Does inequality really shape human character? Multilevel evidence from 39 societies

Recent research suggests a significant positive correlation between economic inequality and most individual character strengths (20 out of 24). However, such findings derive from country level analyses, risking ecological fallacy when generalized to individuals. Using individual-level data from a cross-country survey of 39,675 participants from 39 societies, combined with country-level data from several international databases, this research conducted a series of multilevel models to examine the association between country-level economic inequality and individual character strengths. The results from multilevel analyses indicated that there is no significant and robust association between economic inequality and individual character strengths, supporting our universality hypothesis of character strengths. In addition, six robustness checks validated the robustness of our main findings. These findings not only clarify cross-level associations between economic inequality and character strengths, but also provide a research foundation for future exploration of the more complex interactions between economic and psychological phenomena.