ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an evolutionary context for the measurement of societal well-being based on the concept of complexity. It describes an analysis of archival data collected by the European Social Survey from the viewpoint of sociocultural complexity, operationalized as increasing levels of differentiation and integration. The chapter discusses how this broad evolutionary context – informed by an empirical framework of societal well-being – provides a critical foundation for moving the science of positive psychology forward by focusing on the broader, macro-level interventions of people lives. Despite the great amount of information produced in the past few generations about what indicators are the most useful to collect and study, there is still a wide divergence of opinion about what constitutes societal well-being. The chapter examines the psychological impact of having opportunities to express opinions freely, and of forming trustworthy expectations of sociopolitical institutions. It argues that the good life is in fact an epiphenomenon of social contexts.
