Being good and doing good: a cross-national study of character strengths and prosocial behaviors in Wave 1 of the Global Flourishing Study

Classical and contemporary theories of flourishing posit that character, and corresponding actions, are central to well‑being, yet few population‑based studies have examined how character strengths and prosocial behaviors are distributed and related across diverse societies. Using Wave 1 data from the Global Flourishing Study across 22 countries and territories (N = 202,898), we examined cross-national distributions of six self-reported character strengths (promoting good, hope, delayed gratification, gratitude, showing love/care, forgivingness) and three prosocial behaviors (volunteering, helping strangers, charitable giving) and their interrelations. Most character strengths were highly endorsed, while prosocial behaviors varied more across countries. Pooled cross-country correlations between most character strengths were medium to very large; forgivingness had smaller correlations with other character strengths, and correlations among prosocial behaviors were moderate; correlations between character strengths and prosocial behaviors were yet smaller. Correlational patterns were fairly consistent across countries. These findings offer a novel picture of how character strengths and prosocial behaviors are patterned cross-nationally.