Self-construals predict personal life satisfaction with different strengths across societal contexts differing in national wealth and religious heritage

We explore to what extent previously observed pan-cultural asso- ciation between dimensions of self-construal and personal life satisfaction (PLS) may be moderated by three national-contextual variables: national wealth, economic inequality, and religious heri- tage. The results showed that MSelf-reliance (vs. dependence on others) predicted PLSpositively in poorer countries but negatively in richer countries. Connectedness to others (vs. self-containment) predicted PLS more strongly in Protestant-heritage countries. Self- expression (vs. harmony) predicted PLS more weakly (and non- significantly) in Muslim-heritage countries. In contrast, previously reported associations of self-direction (vs. reception-to-influence), consistency (vs. variability), and decontextualized (vs. contextua- lized) self-understanding with personal life satisfaction were not significantly moderated by these aspects of societal context. These results show the importance of considering the impact of national religious and economic context.

Keywords

self-construal religious heritage national wealth economic inequality personal life satisfaction multicomponent

Citation

Ángel Sánchez-Rodríguez, Vivian L. Vignoles, Michael Harris Bond, Mladen Adamovic, Charity S. Akotia, Isabelle Albert, Lily Appoh, Arno Baltin, Pablo Eduardo Barrientos, Patrick Denoux, Alejandra Domínguez-Espinosa, Carla Sofia Esteves, Márta Fülöp, Vladimer Gamsakhurdia, Ragna B. Garðarsdóttir, Alin Gavreliuc, Diana Hanke-Boer, Brian W. Haas, David O. Igbokwe, İ̇dil Işık, Natalia Kascakova, Lucie Klůzová Kračmárová, Agata Kocimska-Zych, Aleksandra Kosiarczyk, Olga Kostoula, Nicole Kronberger, Kuba Krys, Anna Kwiatkowska, J. Hannah Lee, Xinhui Liu, Magdalena Łużniak-Piecha, Arina Malyonova, Fridanna Maricchiolo, Arévalo Mira, Tamara Mohorić, Oriana Mosca, Elke Murdock, Nur Fariza Mustaffa, Vivian Miu- Chi Lun, Martin Nader, Azar Nadi, Ayu Okvitawanli, Yvette van Osch, Joonha Park, Vassilis Pavlopoulos, Zoran Pavlović, Iva Poláčková Šolcová, Eric Raymond Igou, Muhammad Rizwan, Vladyslav Romashov, Espen Røysamb, Ruta Sargautyte, Beate Schwarz, Heyla A. Selim, Ursula Serdarevich, David Sirlopú, Maria Stogianni, Stanislava Stoyanova, Chien-Ru Sun, Julien Teyssier, Wijnand A. P. van Tilburg, Claudio Torres, Yukiko Uchida, Christin-Melanie Vauclair, Cai Xing & John M. Zelenski (2023): Self-construals predict personal life satisfaction with different strengths across societal contexts differing in national wealth and religious heritage, Self and Identity, DOI: 10.1080/15298868.2023.2202413