§ Methodology · LBL-FI v2.2
The science behind the LBL Flourishing Index.
The LBL Flourishing Index is an LBL-original 25-item assessment that measures 16 dimensions of a flourishing life — nine core dimensions that drive the composite score and archetype assignment, and seven contextual dimensions that add an awareness layer. The framework synthesizes evidence from the Global Flourishing Study (Wave 1, Nature Mental Health, April 2025), Ryff's Psychological Well-Being model (Ryff 1989), Snyder's Hope Theory (Snyder 1991), Ersner-Hershfield's future-self continuity work (2009), and contemporary research on mindfulness, autonomy, and time poverty.
This page explains how the 16 areas are organized, how each item is scored, how the complete-only composite and descriptive archetype are computed, and why the historical population-comparison display is inactive. LBL-FI is owner-authored, exploratory, unvalidated, non-normative, non-clinical, and non-predictive; it has no external norm, validated change threshold, or person-level prediction model.
What is flourishing?
Flourishing, in the framework used here, means living well across many interdependent life dimensions — not merely the absence of illness or the presence of happiness. The classical positive-psychology argument — that wellbeing is a composite, not a single thing — is now well-established: any assessment that reduces flourishing to one dimension (life satisfaction alone, or happiness alone, or income alone) systematically mismeasures real human welfare.
The LBL Flourishing Index builds on this composite tradition but extends it. Where the most widely cited short-form measure (Harvard's Flourishing Index, VanderWeele 2017) covers six domains in twelve items, the LBL instrument adds nine further facets — inner-life self-awareness, personal growth, autonomy, time freedom, environmental fit, prospective self-continuity & hope, integrity, service, and community — drawn from research traditions that the six-domain framework does not include. The result is 16 dimensions across two tiers: 9 core (which contribute 80% of the composite) and 7 contextual (which contribute 20% and add context).
A person may be flourishing if their life is going well across the various spheres of their existence. The goal of assessment is not to rank people, but to help individuals identify where their own life is most and least resourced — and to make that pattern legible enough to act on.
LBL-FI framing — synthesizing the positive-psychology tradition (Seligman, Ryff, VanderWeele) with the prospective-self-continuity literature (Ersner-Hershfield, Hershfield, Bartels).
The 16 dimensions and their items.
The 16 dimensions are organized into two tiers. Tier 1 (core) consists of 9 dimensions measured with 18 items — two items per dimension. Tier 2 (contextual) consists of 7 dimensions measured with one item each. All items use a 0–10 scale; no items are reverse-coded — higher is always better. The wording below is LBL-original.
Tier 1 dimensions contribute 80% of the composite and drive archetype assignment and Growth Edge identification. Tier 2 dimensions contribute 20% and also appear on the compass strip as contextual awareness signals — facets worth noticing, not facets worth optimizing for a number.
Tier 1 · Core dimensions
9 dimensions × 2 items = 18 items · drives composite, archetype, growth edge
i. Joy & Life Satisfaction
Tier 1 · Subjective wellbeing
Subjective wellbeing — both daily affect and global life satisfaction — is the most familiar dimension of flourishing. In longitudinal cohort research it is both an output of the other dimensions and a forward predictor of health, productivity, and longevity.
Item 1 (q1)
"How often do you feel a quiet sense of contentment with your life as it is?"
0 = Never → 10 = Almost always
Item 2 (q2)
"When you wake up in the morning, how much do you look forward to the day ahead?"
0 = Not at all → 10 = Very much
ii. Mental Health
Tier 1 · Emotional regulation
Mental health here is measured as steadiness and recoverability, not the absence of any negative emotion. Mood stability and post-stress recovery are the two facets most predictive of long-term psychological resilience in clinical and community samples.
Item 3 (q3)
"Over the past two weeks, how steady has your mood been from day to day?"
0 = Very unsteady → 10 = Very steady
Item 4 (q4)
"When stress arises, how well do you tend to bounce back?"
0 = Not at all → 10 = Very well
iii. Inner Life & Self-Awareness
Tier 1 · Self-knowledge
Self-awareness — knowing your own emotional patterns and pausing before acting from them — is a dimension that most short-form wellbeing instruments do not measure. It is, however, robustly correlated with relationship quality, leadership effectiveness, and mindfulness-based outcomes.
Item 5 (q5)
"How well would you say you know your own emotional patterns — what tends to upset you, what tends to soothe you?"
0 = Not well at all → 10 = Very well
Item 6 (q6)
"How often do you pause to notice what you're feeling, before deciding what to do?"
0 = Never → 10 = Almost always
iv. Personal Growth
Tier 1 · Psychological growth
Drawn from Ryff's Psychological Well-Being model, personal growth captures both retrospective change (how much have I grown) and prospective openness (am I still revisable). It is one of the most age-stable dimensions in adult samples — and one of the strongest predictors of subjective vitality.
Item 7 (q7)
"How clearly can you see ways you have grown or changed over the past year?"
0 = Not at all → 10 = Very clearly
Item 8 (q8)
"How open are you to changing your mind when you encounter good evidence against your current beliefs?"
0 = Not open at all → 10 = Very open
v. Physical Health & Vitality
Tier 1 · Embodied wellbeing
Physical health is measured here through subjective vitality and embodied trust rather than objective health metrics. The lived experience of having energy and feeling allied with one's own body predicts adherence to health behaviors and overall life satisfaction independent of measured biomarkers.
Item 9 (q9)
"How much physical energy do you typically have through your day?"
0 = Very little → 10 = A great deal
Item 10 (q10)
"How often does your body feel like an ally rather than something you're managing or fighting?"
0 = Never → 10 = Almost always
vi. Meaning & Purpose
Tier 1 · Eudaimonic wellbeing
Meaning and purpose are the most direct expression of Aristotelian eudaimonia in modern wellbeing science. They are also the hardest dimensions to cultivate from scratch and the most protective against the corrosive effects of chronic adversity — which is why they receive heavy weight in nearly every validated flourishing measure.
Item 11 (q11)
"When you think about how you spend your time, how often does it feel aligned with what genuinely matters to you?"
0 = Never → 10 = Almost always
Item 12 (q12)
"How often do you feel your day's effort connects to something larger than just today?"
0 = Never → 10 = Almost always
vii. Prospective Self-Continuity & Hope
Tier 1 · Future-self relationship
Prospective self-continuity (PSC&H) measures the affective connection you have to your future selves — both the near-future you (5 years out) and the end-of-life you. Drawn from Ersner-Hershfield's future-self research and Snyder's Hope Theory, this is the dimension that drives the animated trajectory chart on the results page. Care-aware emphasis is triggered only by a direct q14 response of 2 or below.
Item 13 (q13)
"When you imagine your life five years from now, how strong is your sense that things will be better than they are today?"
0 = Not at all → 10 = Very strong
Item 14 (q14)
"When you imagine looking back at your life at its end, how confident are you that you will have lived a life worth living?"
0 = Not confident at all → 10 = Very confident
viii. Close Relationships
Tier 1 · Social connection
Close relationships — the experience of being seen, understood, and reliably supported by people you trust — is the single strongest predictor of late-life flourishing in the Harvard Study of Adult Development, the longest-running longitudinal study of adult wellbeing.
Item 15 (q15)
"When you think about your closest relationships, how seen and understood do you feel by the people in them?"
0 = Not at all → 10 = Very much
Item 16 (q16)
"If something difficult happened to you this week, how confident are you that someone you trust would be there for you?"
0 = Not confident at all → 10 = Very confident
ix. Material Security
Tier 1 · Instrumental conditions
Material security is measured here as the subjective experience of sufficiency rather than absolute income. Both items index whether basic needs — housing, food, healthcare — feel covered, which research shows is a stronger predictor of wellbeing than raw income above subsistence thresholds.
Item 17 (q17)
"How well do your financial resources cover what you actually need to live a stable life?"
0 = Not at all → 10 = Very well
Item 18 (q18)
"When you think about your basic security — housing, food, healthcare — how secure does it feel?"
0 = Not secure at all → 10 = Very secure
Tier 2 · Contextual dimensions
7 dimensions × 1 item = 7 items · awareness layer · displayed on compass strip
x. Integrity
Tier 2 · Values alignment
Integrity here means the alignment between your stated values and your daily behavior. It is a contextual dimension because the score reflects circumstance as much as character — a person in a constraining situation can score lower than their values would predict.
Item 19 (q19)
"How often do your actions match the values you hold?"
0 = Never → 10 = Almost always
xi. Service
Tier 2 · Other-orientation
Service measures the frequency of small acts that improve another person's life. It is a contextual dimension because the meaningful unit is the practice, not the magnitude — a daily small act of kindness scores the same as occasional grand gestures.
Item 20 (q20)
"How often do you do something that makes another person's life better — even in a small way?"
0 = Never → 10 = Almost always
xii. Community
Tier 2 · Belonging beyond intimates
Community is the belonging that exists beyond close relationships — to a group, place, faith community, or chosen tribe. It is measured separately from Close Relationships because the two often diverge: people with strong intimate ties can still feel community-isolated, and vice versa. This item is personalized by religious belonging in the suggestion bank.
Item 21 (q21)
"Beyond your closest people, how much do you feel you belong to a group, place, or community?"
0 = Not at all → 10 = Very much
xiii. Autonomy
Tier 2 · Self-determination
Autonomy, as defined in Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan), is the felt freedom to act on your own judgment in the choices that matter. It is one of three basic psychological needs (alongside competence and relatedness) whose satisfaction is causally linked to wellbeing.
Item 22 (q22)
"In the choices that matter most to you, how free do you feel to act on your own judgment?"
0 = Not free at all → 10 = Very free
xiv. Work
Tier 2 · Daily engagement
Work here means daily occupation — whether that is paid employment, caregiving, study, or another primary activity. The measure is engagement, not productivity: how alive the activity feels, not how much it produces.
Item 23 (q23)
"When you think about your daily work or main activity, how engaging does it feel?"
0 = Not engaging → 10 = Very engaging
xv. Time Freedom
Tier 2 · Discretionary time
Time freedom — having enough time for what matters — is one of the strongest predictors of wellbeing in contemporary high-income societies, often outranking income above subsistence thresholds. Time poverty (perceived lack of discretionary time) has emerged as a major modern risk factor.
Item 24 (q24)
"How often do you feel you have enough time for what matters to you?"
0 = Never → 10 = Almost always
xvi. Environmental Fit
Tier 2 · Person-context match
Environmental fit measures whether your everyday surroundings — home, workspace, neighborhood — support or fight the life you want to live. Drawn from person-environment fit research, this is the contextual dimension that often explains why two people with similar internal resources flourish differently.
Item 25 (q25)
"How well do your everyday surroundings — home, workspace, neighborhood — support the life you want to live?"
0 = They fight against it → 10 = They support it
How your score is calculated.
LBL-FI v2.2 scoring is deliberately legible — transparent arithmetic, explicitly stated weights, and no reverse-coded items. The pipeline runs in four stages.
Stage 1 · Dimension scores
For each Tier 1 dimension except d7, the two items are averaged: dim_score = (item_A + item_B) / 2. The original d7 rule is retained: d7 = (0.4 × q13) + (0.6 × q14). For each Tier 2 dimension (t1–t7), the single item is the dimension score. All dimension scores therefore fall between 0 and 10.
Stage 2 · Tier averages
The Tier 1 average is the unweighted mean of the 9 core dimension scores: tier1_avg = mean(d1, d2, …, d9). The Tier 2 average is the unweighted mean of the 7 contextual dimension scores: tier2_avg = mean(t1, t2, …, t7).
Stage 3 · Displayed composite (80/20 weighted)
The headline composite shown on the results page weights Tier 1 at 0.8 and Tier 2 at 0.2: composite = (tier1_avg × 0.8) + (tier2_avg × 0.2). The weighting reflects that Tier 1 dimensions are the load-bearing components of flourishing while Tier 2 dimensions are contextual modifiers. Both tiers inform the composite, but the core dimensions dominate.
Stage 4 · Variance for archetype assignment
Archetype assignment uses the unweighted Tier 1 average (not the 80/20 composite) together with the standard deviation (σ) across the 9 Tier 1 dimensions: σ = sqrt(mean((d_i − tier1_avg)²)). The combination of magnitude (tier1_avg) and spread (σ) lets the tool distinguish, for example, a person who is uniformly thriving from one who is spiking on one dimension while the others lag.
What is empirically grounded vs. what is LBL judgment
Several parameters in the scoring pipeline are LBL working values rather than empirically derived constants. Stating this explicitly so the reader is not misled into thinking everything is data-driven:
- The 80/20 Tier 1 / Tier 2 composite weighting reflects our judgment that core dimensions are load-bearing and contextual dimensions are modifiers; it is not derived from a published factor-analytic fit.
- The archetype σ thresholds (1.2 and 1.8) are owner-authored display rules for separating "even" from "spiked" response shapes. They are not quantile cuts, population bands, prevalence estimates, or validated thresholds.
- The stated-outlook chart connects the current arithmetic composite with the respondent's own q13 and q14 ratings. It contains no projection model, regression, population drift, or person-level forecast.
These owner-authored values may be revised if validation evidence becomes available. Means and standard deviations are arithmetic descriptions of this response set; no country-level normative comparison or validated change threshold is used in v2.2.
Historical normative context (inactive).
Not used by LBL-FI v2.2: the assessment collects neither country nor age, calculates no Flourishing Age, and performs no population comparison. The Global Flourishing Study (GFS) and this owner-authored 25-prompt LBL instrument use different measures; no validated GFS-to-LBL crosswalk exists.
The donor page included the illustrative table below. It is retained only to document that historical design. These figures are not a GFS-published country × age × LBL-FI norm table, are not used by the scoring runtime, and must not be read as a benchmark for an individual result.
Historical illustrative donor table — inactive and not used for scoring or comparison
| Country |
18–29 |
30–39 |
40–49 |
50–59 |
60–69 |
70+ |
| Indonesia | 7.8 | 7.9 | 8.0 | 8.0 | 8.1 | 8.1 |
| Philippines | 7.4 | 7.4 | 7.5 | 7.6 | 7.7 | 7.7 |
| Mexico | 7.3 | 7.4 | 7.5 | 7.6 | 7.7 | 7.8 |
| Brazil | 7.2 | 7.3 | 7.4 | 7.5 | 7.7 | 7.7 |
| Tanzania | 7.0 | 7.1 | 7.2 | 7.3 | 7.4 | 7.5 |
| Nigeria | 6.9 | 7.0 | 7.1 | 7.2 | 7.3 | 7.4 |
| Israel | 6.8 | 7.0 | 7.1 | 7.2 | 7.4 | 7.5 |
| Kenya | 6.8 | 6.9 | 7.0 | 7.1 | 7.2 | 7.3 |
| India | 6.8 | 6.9 | 7.0 | 7.1 | 7.3 | 7.4 |
| Egypt | 6.7 | 6.8 | 6.9 | 7.0 | 7.1 | 7.2 |
| Argentina | 6.6 | 6.7 | 6.8 | 7.0 | 7.3 | 7.4 |
| China | 6.5 | 6.7 | 6.8 | 7.0 | 7.2 | 7.3 |
| Germany | 6.4 | 6.6 | 6.7 | 7.0 | 7.3 | 7.5 |
| South Africa | 6.4 | 6.5 | 6.6 | 6.7 | 6.9 | 7.0 |
| United States | 6.36 | 6.7 | 6.9 | 7.2 | 7.68 | 7.8 |
| Australia | 6.3 | 6.6 | 6.7 | 7.1 | 7.5 | 7.7 |
| Canada | 6.3 | 6.6 | 6.7 | 7.1 | 7.5 | 7.7 |
| Sweden | 6.3 | 6.5 | 6.7 | 7.0 | 7.4 | 7.6 |
| Spain | 6.2 | 6.4 | 6.6 | 6.9 | 7.2 | 7.4 |
| United Kingdom | 6.2 | 6.5 | 6.6 | 7.0 | 7.4 | 7.6 |
| Poland | 6.0 | 6.2 | 6.4 | 6.6 | 6.8 | 7.0 |
| Turkey | 5.8 | 6.0 | 6.2 | 6.5 | 6.8 | 7.0 |
| Japan | 5.4 | 5.6 | 5.8 | 6.1 | 6.5 | 6.8 |
Historical display only. Color and interpolated values do not establish norms, percentiles, person-level expectations, or a valid comparison between GFS and LBL-FI.
The Global Flourishing Study began with 202,898 participants across 22 countries. Waves 2 and 3 are complete; Wave 2 retention was 62.0% and Wave 3 retention was 53.6%, with 96,684 participants completing all three waves and 14,802 skipping Wave 2 and returning for Wave 3. Those cohort facts and within-person GFS findings do not validate LBL-FI, provide LBL norms, or support person-level predictions here.
See the Global Flourishing Study research overview.
Why Flourishing Age is not calculated.
LBL-FI v2.2 does not collect country or age. The visible context card therefore remains uncalculated, and the runtime does not match a result to the historical table.
A 0–10 display range does not make two different instruments interchangeable. Without a validated crosswalk, a country-and-age label, percentile, "years ahead," or "years behind" result would overstate what the response can support.
How your archetype is matched.
Archetypes are pattern-based summaries of your 9-dimension Tier 1 profile — intended to help you recognize your flourishing shape at a glance, not just your flourishing height. They are descriptive heuristics, not diagnostic categories. The matching logic uses two inputs: the Tier 1 average (your overall level) and the standard deviation σ across the 9 dimensions (your evenness vs. spikiness).
The decision is sequential — the first rule that matches wins, so Adrift always takes priority as a care-aware safety routing:
The Adrift
Trigger: direct q14 (end-of-life worth) response ≤ 2
Care-aware override based only on the direct q14 response. It is supportive emphasis, not screening, crisis detection, diagnosis, or risk classification. This is the only archetype that displaces other matching rules. When assigned, the results page surfaces support options above the rest of the assessment.
The Anchored
Trigger: tier1_avg ≥ 7.5 AND σ ≤ 1.2
Strong and even performance across the 9 core dimensions. No single dimension is significantly above or below the others. Anchored is the most stable flourishing pattern — high and broad, without spikes.
The Thriving
Trigger: tier1_avg ≥ 7.5 AND 1.2 < σ ≤ 1.8
A high Tier 1 average with moderate variation across the nine core areas. This owner-authored label describes only this response pattern; it does not estimate prevalence, stability, prognosis, or what a person typically knows.
The Spiked
Trigger: tier1_avg ≥ 7.0 AND σ > 1.8
A high Tier 1 average with greater spread across the nine core areas. The label makes the uneven pattern visible but does not identify a deficit, cause, priority, or the action most likely to help.
The Holding
Trigger: tier1_avg 5.0–7.4
A Tier 1 average in the owner-defined 5.0–7.4 interval. "Holding" is a descriptive name for this response, not a global modal category, forecast, or claim that an intervention will change it.
The Strained
Trigger: tier1_avg < 5.0
A Tier 1 average below the owner-defined 5.0 threshold. "Strained" is a descriptive LBL heuristic, not a population comparison, diagnosis, crisis classification, prognosis, or claim about young adults.
What this assessment doesn't capture.
Intellectual honesty requires naming the limitations of any short-form instrument. The LBL Flourishing Index is a 25-item self-report measure across 16 dimensions, and while it is grounded in well-established research traditions, it has well-known constraints you should be aware of when interpreting your result.
§ Known limitations of this measure
- Self-report bias. Your result reflects how you currently perceive your life, not some external measurement of it. Mood, recent events, and self-perception norms all affect scores.
- Point-in-time snapshot. A single assessment records current self-report, not a trend. Repeating it may support reflection, but LBL-FI is not a validated change measure and has no validated change threshold.
- Not a clinical instrument. The FI is a wellbeing assessment, not a diagnostic tool. It does not replace mental health evaluation by a licensed professional. The care-aware notice at the top of your results is a prompt, not a diagnosis.
- Cross-cultural calibration is imperfect. Response styles vary across cultures — some populations use the middle of the scale more, others the extremes. The normative benchmarks are the best-available global data, but country averages remain averages.
- Archetypes are heuristics. The six archetypes are pattern summaries, not categories of people. Your profile may fit one label better today and a different one in six months.
- Dimension boundaries are imperfect. Real human flourishing spills across the 16 lines drawn here. A thriving friendship is also meaning. A vocational calling is also integrity. The 16-dimension map is useful but not ontologically precise.