life. 

Our project is a collaborative effort between psychologists specializing in cross-cultural studies of wellbeing, societal development scientists, and cultural scholars from the humanities. Since we posit that lay people are the key actors of this new development paradigm, psychological methods comprise the main toolkit employed in our study. The contribution from societal development experts promotes that:  

1. the psychological research reflects the state-of-art in societal development science, and  

2. our findings are “translated” into the language of societal development science.

1. What are lay people's expectations regarding modernization, and how do these differ across cultures?  

2. What are lay people's views of a good life across cultures?  

3.  More specifically, what have been the cultural and psychological drivers behind the Norwegian transition from a welfare country to a wellbeing society?

4. How can broad, interdisciplinary and comparative perspectives, as well as a combination of qualitative and quantitative research, enrich our understanding of cultural differences in terms of what constitutes wellbeing and a good life?    

In the search for explanatory variables, our particular interest is directed toward:

1. regulatory focus,

2. comparative cultural history,  

3. evolutionary theories,

4. power (distance, construals, structure),

5. societal emotional environments.

The project will result in:

1. the first culturally sensitive modelling of societal development, 

2. a better understanding of the transition of Nordic countries from welfare to wellbeing societies, 

3. more specifically, understanding similarities and differences between cultures by comparing Nordic countries (a blueprint of the Western model of development) and Japan (following a Confucian template). We will also conduct in-depth, comparative studies of Polish and Norwegian visions of wellbeing. 

Our study seeks to contribute to the public debate on the future of global modernization. With the knowledge and output generated in our project, we plan to contribute to solving economic and social challenges.