Culture and National Well-Being: Should Societies Emphasize Freedom or Constraint?

ABSTRACT: Throughout history and within numerous disciplines, there exists a perennial debate about how societies should best be organized. Should they emphasize individual freedom and autonomy or security and constraint? Contrary to proponents who tout the benefits of one over the other, we demonstrate across 32 nations that both freedom and constraint exhibit a curvilinear relationship with many indicators of societal well-being. Relative to moderate nations, very permissive and very constrained nations exhibit worse psychosocial outcomes (lower happiness, greater dysthymia, higher suicide rates), worse health outcomes (lower life expectancy, greater mortality rates from cardiovascular disease and diabetes) and poorer economic and political outcomes (lower gross domestic product per capita, greate

SUBMITTER: Harrington JR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4457878 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature