Beyond Self Worth: Social Worth as a Foundation of Subjective Well-being in Sub-Saharan Africa

Research on subjective well-being (SWB) has been predominantly informed by theories and samples from individualistic Western societies. Many theories focus on factors related to self worth (e.g., self-esteem, self-efficacy), yet these factors show limited predictive strength outside of Western contexts. Here, we reveal the centrality of social worth (e.g., social esteem, social efficacy) to SWB in an underrepresented yet rapidly growing region, sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). In Studies 1A and 1B, machine learning analyses of community samples from Uganda/ Democratic Republic of the Congo (N = 926) and Niger (N = 930) revealed that social worth most strongly predicted life satisfaction out of 48 unique psychosocial, economic, and demographic variables, while self worth was not retained. In pre-registered Study 2, cross-cultural structural equation modeling (SEM) showed social worth to predict SWB nearly ten times as strongly as self worth in SSA (N_Niger= 1093, N_(Uganda/ DRC)= 1526), whereas the two predictors were comparable in the U.S. (N = 1059). In Study 3, global analyses (N = 72,224) revealed SSA to show the highest association between life satisfaction and a proxy of social worth, whereas a proxy of self worth was again not predictive in SSA. Across studies, the high predictive strength of social worth in SSA held above and beyond the influence of economic resource differences. Together, our findings help fill theoretical gaps in the science of well-being, with implications for theory, clinical practice, and policy.