> Secondly, I wonder (not trying to cast doubt, genuinely wonder) how surveymakers level-set these questions to be linguistically neutral. How do they account for "material well-being" translating perfectly across most European and some Asian languages? Or even the expression "meaningful"? Just something I think about when it comes to large surveys.

We're talking about survey professionals here. Experts. To suggest that they did not take care in aligning translations in an international survey is borderline insulting.

On the other hand, the article says:

> But in these four European countries many provide more than one answer to the question on what makes life meaningful so material well-being is pushed down to the position of the second- or third-most common answer.

> (Interestingly, in Asian countries respondents were far more likely to mention only one source of meaning in life, with Koreans most likely to do so at 62 percent.)

Which to me sounds like most Koreans might have not realized that they were expected to provide multiple answers. I can easily see that happening, given that European languages tend to have grammatical plural ("Please list the most important things that give meaning to your life"), while Korean doesn't, AFAIK.

So yes, I guess it's entirely possible that they fucked up the basics of their international survey.