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

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

• Scopus publication

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 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
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:	01 Dec 2025 04:06
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/130070

Actions (login required)

View Item