Scholarly Commons

The Effects of Safety and Materialism on Happiness: The Netherlands, The United States, and India

My research examines the relationship between the feeling of safety and value placed on materialism by citizens and the effect that has on people’s overall feeling of happiness; specifically in the Netherlands, the United States, and India. I treat the US and India as the materialistic countries and the Netherlands serves as their foil. My hypothesis is that a person who feels safe and is materialistic would be happier in the former countries, and a person who feels safe and is not materialistic would be happier in the latter. I test my hypothesis using regression analysis on data from the World Values Survey (Wave 6). I find that my hypothesis for the United States and India hold true, while materialism has no significance for the Netherlands. When controls are added, these results hold for the US and India, while materialism now has a positive correlation in the Netherlands.