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A central issue in the study of well-being is cultural differences. Do cultures have an effect on well-being? Do people in different cultures have different conceptions of well-being that, in turn, influence the feelings they deem most desirable? Are the causes of well-being similar or distinct in different cultures? These questions speak to the fundamental nature of subjective well-being; and, therefore,...
Subjective well-being (SWB) is composed of people’s evaluations of their lives, including pleasant affect, infrequent unpleasant affect, life satisfaction (LS). We review the research literature concerning the influence of culture on SWB. We argue that some types of well-being, as well as their causes, are consistent across cultures, whereas there are also unique patterns of well-being in societies...
Subjective well-being (SWB) in 55 nations, reported in probability surveys and a large college student sample, was correlated with social, economic, and cultural characteristics of the nations. The SWB surveys, representing nations that include three fourths of the earth’s population, showed strong convergence. Separate measures of the predictor variables also converged and formed scales with high...
College students in 31 nations (N = 13,118) completed measures of self-esteem, life satisfaction, and satisfaction with specific domains (friends, family, and finances). The authors assessed whether cross-cultural variations in the strength of associations were related to societal dimensions including income and individualism. At the national level, individualism correlated −0.24 (ns) with heterogeneity...
The present studies examined the role of independent and interdependent goal pursuits in the subjective well-being (SWB) of Asian and European American college students. In Study 1, the authors found that independent goal pursuit (i.e., goal pursuit for fun and enjoyment) increased the benefit of goal attainment on SWB among European Americans but not among Asian Americans. In Study 2, the authors...
The authors tested for cross-cultural difference in predictors of life satisfaction. In Study 1 (39 nations, N = 54, 446), they found that financial satisfaction was more strongly associated with life satisfaction in poorer nations, whereas home life satisfaction was more strongly related to life satisfaction in wealthy nations. In Study 2 (39 nations, N = 6,782), the authors found that satisfaction...
Existing cross-cultural research often assumes that the independent versus interdependent self-construal process leads to different cultural behaviors, although few studies directly test this link. Extending from prior cross-cultural findings, two studies were conducted to explicitly test whether self-construal is linked with the differential use of emotions versus social information in judgments...
The authors examined cultural and individual differences in the relation between daily events and daily satisfaction. In a preliminary study, they established cross-cultural equivalence of 50 daily events. In the main study, participants in the United States, Korea, and Japan completed daily surveys on the 50 events and daily satisfaction for 21 days. The multilevel random coefficient model analyses...
Within- and between-nations differences in norms for experiencing emotions were analyzed in a cross-cultural study with 1,846 respondents from 2 individualistic (United States, Australia) and 2 collectivistic (China, Taiwan) countries. A multigroup latent class analysis revealed that there were both universal and culture-specific types of norms for experiencing emotions. Moreover, strong intranational...
Participants included 46 European American, 33 Asian American, 91 Japanese, 160 Indian, and 80 Hispanic students (N = 416). Discrete emotions, as well as pleasant and unpleasant emotions, were assessed: (a) with global self-report measures, (b) using an experience-sampling method for 1 week, and (c) by asking participants to recall their emotions from the experience sampling week. Cultural differences...
The present study investigated how reports of satisfaction with specific versus global domains can be used to assess a disposition towards positivity in subjective well-being reports. College students from 41 societies (N = 7167) completed measures of life satisfaction and ratings of global and specific aspects of their lives. For example, participants rated satisfaction with their education (global)...
E. Diener and C. Diener (1996; Psychological Science 7: 181–185) suggested that most people are happy, and offered support for this claim from surveys in industrialized societies. We extend their findings to include people who lead materially simple lives and live in cultures far removed from those of typical survey respondents. We found that the Kenyan Maasai, the United States Amish, and the Greenlandic...
Eighty-three people in the slums of Calcutta, India were interviewed, and responded to several measures of subjective well-being. The respondents came from one of three groups: Those living in slum housing, sex workers (prostitutes) residing in brothels, and homeless individuals living on the streets. They responded to questions about life satisfaction and satisfaction with various life domains, as...
Several broad conclusions can be drawn from the articles presented in this volume. First, there are some universals or near universals in terms of the causes of happiness, but there are also influences that seem specific to different cultures. Second, it appears that for emotional well-being, people around the globe tend to be above neutral unless they live in dire circumstances. Third, the measures...
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