9 documents found, page 1 of 1
Happiness maximization is a WEIRD way of living
Kuba, K.; Kostoula, O.; van Tilburg, W. A. P.; Mosca, O.; Lee, J. H.; Maricchiolo, F.; Kosiarczyk, A.; Kocimska-Bortnowska, A.; Torres, C.; Hitokoto, H.Psychological science tends to treat subjective well-being and happiness synonymously. We start from the assumption that subjective well-being is more than being happy to ask the fundamental question: What is the ideal level of happiness? From a cross-cultural perspective, we propose that the idealization of attaining maximum levels of happiness may be especially characteristic of Western, educated, industrial,...
A cross-cultural study on the association between societal conditions and the i...
Lou, X.; Haas, B. W.; Zelenski, J. M.; Xing, C.; Vignoles, V. L.; Vauclair, C.-M.; van Tilburg, W. A. P.; Uchida, Y.; Teyssier, J.; Torres, C.Although most people aspire to be happy, the extent to which people pursue or idealize experiencing high levels of happiness does differ according to sociocultural context. This study was designed to elucidate which societal and cultural indicators are the most conducive to fostering high levels of happiness idealization. To accomplish this goal, we measured levels of happiness idealization for 11,170 participa...
The role of cultural heterogeneity in strengthening the link between family rel...
Li, L. M. W.; Lun, V. M.-C.; Bond, M. H.; Yeung, J. C.; Igou, E. R.; Haas, B. W.; Stoyanova, S.; Maricchiolo, F.; Zelenski, J. M.; Vauclair, C.-M.We argue that the importance of family relationships for individual well-being varies across societies as a function of a society’s degree of cultural heterogeneity. To examine the role of family relationships, we analyzed the responses from 13,009 participants in 50 societies on their life satisfaction across societies varying in their levels of historical and contemporary cultural heterogeneity. Such heteroge...
Family first: Evidence of consistency and variation in the value of family vers...
Kuba, K.; Yeung, J. C.; Haas, B. W.; van Osch, Y.; Kosiarczyk, A.; Kocimska-Zych, A.; Torres, T.; Selim, H. A.; Zelenski, J. M.; Bond, M. H.; Park, J.People care about their own well-being and about the well-being of their families. It is currently, however, unknown how much people tend to value their own versus their family’s well-being. A recent study documented that people value family happiness over personal happiness across four cultures. In this study, we sought to replicate this finding across a larger sample size (N = 12,819) and a greater number of ...
Societal emotional environments and cross-cultural differences in life satisfac...
Kuba, K.; Yeung, J. C.; Capaldi, C.; Lun, V. M. -C.; Torres, T.; van Tilburg, W. A. P.; Bond, M. H.; Zelenski, J. M.; Haas, B. W.; Park, J.In this paper, we introduce the concept of ‘societal emotional environment’: the emotional climate of a society (operationalized as the degree to which positive and negative emotions are expressed in a society). Using data collected from 12,888 participants across 49 countries, we show how societal emotional environments vary across countries and cultural clusters, and we consider the potential importance of th...
Introduction to a culturally sensitive measure of well-being: Combining life sa...
Kuba, K.; Haas, B. W.; Igou, E. R.; Kosiarczyk, A.; Kocimska-Bortnowska, A.; Kwiatkowska, A.; Lun, V. M.-C.; Maricchiolo, F.; Park, J.; Šolcová, I. P.How can one conclude that well-being is higher in country A than country B, when well-being is being measured according to the way people in country A think about well-being? We address this issue by proposing a new culturally sensitive method to comparing societal levels of well-being. We support our reasoning with data on life satisfaction and interdependent happiness focusing on individual and family, collec...
Personal life satisfaction as a measure of societal happiness is an individuali...
Kuba, K.; Park, J.; Kocimska-Zych, A.; Kosiarczyk, A.; Selim, H. A.; Wojtczuk-Turek, A.; Haas, B. W.; Uchida, Y.; Torres, T; Capaldi, C.; Bond, M. H.Numerous studies document that societal happiness is correlated with individualism, but the nature of this phenomenon remains understudied. In the current paper, we address this gap and test the reasoning that individualism correlates with societal happiness because the most common measure of societal happiness (i.e., country-level aggregates of personal life satisfaction) is individualism-themed. With the data...
Catching up with wonderful women: the women-are-wonderful effect is smaller in ...
Kuba, K.; Capaldi, C.; van Tilburg, W.; Lipp, O. V.; Bond, M. H.; Vauclair, C.-M.; Manickam, L. S. S.; Dominguez-Espinosa, A.; Torres, T; Lun, V. M.-C.Inequalities between men and women are common and well-documented. Objective indexes show that men are better positioned than women in societal hierarchies—there is no single country in the world without a gender gap. In contrast, researchers have found that the women-are-wonderful effect—that women are evaluated more positively than men overall—is also common. Cross-cultural studies on gender equality reveal t...
Be careful where you smile: culture shapes judgments of intelligence and honest...
Kuba, K.; Vauclair, C.-M.; Capaldi, C.; Lun, V. M.-C.; Bond, M. H.; Dominguez-Espinosa, A.; Torres, T; Lipp, O. V.; Manickam, L. S. S.; Xing, C.Smiling individuals are usually perceived more favorably than non-smiling ones—they are judged as happier, more attractive, competent, and friendly. These seemingly clear and obvious consequences of smiling are assumed to be culturally universal, however most of the psychological research is carried out in WEIRD societies (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) and the influence of culture on ...