§ Methodology · LBL-FI v1.0
The science behind the Flourishing Index.
The Flourishing Index and its extended form, the Secure Flourishing Index, were developed at the Harvard Human Flourishing Program and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2017. They are the most widely validated short-form measures of overall human flourishing available, and form the backbone of the Global Flourishing Study — a five-year longitudinal cohort study of more than 200,000 participants across 22 countries, with results published in Nature Mental Health in April 2025.
This page explains how the instrument works, what each of the six domains measures, how your score is calculated, and how your result is contextualized against the best global normative data currently available.
What is flourishing?
In the framework used here, flourishing means living well across multiple interdependent life domains — not merely the absence of illness or the presence of happiness. The 2017 PNAS paper "On the promotion of human flourishing" argues that wellbeing is not a single thing but a composite — and that any assessment that reduces it to one dimension (life satisfaction alone, or happiness alone, or income alone) systematically mismeasures real human welfare.
The Flourishing Index (FI) captures five domains: happiness & life satisfaction, mental & physical health, meaning & purpose, character & virtue, and close social relationships. The Secure Flourishing Index (SFI) adds a sixth, instrumental domain — financial & material stability — which enables sustained flourishing over time. This tool uses all six domains and reports the SFI.
A person may be flourishing if their life is going well across the various spheres of their lives. The goal of assessment is not to rank people, but to help individuals identify where their own life is most and least resourced.
Paraphrased from VanderWeele, 2017 — PNAS
The six domains and their items.
Each domain is measured with two items, for a total of twelve. All items are on a 0–10 scale. No items are reverse-coded — higher is always better. The exact wording below is the validated wording used in the Global Flourishing Study and the Harvard Human Flourishing Program's public instrument, reproduced here for transparency.
1. Happiness & Life Satisfaction
Domain 1 · Subjective wellbeing
Subjective wellbeing — how satisfied you feel with your life as a whole, and how happy you feel in general — is the most familiar dimension of flourishing. It's both an output of the other domains and a predictor of future health, productivity, and longevity in longitudinal cohort research.
Item 1
"Overall, how satisfied are you with life as a whole these days?"
0 = Not Satisfied at All → 10 = Completely Satisfied
Item 2
"In general, how happy or unhappy do you usually feel?"
0 = Extremely Unhappy → 10 = Extremely Happy
2. Mental & Physical Health
Domain 2 · Health status
Self-rated health is one of the most robust predictors of mortality and morbidity in epidemiological research — often outperforming physician-assessed measures. Mental and physical health interact bidirectionally across the lifespan, and both shape capacity for flourishing in every other domain.
Item 3
"In general, how would you rate your physical health?"
0 = Poor → 10 = Excellent
Item 4
"How would you rate your overall mental health?"
0 = Poor → 10 = Excellent
3. Meaning & Purpose
Domain 3 · Eudaimonic wellbeing
Meaning is distinct from happiness. A person can feel unhappy and still believe their life is deeply meaningful, and vice versa. The two items here capture both the felt sense that what one does matters, and the cognitive clarity of understanding one's larger purpose.
Item 5
"Overall, to what extent do you feel the things you do in your life are worthwhile?"
0 = Not at All Worthwhile → 10 = Completely Worthwhile
Item 6
"I understand my purpose in life."
0 = Strongly Disagree → 10 = Strongly Agree
4. Character & Virtue
Domain 4 · Moral conduct
Character captures what the philosopher's tradition and modern positive psychology converge on: the capacity to act well under difficult conditions, and to delay gratification for larger goods. Research on character strengths finds this domain among the most transmissible across generations and most responsive to deliberate practice.
Item 7
"I always act to promote good in all circumstances, even in difficult and challenging situations."
0 = Not True of Me → 10 = Completely True of Me
Item 8
"I am always able to give up some happiness now for greater happiness later."
0 = Not True of Me → 10 = Completely True of Me
5. Close Social Relationships
Domain 5 · Relational wellbeing
The Harvard Study of Adult Development — now in its 85th year — has repeatedly found that relationship quality at midlife predicts physical health, cognitive function, and life satisfaction in old age more robustly than income, cholesterol, or IQ. These two items capture both the quality and the felt sufficiency of close relationships.
Item 9
"I am content with my friendships and relationships."
0 = Strongly Disagree → 10 = Strongly Agree
Item 10
"My relationships are as satisfying as I would want them to be."
0 = Strongly Disagree → 10 = Strongly Agree
6. Financial & Material Stability
Domain 6 · Instrumental — SFI only
Financial and material stability is instrumental — it doesn't directly constitute flourishing, but it enables and sustains the other domains over time. Note the reverse framing: both items ask about worry rather than income. Chronic financial anxiety predicts deterioration in every other domain in longitudinal research, regardless of absolute wealth.
Item 11
"How often do you worry about being able to meet normal monthly living expenses?"
0 = Worry All of the Time → 10 = Do Not Ever Worry
Item 12
"How often do you worry about safety, food, or housing?"
0 = Worry All of the Time → 10 = Do Not Ever Worry
How your score is calculated.
The scoring is deliberately simple, by design: arithmetic means, no weightings, no reverse-coding. This transparency was an explicit methodological choice so that the composite score remains interpretable and non-proprietary.
Step 1 · Domain scores
For each of the six domains, your two items are averaged: domain_score = (item_A + item_B) / 2. Each domain score therefore falls between 0 and 10.
Step 2 · Flourishing Index (FI)
The Flourishing Index is the mean of the first five domains (Happiness, Health, Meaning, Character, Relationships). The financial domain is excluded from the FI because it is instrumental rather than intrinsic to flourishing itself. This is the measure used when comparing against published longitudinal research that predates the SFI.
Step 3 · Secure Flourishing Index (SFI)
The Secure Flourishing Index is the mean of all six domains — FI plus the financial-stability domain. It captures the full picture: flourishing and the material security that makes it sustainable. This tool reports the SFI as the primary headline score, which is consistent with the Global Flourishing Study's approach.
Global normative benchmarks.
Your Flourishing Age is computed by matching your FI score to the country-and-age-bracket averages published in the Global Flourishing Study's 2025 Nature Mental Health release. The table below shows the normative Flourishing Index averages used for age-matching in this tool — drawn and interpolated from the published GFS 2025 wave 1 data across 22 countries.
Flourishing Index averages (0–10) by country × age bracket — Global Flourishing Study, 2025
| 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 |
Green highlights the global high (Indonesia). Amber highlights the global low (Japan, and US 18–29 — the widely-reported young-adult finding). Values between published anchor points are interpolated linearly.
One of the most striking findings from the Global Flourishing Study is that the classical U-shape of wellbeing — where young adults and older adults both flourish more than those in midlife — has collapsed. In the 2025 data, young adults (18–29) report the lowest flourishing across nearly every country studied, and the curve now rises steadily with age.
See Global Flourishing Study — Initial Findings, Nature Mental Health, April 2025.
How your Flourishing Age is computed.
Your Flourishing Age is a communicative device — not a clinical measure — that answers the question: "At what age would someone in my country typically flourish at the level I'm currently flourishing at?"
The algorithm takes your Flourishing Index score (domains 1–5) and finds the age bracket in your country's normative data whose average is closest to your score. It then reports the midpoint of that bracket (so "40–49" becomes age 45). The gap between that age and your actual age is reported as "years ahead" or "years behind" — again, in a descriptive rather than diagnostic sense.
Because the direction of the normative curve now tilts steadily upward with age in most countries, a younger adult scoring near their country's older-adult average is, in the language of the data, flourishing unusually well for their cohort. A midlife adult scoring near the young-adult average is flourishing below the typical trajectory for their peer group.
How your archetype is matched.
Archetypes are pattern-based summaries of your six-domain profile — intended to help you recognize your flourishing signature at a glance. They are descriptive heuristics, not diagnostic categories. The matching logic is:
The Flourisher
Trigger: average ≥ 8 AND lowest ≥ 7
Strong performance across all six domains with no significant drag. GFS 2025 estimates this profile at roughly 10–15% of adults globally.
The Steady
Trigger: average ≥ 6.5, all ≥ 5.5, spread < 2
Balanced above-average performance without either extreme strength or extreme weakness. A profile of resilience — no single lever is lifting or sinking the whole.
The Seeker
Trigger: peak domain is Meaning
Meaning and purpose are your highest-scoring domain. Research identifies meaning as the hardest flourishing domain to cultivate from scratch, so this foundation is strategically valuable.
The Connected
Trigger: peak domain is Relationships
Close relationships are your strongest lever. Longitudinal work from the Harvard Study of Adult Development finds this profile among the most protective for late-life wellbeing.
The Provider
Trigger: peak is Financial or Health
Instrumental foundations (material security, physical wellbeing) are solid. GFS 2025 finds this profile common in high-income countries — security without matching depth in meaning or relationships.
The Depleted
Trigger: average < 4.5 OR 4+ below 5
Multiple domains currently below typical ranges. This is a real signal — GFS 2025 found this profile in meaningful numbers, especially among young adults. Triggers the care-aware notice and resource links at the top of your results.
What this assessment doesn't capture.
Intellectual honesty requires naming the limitations of any short-form instrument. The Flourishing Index is a 12-item self-report measure, and while it has strong psychometric properties, 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. Flourishing fluctuates across weeks and seasons. A single assessment captures a moment, not a trend. Longitudinal use (re-taking every 3–6 months) is more informative than a single score.
- 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.
- Domain boundaries are imperfect. Real human flourishing spills across the six lines drawn here. A thriving friendship is also meaning. A vocational calling is also character. The six-domain map is useful but not ontologically precise.