Lower SES harms psychological well-being, an effect responsible for widespread suffering. This effect has long been assumed to weaken as nations develop economically. Recent evidence, however, has contradicted this assumption, finding instead that the psychological burden of lower SES is even greater in developed nations than in developing ones. So, why is that burden greatest in developed nations? We hypothesize that cultural religiosity can explain this puzzling evidence. Developing nations are particularly religious and, consequently, uphold religious norms that ease the burden of lower SES and cast a bad light on higher SES. Evidence for this hypothesis emerged in three large-scale cross-cultural datasets of over 3 Mio. people across over 150 nations. These findings point to the role cultural religiosity and its accompanying socio-cultural norms play in societal functioning. As national religiosity declines, these findings also suggest that lower SES will become increasingly detrimental for well-being—a consequential societal change.
