Diversity and More Diversity Strengthen Long-Term Well-Being
Varied memberships provide the same benefits as personal and team diversity.
Posted May 30, 2026 | Reviewed by Tyler Woods
Happiness is enhanced by membership in multiple different types of groups, according to a UK Nottingham Trent University Division of Psychology 2023 study, “Diversity of Group Memberships Predicts Well-Being: Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Evidence.” The study reviews recent findings on diversity at both personal and group levels, as well as the well-being generated by membership in multiple groups. Building on these findings, it explores whether the well-being impacts of multiple group memberships are further enhanced when the groups are of different types.
Individual Diversity and Well-Being
The authors reference a wide range of research findings indicating that individuals who experience diversity in their life circumstances accrue greater personal psychological and health benefits than those who do not. The reason for this higher level of well-being is the increased ability to efficiently rise to challenging or stressful situations. Individuals who face personal situations that challenge the status quo or stereotypes develop cognitive flexibility, also known as self-efficacy , which encompasses problem-solving, self-esteem, and confidence in one’s ability to succeed. This creative self-efficacy manifests as a belief in one’s ability to perform specific tasks innovatively, solve problems ingeniously, and generate creative outcomes. These are future-oriented, task-specific, and dynamic beliefs that enable people to flexibly manage and adapt resources.
An example of this is findings from studies of biculturalism. Membership of multiple cultural backgrounds enhances creativity and integrative complexity, which positively impacts well-being. When multicultural individuals can maintain multiple identities harmoniously, they have access to the social and cultural resources of their heritages, using them to address challenges more flexibly and creatively, including challenges of maintaining their ethnic identity while adopting other identities.
Group Diversity and Well-Being
Similar benefits arise both collectively and individually when a group or team has a diverse mix of members. Diverse groups are more innovative and better at problem-solving due to exposure to people from different social classes, races, or industries, where new information expands emotional support and loyalty and strengthens individual and group efficacy.
Also key to well-being is group membership. The benefits of group memberships are cumulative—belonging to more groups is associated with better health and well-being because it generates more insights and solutions to challenges by increasing cognitive flexibility. This effect shows up across family, community, sporting, therapeutic, and workplace settings as well as in the wider population. This is partly due to multiple group memberships increasing individual resilience and buffering the loss of one membership by the many remaining memberships. Multiple group memberships are especially important during the stress of major life changes, which may lead to the loss of groups.
To determine whether membership in diverse types of groups would accrue even greater personal benefits, the Nottingham Trent University Psychology Division asked 5,838 respondents from the English Longitudinal Study of Aging dataset eight questions about their group memberships and their levels of well-being and loneliness . The questions are based on the World Health Organization's 1998 general well-being measure and the UCLA Loneliness Scale.
Their findings align with evidence for the benefits of personal and team diversity, as well as the benefits of belonging to many groups. They find that group-type diversity is a significant predictor of later well-being, even at four years. Further, they find that membership in multiple types of groups leads to greater well-being, which helps defend against loneliness, even after controlling for social support. The researchers suggest that their findings show that the increase in social support offered by multiple group memberships is not the sustaining factor in the increased well-being associated with membership of diverse types of groups that endures over years.
The Nottingham University findings indicate that the path to greater well-being lies in the creative self-efficacy that diversity produces. Rather than drawing exclusively on dispositions and personal resources, individuals can acquire and nurture important beliefs through diverse group memberships, which, in turn, will enable them to better adapt their coping responses.
The researchers note that their findings provide greater understanding of the socio-cognitive aspects of the well-established, empirically grounded diversity research referenced above. They summarize, “The meaning, purpose, and sense of belonging derived from diverse group memberships enables people to reframe challenging situations.”
According to the researchers, in line with established studies, this most recent research constitutes a further order of group-level predictors of well-being that:
They propose that multiple and diverse social group memberships substantially contribute to our perception of “who we are and provide individuals with a distinctive sense of ‘us’ and ‘we.’”
Charles, Sarah J.S.J., Stevenson, C., Wakefield, J.R.H., & Fino, E. (2023). Diversity of Group Memberships Predicts Well-Being: Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Evidence. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin Volume 51, Issue 5. London, UK: Sage Publications Ltd.
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Debbie Peterson is the author of The Happiest Corruption: Sleaze, Lies, & Suicide in a California Beach Town and has a BSc in Communications.
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