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Balance ⚖️ vs. Harmony ☯️: Two emerging well-being constructs often sloppily used interchangeably.
But they’re distinct.
Balance = broad life domains ⚖️
Harmony = relationships🧘
We asked 15,275 people across 154 nations to show it.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17439760.2025.2459400?casa_token=oX5lNfThCXgAAAAA%3Az9_4cO9ouuyI1KwVJkXFneaECXO3WAG1d0qxcUKpq1VPhWm9BnytFyBf--2iOsDUAMlcBXROVadThGg
Balance ⚖️ vs. Harmony ☯️: Two emerging well-being constructs often sloppily used interchangeably.
But they’re distinct.
Balance = broad life domains ⚖️
Harmony = relationships🧘
We asked 15,275 people across 154 nations to show it.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17439760.2025.2459400?casa_token=oX5lNfThCXgAAAAA%3Az9_4cO9ouuyI1KwVJkXFneaECXO3WAG1d0qxcUKpq1VPhWm9BnytFyBf--2iOsDUAMlcBXROVadThGg
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Why does this matter? 🤔
Life satisfaction & happiness dominate well-being research but are critiqued as:
Western-focused 🌍
Money-driven 💰
Hedonic 😄
Enter balance & harmony—Eastern-rooted, purpose-related, socially focused.
But are they the same thing?
We asked:
Two open-ended questions:
“What does balance mean to you?”
“What does harmony mean to you?”
One forced-choice:
“Would you rather be in balance or in harmony?”
15,275 people. 154 nations. Big data for big questions. 🌍📊
Key finding #1:
People define harmony more positively than balance. (based on predicted valence in the definitions!)
BUT—more people prefer to be in balance (58.3%) 🤯than in harmony.
Positivity ≠ preference.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GjbIzqYXoAAu3o4?format=jpg&name=large
Key finding #2:
Where you live matters 🗺️
Preference for balance = stronger in sparsely populated countries (e.g., Australia 🇦🇺)
Preference for harmony = stronger in densely populated countries (e.g., Singapore 🇸🇬)
More people around you? Harmony matters more. 🫂
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GjbI5YYWMAAqHHH?format=jpg&name=large
How people define them:
Harmony = relationships—mostly social 👥, but also with nature 🌳 and the world 🌍.
Balance = life’s big picture—work 💼, family 👨👩👧👦, self , etc.
Distinct patterns in people’s words. 🔍
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GjbJwQ5WcAAakuM?format=jpg&name=large
The model agrees 🤖:
Using machine learning, we classified balance vs. harmony definitions with an AUC of 0.93.
That’s very high 🚀—meaning the concepts are easy to tell apart.