Active and inactive membership in art, music, or educational organizations and subjective well-being across 66 societies

Using World Values Survey Wave 7 data from 66 societies, we examine active and inactive membership in art, music, or educational organizations and two well-being outcomes. Among 89,460 adults, trust-adjusted models associate active membership with slightly higher happiness and inactive membership with lower life satisfaction. On a common sample, adjustment for other organizational memberships attenuates these differences, with all focal confidence intervals including zero. Findings also depend on outcome coding. These exploratory, cross-sectional results describe how membership associations depend on status, outcome, and adjustment; they do not establish benefits from participation or a distinct advantage of the combined organizational category.