Beyond Happiness: The Roots of Flourishing

Show Notes

What does it really mean for humans and communities to flourish? The answers aren’t always what you might expect, which makes Byron Johnson’s landmark Global Flourishing Study a seminal contribution to the field. This massive study—the largest of its kind—has shared its first wave of insights, with more coming in the months ahead. Learn what he and a team of elite global researchers found in countries around the world that unlock clues to help people thrive in meaningful ways. 

The conversation highlights:

• The Global Flourishing Study is the largest longitudinal study of its kind, tracking over 200,000 people worldwide.
• Young people aged 18–29 are experiencing a global decline in flourishing, a key concern highlighted in the study.
• Religion and community involvement are consistently linked to higher levels of flourishing.
• Baylor’s commitment to interdisciplinary, faith-based research makes it a fitting leader for this global initiative.
• Future plans which include in-depth interviews and expanded research.
• Flourishing is not the absence of suffering—many individuals flourish even amid adversity.

Transcript

Derek Smith:
Today, we're discussing a fundamental topic, human flourishing, a fundamental topic, but one that has multifaceted factors, so many angles why humans thrive in different settings. And we're going to talk about today with the expert, Byron Johnson. Byron Johnson here at Baylor University launched the Global Flourishing Study. It's a landmark study, the largest funded research project in Baylor history that gets to the root of what causes, what are the factors that lead to humans thriving, whether individuals or communities. And Byron, excited to have you here with us today and share.

Byron Johnson:
Thanks, Derek, good to be here with you.

Derek Smith:
Well, and I know you've been traveling all over the country and certainly all over the world in recent years building this project, making it happen. And we're going to go in really in depth into what it is, but let's start with a snapshot.

Byron Johnson:
Okay.

Derek Smith:
First, human flourishing. When you're talking to people about what causes humans to thrive, I imagine you hear some pretty interesting stories. So what's something that's been ... I'll use the word serendipitous. What's been serendipitous for you lately in talking to people about this?

Byron Johnson:
Well, as you could expect, people are listening to the findings and they're seeing, is there something in there that shocks me or concerns me? And one of the disturbing findings is that young people are not doing well. And we can come back and unpack that a bit later, but at a major press event on April the 30th, when we rolled out 36 studies in one day, at the very end of that press conference, a young person stood up and asked a question. And the question is, I'm one of those young people that you talked about demographically, what are you guys doing about it?
And it was kind of like deer in the headlights. It wasn't a question that anybody on the panel was anticipating because we've been really working hard just to get these papers published in good journals. And yet, someone is saying, "How can you help us?" "I mean, I don't read Nature," is what this young man was saying. "And so these journals that you're talking about are not on my reading list."
And so as I'm trying to think off the top of my head, it hit me that we need to do storytelling on top of the research. It's one thing to publish the research, but what if people can't make much sense of the research if there's too much statistical analysis going on for people to decipher what's really happening? And so that's what I said. I said, "We are really giving some thought to how we might be able to do short films of the four-minute variety that tackle topics like anxiety, which is something that young people seem to be struggling with, not just in the United States, but all across the world."
And what if you could do a video that said, "These are the signs of anxiety, here's what the research is telling us that we're learning, and here's a way in which you can begin to address that issue in your own life." And what if we were to provide a toolkit? So these are the things that we're now working on as a result of one person asking us a question that we really weren't expecting at all.
And so I do think the storytelling part of it is absolutely critical. It's what you and I are doing right now. We're having a conversation about the research such that everyday people will watch it and glean something from it. And so I think that really was something that kind of happened on the spur of the moment that was kind of jolting for us. And so we've got our first documentary coming out in a couple of weeks, and we hope and believe that we might be able in the future to do 70 short films on all 70 constructs that we're testing.

Derek Smith:
Well, as you described that, conducting research that you want to see have an impact, that in and of itself is not novel. All researchers want to see their research have an impact, but that seems so fundamental when we talk about the Global Flourishing Study. If it's not impacting people, it's not doing what you created it to do.

Byron Johnson:
Yeah. And so we've been thrilled at the reception of the study. It's one of those things where we knew we had something special, but even we were surprised at the reception, of the findings. And you forget how big of a project it is, the scope of the project. We just published a new book on the translation work. It's a thousand pages, and we thought it was such a heavy lift to translate into all these languages. And how do you do it well to make sure you got the translation right?
So you do cognitive interviews with people to see if those questions made sense to them. And if they didn't, why didn't they then go back and change the question? So that was a whole long process. We thought we've done the work, let's just turn it into a book. And so that's just another one of the products that's come out in recent days because we want to be able to help other researchers as they look at the Global Flourishing Study and they come alongside and we want to give them all the tools that we use to build the study.

Derek Smith:
As we talk about the Global Flourishing Study, for those who don't know, let's give them the details. What is it? What makes it unique in this space?

Byron Johnson:
Yeah. So the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard was founded in 2016, just strictly dedicated to the topic of flourishing. What are the determinants of flourishing? And so they produced a wealth of material and they eventually validated six different domains that really seem to stick together and are predictive of what it means to flourish. And by that we mean how are you in all respects? Not just how are you doing physically, but how are you doing emotionally? And how are you doing in relationships? And how are you doing with character and purpose and meaning? And how are you doing financially? These are all areas of our lives that are important. And if you're not careful, you'll overlook one of those areas.
And so it's not just about being happy. And I think a lot of people equate happiness with flourishing, and our study is kind of shattering that myth. It is so much more than that. So we thought there's all this good research on flourishing. 95% of it is in the United States. We don't know a whole lot about flourishing in other parts of the world and certainly not in the Global South. What can we do to remedy that?
And since we had a relationship with Gallup, we thought, let's just go to Gallup to see, is it possible to track people over time instead of just interviewing people and then next year interviewing a different group of people? What if you could interview the same group of people? And so these are called panel studies, longitudinal designs. They're complicated, they're very expensive. And because you can't keep up with people, you need to, but it's hard to. So to do it in 40 languages in all these different countries, it's been a major lift. So it's the largest study by far in the world.
And so, one day, I had some spare time and I googled what is the largest longitudinal study in the history of the world, and AI comes back, the Global Flourishing Study led by Baylor and Harvard is the largest such study in the world. So it's been an amazing project. And we have over 3,000 people around the world that are interviewing people, kind of like what we're doing right now when they take the survey.
So there are different modes. You can take it online, you can do it on the handheld or face-to-face. And so when you're interviewing over 200,000 people around the world, some of these people living in remote villages 100 miles from the nearest city, then you begin to capture the scope of the project. And so nothing like it's been done. And I think that's why there was such a great response from the Nature portfolio of journals. We had hoped they would be interested maybe after Wave 3 or 4, because it's a five-wave study. They were interested right off the bat. So it looks like we have a long-term relationship with the Nature journals for the life of the project, which is for us, it's great, because it opens up so many doors if you can get published in those kinds of outlets.

Derek Smith:
So in a moment, we're going to talk about some of the insights from Wave 1, but just to orient people, where are we in this project and how does it build on what you found?

Byron Johnson:
We launched the project here at Baylor in 2021 in October/November of '21. And then we did a year's worth of pilot work around the world in all these countries where we tested the questions to see how they were doing. And then after that, we began going into the field to collect data.
On April the 30th, just four or five months ago, we released 36 papers from Wave 1. Now, Wave 2 data were released in March, the March before last. And so now, we're writing papers from Wave 2. Even as Wave 1, papers are still coming out, still trickling out, all total maybe 80 or 90 papers from Wave 1 with more coming. Now, we're writing Wave 2 papers, and we're in the field for Wave 3. And so we will finish data collection December the 31st for Wave 3. That's kind of the cycle that we're on.
So in January, we will begin, or shortly thereafter writing papers from Wave 3. And this is where it gets really exciting because now we can do causal studies, not correlational studies, because we're following the same people over time. And so the project just gets better and better and better. So, yeah, that's kind of where we are at the moment, never a dull moment.
Still wrapping up Wave 1 papers. A few of our team members have said there's still one more paper that I want to work on. And so our most recent papers on the US, just looking at the states, seeing how the states are flourishing. And so we had to wait because we were getting these statistical weights for each state. And so you want to guess which state it comes out at the top.

Derek Smith:
Oh boy, I'm going to say it again, because that's where I'm from, but I don't know that, that's correct.

Byron Johnson:
That's a good guess, Louisiana.

Derek Smith:
Really?

Byron Johnson:
Yeah.

Derek Smith:
Interesting.

Byron Johnson:
And so the reality is in the US, if you look at the states, there isn't a big gap between Louisiana and states. It's bunched really close. So it's a little bit misleading because Indonesia is doing so much better than Japan. And Japan is not only at the bottom, they're pretty far down on the list. So that too is a cause for concern.

Derek Smith:
Well, I imagine people are eager to hear some of the findings if they haven't. So as you described, these are findings from Wave 1. Your insights, we'll call them from Wave 1. We're going to build on these as time goes on, so you can really get to some of that causation. But what are some of the trails that you've been able to follow from this first wave that are particularly interesting?

Byron Johnson:
Yeah, I think I mentioned this earlier, the fact that demographic of 18 to 29-year-olds globally are not doing well when it comes to human flourishing, this is cause for global concern. I mean, this is our future. And in the past, people assumed that this was a developing ... Countries in the developed world maybe had this problem, but not other countries in the Third World, let's say. We're finding it's everywhere.
And so this is a huge cause for concern, and it goes against all the trends that we've seen, because in the past, we've seen a U-shaped curve where young people do really well and older people do really well, and middle-aged people don't do so well. And you go, "Well, why would that be the case?" Well, middle-aged people have a lot of responsibilities. They have a family, they have a mortgage, they have aging parents, they have all kinds of things that they're dealing with. It's a tough season.
So you can understand why people, as they move into retirement, maybe their house is paid off and now their golden years, and so that makes sense. But now, the U-shaped curve is a J, and where that has just completely flattened out. So this is cause for concern, and that's one of the key findings that people around the world wanted to talk about because, obviously, they're concerned. And I do think that we need to think more intentionally about young people. What can we do for them? And I think COVID was part of it, and there are other culprits in there that you could think of too, maybe social media and technology being a part of the struggle that young people are having, but that's one big finding.
There are other findings that are interesting too. Men and women flourish at about the same level. And in some areas, maybe men do a little bit better than women. And other areas, women do a little bit better than men, but the role of parental relationships with their kids is really predictive of adult flourishing.
So we ask people in the survey, "Tell us about your life when you were 12." And so people think back to that time in their life, and then we ask them these questions about what was going on in their life at the age of 12. And so we call these our childhood predictor questions. And so it gives us a little bit of a longitudinal study right off the bat. We call it a synthetic longitudinal. It's not truly longitudinal, but most people do remember when they were 12.
And so if they had a great relationship with their father and a good relationship with their mother, this is very predictive of adult flourishing. It's also predictive of other kinds of things too. So let's just say you went to religious services as a 12-year-old, you're dramatically more likely to go to religious services as an adult. And so that may be kind of a no-brainer for people, but to see that come out so strong all across the world is a pretty important finding.
And kids that were raised in abusive environments, that has consequences for them. And kids that were raised in homes that have been affected by divorce don't do as well either. So some of these things are not too surprising, but I think one of the other global findings that people are interested in and surprised about, and I think some people frustrated with is the power of religion. It is a universal finding, pretty much. If people regularly attend religious services, the benefits are significant on all the domains of flourishing.
And so some people have said, "Why isn't religion a domain?" Well, religion is kind of a control variable for us. We look at all these other domains and then we control for religious affiliation and religious attendance and other religious variables as well. And I think so many of the interviews, the media has been struggling with this one, because these might be people that are completely secular and they want to flourish. They're not religious. And when they see these findings from across the world, they're baffled by it.
And, of course, the question is, what is it about attending religious services that's so powerful? And for that, of course, you can only speculate at this point, but it's the kind of thing that wouldn't come to a surprise to Baylor alums. And that is that, guess what, there's community in these houses of worship. There's support in houses of worship. And who knows, maybe people actually hear the teaching and the preaching and it affects how they live their lives. So the significance of religion has been probably the biggest constant throughout all the countries.

Derek Smith:
Byron, you talked about this project, and I think human flourishing is an area of great importance to Baylor research-wise, not just in your area of the social sciences, but across all the disciplines. So I'm curious, you've got such great partners, Harvard University, Gallup, The Center for Open Science, and so many research partnerships. Why is Baylor the right place to lead out in a project like this of this magnitude?

Byron Johnson:
Yeah, that's such a great question. I think that Baylor is unafraid to look at all aspects of flourishing. And I think that I can't say that about a lot of places. The fact that faith is vital to flourishing is something that we don't shy away from. We want to understand it. And in fact, the less you're involved with religion, the more problematic it is for people. I mean, the gradient is quite shocking.
So I tell people all the time, if you don't attend, you should attend. It's good for your health, do it for all the wrong reasons. But I think a lot of people that actually go to houses of worship are beneficiaries and they don't even know it, even if they're just bystanders, there's something that happens when people come together.
And so I think Baylor says, "We definitely want to study that. We definitely want to know what's going on." Because we think we have some insights as a Christian institution about why that would be the case. And I don't know that every university in America would be that enamored with the role that faith seems to be playing. That's unequivocal. So Baylor is the perfect place for it, and Baylor has invested in the project, and in a way that I don't think other universities would've. And it's cost so much money. I mean, it's currently a $50 million project and we're raising another 10.

Derek Smith:
And you're launching a center right now as well, correct? How is that going to factor in?

Byron Johnson:
It's huge. I came to Baylor in 2004 to launch something called the Institute for Studies of Religion, and I was running a center at the University of Pennsylvania doing the same thing, which is a secular university. And so Baylor is thinking, "Okay, so he's at Penn doing studies on religion, why aren't we doing empirical studies on religion?" That's how I came to Baylor.
Now, all these years later, with the flourishing thing just taking off in such ways that you couldn't hardly predict, Baylor said, "Well, what if we launch a new institute and put some resources behind it so that we can respond to these inquiries that are coming in, they don't get missed?" And so we launched it on April the 30th at the same time we had that big event in Washington DC with the initial rollout of the findings. I think it's going to be a global game changer. I really do. And I think it puts Baylor at the epicenter of a global movement.

Derek Smith:
Byron, as we wind down, you shared the story at the top of the program about that young man saying, "What are you going to do?" And of course, it's not just you or those involved with the project, but it's really the findings trickling out. So when you talk about obviously, Nature, higher education, so many people in the sciences are interested in this, but you talked about making it accessible. Where all do you see these findings making an impact? And as you release these findings and share them in different ways, who are some of the audiences you're thinking about who can really take this ball and run with it in different ways?

Byron Johnson:
We've been working with the Trilith Foundation outside of Atlanta. It's this idyllic little community, 15 minutes from the Atlanta Airport. It's a town built by Dan Cathy from Chick-fil-A, and it's a town based on human flourishing. It's got like a thousand residents. And across the street from the town are 32 studios where they're making films like Superman. The most recent Superman film was filmed at Trilith.
We've been working very closely with them. They have become somewhat of a lab. So we do these interesting little experiments in Trilith, and what's happened is that's opened up all kinds of possibilities. So we help them build something called a field guide that they're going to give to tourists, because tourists come to Trilith every day to go through all the studios where all these movies are being made like the Marvel movies, and they're going to give them a field guide that is backed up by empirical research from the Global Flourishing Study. And it has Baylor's imprint on it too, but it's a Trilith product.
Well, imagine if you're the mayor of San Antonio and you've heard about the study, which he has, and he wants San Antonio to be a flourishing community. What can we provide for them? What are the how-to manuals? And so that's what we're working on right now. What kind of a toolkit can we prepare for politicians, businesses, CEOs that want their companies to be flourishing companies? How can they pay better attention to the social, physical, and mental and spiritual health of the people that work for them?
And so I think the publications in Nature are incredible because of the doors they open up for us, but I think it's these tangible products that will help organizations and agencies to flourish. The federal government, we've been talking to them, they don't ask any of these questions on flourishing, HUD, labor, commerce, justice, none of them. And so there is a sense in which the government, before it's all said and done, may have our items embedded throughout all of the agencies. And so that too would be just a huge role for Baylor to be involved in rethinking how we think about our health.

Derek Smith:
As we close one thing you've shared with me in the past that's interesting is that idea of counterintuitivity that you find in these. You might find someone who is in prison but is flourishing by many metrics, maybe someone with a terminal diagnosis but flourishing in many ways. How much do factors like that just the part of you that's still a little kid, an investigator? How much does that drive you and your colleagues as you move forward?

Byron Johnson:
Derek, it's huge. Whenever you sit down and interview people, which now ... Because that's the in-depth interviews, that's the piece that's missing from the Global Flourishing Study and we haven't talked about just yet. Maybe we'll do it on the next time I'm with you. But one of the things we're thinking about is, and I've been talking to Nancy Brickhouse, the provost and Linda Livingstone about this is, could we keep the study going and could we reinvent the study? The Global Flourishing Study 2.0 where we actually do ask in depth questions.
Because whenever we do take the time to do it, and I'm talking to someone that is just doing incredible, then you find out all the tragedy that they've gone through in the last year. And as they explain walking through a terminal diagnosis with a family member, and you hear the way in which their life has dramatically changed for the good through that whole process.
So flourishing is not the absence of suffering. Flourishing happens at the same time as the suffering happens. We need to understand how those things work together, but you can only do that if you take the time. And so yes, we've been talking to people, we've been going into prisons and talking to people on death row who are awaiting execution, who are flourishing. They have found peace in the contentment.
So one of the inmates that I've been talking to for the last three years is going to be executed on October the 14th. So we're going down to spend three days with him before the execution and we're going to film all of it. And so some of that's very heavy, but I do think it's going to give us the insights. So what might we learn from people on death row? Because it's the case that GDP is a terrible predictor of flourishing. It's not all about economics, but I think so many of our policies are based on economic principles. Not that those aren't good, but I think that as we look to the future, we're going to be in a place to help the world think about how do we do economic development that doesn't overlook meaning and purpose and faith and spiritual pathways to flourishing.

Derek Smith:
Well, it's going to be exciting to see all that continue to develop. 2026 is not too far off. We'll have to have you on again to talk about Wave 2 insights and how they build on what we've discussed today. But Byron, thanks so much for taking the time to join us. I know you're on the road a lot, so safe travels-

Byron Johnson:
Thanks, Derek.

Derek Smith:
... as you share this with so many other people.

Byron Johnson:
Much appreciated.

Derek Smith:
Thank you very much. Byron Johnson, our guest today on Baylor Connections. You can learn more about the Global Flourishing Study in our show notes. Go online to baylor.edu/connections to learn more. Thanks for joining us today on Baylor Connections.