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The systematic study of misanthropy, the lack of trust in humanity, has proliferated over the last 30 years. One prominent line of research details racial and ethnic disparities in levels of misanthropy, but pays little attention to the role of religiosity, while another focuses attention on religiosity and its impact on levels of misanthropy, with only scant attention to the role of race and ethnicity. Little attempt has been made to synthesize these two strands of literature to address an important unanswered question: Does the association between religiosity and misanthropy vary by racial and ethnic group? To answer this question, we pooled data from the General Social Survey (GSS, 2000–2018). Among other things, we find stark racial differences between Blacks and Whites in terms of the effect of religiosity on misanthropy. Blacks and Latinos who attend religious services weekly (social religiosity) have significantly higher levels of misanthropy than others, while Whites who attend weekly services are less likely to be misanthropic. An important takeaway is that service attendance (a type of social capital) is associated with feelings of misanthropy for all groups (albeit in opposite directions for Blacks and Latinos versus Whites), rather than personal acts of prayer (individual religiosity). When it comes to misanthropy, we conclude that religion works differently for minorities compared with Whites. We discuss the implications of our findings for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use pooled US General Social Survey (GSS, 1972–2016) data to study the effect of urbanism on misanthropy (distrust and dislike of humankind). Evolution (small group living), homophily or ingroup preference, and classic urban sociological theory suggest that misanthropy should develop in the most dense and heterogeneous places, such as large cities. Our results mostly agree: misanthropy is highest in cities with a population larger than several hundred thousand people, and the effect size of urbanicity is about half of that of income. Yet, the rural advantage is disappearing—from 1990 to 2010, misanthropy has increased fastest in the smallest places (<10k). One possible reason is that smaller places have been left behind, and rural resentment has increased. This is only the second quantitative study on the urbanicity-misanthropy nexus and more research is needed. Results may not be generalized outside of the US. • We study the effect of urbanicity on misanthropy (distrust and dislike of humankind). • Large cities (>250k) vs. small places (<10k) (but not the countryside) are more misanthropic. • Misanthropy in large cities (>250k) declined over 2000-2010, and in small places (<10k) increased steeply over 1990-2010. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study shows, for the first time, that city unhappiness is common across the world. We use the World Values Survey cumulative dataset 1981–2020 from www.worldvaluessurvey.org. In all developed countries, without exception, we find that city dwellers are not happier than rural residents. • Using the World Values Survey (WVS) cumulative dataset 1981-2020, we test the urban-rural happiness gradient hypothesis. • We find that in developed countries city dwellers are not happier than rural residents. • This finding contradicts a common belief, especially in economics (e.g., Glaeser, 2011), that cities are triumphant and happy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

World Values Survey data is used to test the association between urbanization, operationalized as population size, and subjective well-being, operationalized as life satisfaction, in the case of Egypt. Regression results show that the smallest settlements have the highest positive effect on subjective well-being compared to the large urban centers. These results are persistent even after controlling for an extensive set of socio-demographic variables. Another important finding is that the two main urban and economic centers of the country, the Greater Cairo and Alexandria regions, generate lower subjective well-being when compared to the more rural regions (Lower and Upper Egypt). These results are both unexpected and compelling, especially in the context of a developing country such as Egypt—previous research argues that cities should generate higher subjective well-being when compared to rural and township settlements in such a context. Our empirical findings show otherwise and provide a novel and crucial contribution to the literature on the subjective wellbeing- urbanization nexus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]