The ecology of subjective wellbeing: a global analysis of environmental factors associated with life evaluation

Lomas, Tim, Mehanna, Jon, Diego-Rosell, Pablo, Cowden, Richard, Holli-Anne Passmore, John, Zelenski, Michael Steger, Muthukrishna, Michael ORCID: 0000-0002-7079-5166 and Snower, Dennis (2025) The ecology of subjective wellbeing: a global analysis of environmental factors associated with life evaluation. Journal of Positive Psychology. ISSN 1743-9760 (In Press)

Text (Lomas et al. (2025) The ecology of wellbeing (uploadable)) - Accepted Version Pending embargo until 1 January 2100. Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (1MB)

Abstract

Despite a burgeoning literature on the impact of ecological indicators on wellbeing, there is a lack of research (a) into the impact of a comprehensive array of indicators, and (b) from a global perspective. This cross-sectional study redresses these issues by combining 17 indicators (which collectively offer good coverage across different aspects of ecology) with life evaluation data from three years (2020-2022) of the Gallup World Poll (n = 386,654). Through factor analysis, these indicators are clustered into three main factors: ecological needs (i.e., the quality of the environment with respect to human needs); ecological efforts (i.e., efforts to preserve or protect the environment); and ecological status (i.e., the state of the environment per se). A multilevel regression model in which individuals were nested within countries indicated an association between these factors and life evaluation, although the third (ecological status) was surprisingly in a “negative” direction. We explore the significance of these findings and offer recommendations for future research.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2025 The Author
Divisions:	Psychological and Behavioural Science
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GE Environmental Sciences B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
Date Deposited:	05 Nov 2025 16:57
Last Modified:	06 Nov 2025 10:57
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/130070

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