Quanta Corporate Citizenship We’ve recently talked about the work done by professors Helliwell and Wang, from the British Columbia University linking trust and well-being. Professors Helliwell and Christopher Barrington-Leigh have now published a new paper called ‘How much is social capital worth?’, in which they analyse the link between the feeling that one has that he or she belongs (i.e., social connections) to a group and his/her perceived well-being. The findings, once again, are fascinating.
As they explain “respondents report significantly higher life satisfaction when they have strong social networks, when they make more frequent use of these supportive networks, when they trust those among whom they live and work, and when they feel a sense of belonging in their communities”. And let’s not forget that life satisfaction (well-being) plays a significant role in one’s life: human beings make their decisions primarily in order to maximize their well-being. And as they had demonstrated in their previous work, non-financial elements can have a much greater impact on well-being than financial rewards, but if those non-financial elements are not present, financial rewards will have to be used to fill the gaps in order to achieve the same level of well-being.
In this newer research, they were able to demonstrate that individuals with strong social identities [defined by them as the feeling of belonging to community, province and country] report well-being twice as high as those without similar social identities. Or as they put it “the combined social identity variables explain twice as much variance [on perceived well-being] as does income; the trust variables explain more than income, and the social network variables are of roughly similar size”. Although their work does not identify cause-and-effect, there is very statistical doubt that they are strongly correlated. Once again, the same theme surfaces: human beings are happier interacting with those they like and trust than when well paid.
One particularly interesting aspect of this new research is that when they analysed what were the main drivers to create the feeling of belonging to the three levels (belonging to a country, to a province and to a community), the most consistent driver was trust in colleagues. Trusting colleagues not only presents the highest average among any other group, but is also the most constant among them, with very little standard deviation, even when compared to elements such as family and close friends. Once again, trusting those you work with is the single most important element for one to feel that she belongs to her community, province or country.
They haven’t extended their research to include the feeling of belonging to a company, but if trusting your colleagues is strongly correlated to the feeling that you belong to a country, try to imagine to the feeling that you belong to a company or a team, especially because, as they put it, “the benefits of belonging to one’s local community do not appear to depend on being less attached to the larger encompassing communities”.
As they explain “respondents report significantly higher life satisfaction when they have strong social networks, when they make more frequent use of these supportive networks, when they trust those among whom they live and work, and when they feel a sense of belonging in their communities”. And let’s not forget that life satisfaction (well-being) plays a significant role in one’s life: human beings make their decisions primarily in order to maximize their well-being. And as they had demonstrated in their previous work, non-financial elements can have a much greater impact on well-being than financial rewards, but if those non-financial elements are not present, financial rewards will have to be used to fill the gaps in order to achieve the same level of well-being.
In this newer research, they were able to demonstrate that individuals with strong social identities [defined by them as the feeling of belonging to community, province and country] report well-being twice as high as those without similar social identities. Or as they put it “the combined social identity variables explain twice as much variance [on perceived well-being] as does income; the trust variables explain more than income, and the social network variables are of roughly similar size”. Although their work does not identify cause-and-effect, there is very statistical doubt that they are strongly correlated. Once again, the same theme surfaces: human beings are happier interacting with those they like and trust than when well paid.
One particularly interesting aspect of this new research is that when they analysed what were the main drivers to create the feeling of belonging to the three levels (belonging to a country, to a province and to a community), the most consistent driver was trust in colleagues. Trusting colleagues not only presents the highest average among any other group, but is also the most constant among them, with very little standard deviation, even when compared to elements such as family and close friends. Once again, trusting those you work with is the single most important element for one to feel that she belongs to her community, province or country.
They haven’t extended their research to include the feeling of belonging to a company, but if trusting your colleagues is strongly correlated to the feeling that you belong to a country, try to imagine to the feeling that you belong to a company or a team, especially because, as they put it, “the benefits of belonging to one’s local community do not appear to depend on being less attached to the larger encompassing communities”.
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