Cultural variability in the link between affect and meaning in life: Evidence from 69 countries.

People tend to evaluate their lives as more meaningful when they experience more positive affect and less negative affect. However, most evidence for this association comes from WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) societies, which are culturally distinctive in their strong emphasis on happiness. To assess the cross-cultural generality of the affect-meaning link, we conducted the largest cross-cultural investigation of this association to date. Between 2022 and 2024, we collected data from 18,672 individuals across 69 countries spanning all inhabited continents. Across cultures, the association between affect and meaning was largely robust: positive affect was positively related to meaning in life in 62 countries, and negative affect was negatively related to meaning in 57 countries. At the same time, substantial cross-cultural variation emerged. Multilevel analyses indicated that both associations were, on average, somewhat stronger in WEIRD countries than in most other regions. Moreover, a cross-level interaction showed that the links between affect (both positive and negative) and meaning were stronger in countries that more strongly idealize happiness, even after accounting for national differences in wealth, religiosity and life satisfaction. Cross-cultural differences were more pronounced for the association between negative affect and meaning than for the association involving positive affect. Meaning was consistently associated with all eight discrete emotions. However, cultural valuation of happiness moderated only the associations with fear, shame, sadness, anger, and gratitude, with weaker evidence for relaxedness and excitement, and no moderation observed for love. Together, these findings suggest that while affective experiences are a widespread basis for evaluating meaning in life, their psychological significance is amplified in WEIRD cultural contexts that place greater emphasis on happiness.