The ecology of subjective wellbeing: a global analysis of environmental factors associated with life evaluation

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.