8 Social Norms and Institutions
Please leave your values at the front desk.— Paris hotelSocial norms and institutions are public goods that affect all
individuals living in a society. So we can study their effects
only by comparing life- satisfaction across societies, rather
than across individuals. The simplest thing is to compare
different nations.^1
Countries differ in many ways apart from income and
health. Perhaps the most important of these are in their
- ethical norms of behavior (including trustworthi-
ness, generosity, and so on) - networks of social support (“bonding capital”)^2
- openness and tolerance (“bridging capital”)
- personal freedom
- the quality of government (including corruption)
- equality, and
- levels of religiosity.
How do all these features affect the life- satisfaction of cit-
izens in these countries? We can obtain real insight on this
from the Gallup World Poll, which covers nearly all coun-
tries in the world. It measures satisfaction with your current
life by the so- called Cantril ladder.^3 The scale is 0– 10, where
0 is the worst possible life you can imagine for yourself and