Personal values and life domain satisfaction predict global life satisfaction differently across cultures

Abstract

The study tests two competing theoretical perspectives on the relationship between personal values and global life satisfaction, and the mediation of life domain satisfaction, contributing with novel empirical data across three countries and continents: United States ( N = 497), North America; Mozambique ( N = 544), Africa; and Portugal ( N = 541), Europe. Structural equation modelling showed that personal values and life domain satisfaction associated in both ways differently and similarly with global life satisfaction across countries. Global life satisfaction significantly associated with benevolence in the three samples; with stimulation in the U.S. and Mozambique, but not in Portugal; with tradition in Mozambique and Portugal, but not in the US; and with achievement only in Portugal. The two theoretical perspectives received partial support from the data, suggesting that each may explain part of the phenomena. Life domain satisfaction mediated the relationship between personal values and global life satisfaction. However, the person-environment congruency values perspective received the most support from the data, showing that personal values differ in how they predict global life satisfaction across samples. The differences found suggest a possible connection with individualism-collectivism and the developmental level in each country, but also with other dominant cultural values such as uncertainty avoidance and indulgence.