An Essential Predictor Of Happiness Is Often Overlooked, According To A Global Study

Researchers examined a country’s GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy, perceptions of corruption, freedom, and more to help explain the findings. However, this year, they paid particular attention to another key happiness predictor: Benevolence.

For the first time, the report took into account someone’s trust that a lost wallet would be returned in their country. “It requires that strangers are to be trusted, that they will go beyond the call of duty and be kind and try and get it back to the rightful owner, or drop it with the police, which means you need to trust the police,” Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, professor of economics at the University of Oxford, leader of the Wellbeing Research Centre and editor of the World Happiness Report, tells Fortune. “The Nordic countries, the Scandinavian countries, do better, both in the belief in others’ kindness and in the actual wallet drop.” In this year’s report, Finland came in no.1, followed by Denmark (no.2), Iceland (no.3), Sweden (no.4), and the Netherlands (no.5). 

“We zoomed in on the social elements of our lives, and whether we could put more concrete numbers on that globally,” says De Neve. Social disconnection increased discontent and distrust in others’ kindness. Researchers also found that prosocial behaviors, including volunteering and helping strangers, reduced deaths of despair (due to suicide, alochol abuse, or drug overdose), which are more common in countries with lower acts of benevolence. 

“Elements around social support and the quality of our social tissue, or social capital in society, is as important as health and wealth in explaining variation in population well-being,” De Neve says. 

The U.S. dropped to its lowest ranking (no.24), largely due to youth’s low contentment and social isolation. The researchers also asked people across the world how many meals were shared with others in the past week. In the U.S., shared meals have decreased by 53% since 2003, and nearly one in five young people say they do not have anyone to lean on in a moment of need. 

It turns out that a lack of connection increases social distrust—not believing in others’ kindness—and is a key predictor in our discontentment than previously thought, De Neve says. “The more you believe in the kindness of others, or in other words, are socially trusting, the higher your individual well-being and the higher collective well-being,” he says. 

Mexico (no.10) and Costa Rica (no.6) joined the top 10 for the first time in the list’s history, and De Neve’s research credits residents’ social ties and their time spent with family and friends—something the U.S. can take note of. 

“If only they spend more time with others and strangers and people that may not be part of their nucleus family, then they would find out that people are actually a bit nicer than what we’ve been made to believe,” De Neve says. “The importance of bringing people together, learning from each other and learning to appreciate others that aren’t necessarily part of your inner circle, will actually help your individual well-being, because it will raise your levels of social trust, which are critical for your well-being.” 

And if he can have a final plea that may resonate with readers, it’s simply prioritizing a shared meal. Who knows, it might build your sense of trust in others more widely and boost your happiness. 

“In this era of social isolation and political polarization, it is absolutely critical to bring people back around the table together, because that’s vital for individual and collective well-being,” he says.