Rengin B. Firat, Professor of Leadership & Change at Antioch University’s Graduate School of Leadership & Change, and Hye Won Kwon (Dong-A University), have co-authored an article, “Cultural Nuances of Agency–Wellbeing Relationship: Testing the Person–Culture Match and Cultural Heterogeneity Hypotheses,” in The Journal of Happiness Studies. The article examines how cultural environments influence the relationship between a person’s sense of agency and overall life satisfaction.
Drawing on World Values Survey Wave 7 data from over 73,000 respondents across 50 countries, the study challenges the one-size-fits-all assumption about well-being. The authors report two key patterns:
- National ethos matters: People report higher life satisfaction in countries that broadly value autonomy and agency—regardless of their individual beliefs.
- Fit amplifies benefits: Individuals who score high on personal agency report greater life satisfaction in culturally homogeneous contexts where collective views on agency align more closely.
“This research suggests that it’s not only our individual mindset that matters, but also the cultural environment we inhabit,” said Firat. “Social cohesion around shared values like agency can quietly but powerfully shape our sense of happiness.”
Firat is an international scholar-practitioner who blends critical race theory, inclusive leadership, and neuroscientific methods to study social behavior, diversity, and organizational transformation. Before joining Antioch in 2024, Firat held faculty appointments at the University of California, Riverside, and Georgia State University, and served as a senior researcher at Korn Ferry. Firat’s empirical projects include fMRI and biometric investigations of bias and moral cognition. Publications appear in American Behavioral Scientist, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, and Perspectives on Psychological Science. Firat co-edited the second edition of the Handbook of Neurosociology (Springer) and has a forthcoming book, The Racialized Brain: The Neurosociology of Race and Racism (Polity). Based in Atlanta, Firat also co-chairs Slow Food Atlanta, a local nonprofit focused on food justice.
