Book ChapterDOI
Culture and subjective well-being
William Tov,Ed Diener +1 more
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In this article, the authors argue that some types of well-being are consistent across cultures, whereas there are also unique patterns of wellbeing in societies that are not comparable across cultures.Abstract:
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 that are not comparable across cultures. Thus, well-being can be understood to some degree in universal terms, but must also be understood within the framework of each culture. We review the methodological challenges to assessing SWB in different cultures. One important question for future research is the degree to which feelings of well-being lead to the same outcomes in different cultures. The overarching theme of the paper is that there are pancultural experiences of SWB that can be compared across cultures, but that there are also culture-specific patterns that make cultures unique in their experience of well-being.read more
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Journal ArticleDOI
Subjective well-being: Three decades of progress
TL;DR: Wilson's (1967) review of the area of subjective well-being (SWB) advanced several conclusions regarding those who report high levels of "happiness" A number of his conclusions have been overturned: youth and modest aspirations no longer are seen as prerequisites of SWB as discussed by the authors.
Journal ArticleDOI
The Benefits of Frequent Positive Affect: Does Happiness Lead to Success?
TL;DR: The results reveal that happiness is associated with and precedes numerous successful outcomes, as well as behaviors paralleling success, and the evidence suggests that positive affect may be the cause of many of the desirable characteristics, resources, and successes correlated with happiness.
Posted Content
What Can Economists Learn from Happiness Research
Bruno S. Frey,Alois Stutzer +1 more
TL;DR: The authors report how the economic variables income, unemployment and inflation affect happiness and how institutional factors, in particular the type of democracy and the extent of government decentralization, systematically influence how satisfied individuals are with their life.
Journal ArticleDOI
Personality, Culture, and Subjective Well-Being: Emotional and Cognitive Evaluations of Life
TL;DR: It is challenging to assess SWB across societies, the measures have some degree of cross-cultural validity and nations can be evaluated by their levels of SWB, there are still many open questions in this area.
Journal ArticleDOI
What can economists learn from happiness research
Bruno S. Frey,Alois Stutzer +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that reported subjective well-being is a satisfactory empirical approximation to individual utility and that happiness research is able to contribute important insights for economics, and report how the economic variables income, unemployment and inflation affect happiness as well as institutional factors, in particular the type of democracy and the extent of government decentralization, systematically influence how satisfied individuals are with their life.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Implicit Social Cognition and Culture: Explicit and Implicit Psychological Acculturation, and Distress of Korean–American Young Adults
TL;DR: In this paper, the influence of cultural values of parents and quality of parent-child relationships on psychological acculturation and distress of Korean-American young adults was investigated and the study demonstrated the utility of implicit psychological approach for culture and ethnic minority research.
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The Implicit Life Satisfaction Measure
TL;DR: The Implicit Association Test (ILS) as mentioned in this paper was adapted to measure satisfaction with life by assessing the strength of automatic associations of My life with Good- versus Bad-related words.
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'Adding Legs to a Snake": A Reanalysis of Motivation and the Pursuit of Happiness From a Zen Buddhist Perspective
TL;DR: In this article, a Zen Buddhist perspective is presented that illuminates some problematic aspects of current theories of motivation and points toward contentment (whether linked to Buddhist doctrine or not), and the article closes with educational implications.
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Cultural Differences in the Relation between Self‐discrepancy and Life Satisfaction
TL;DR: The authors examined the relationship between self-discrepancy and subjective well-being in India and the United States, and found that discrepancies between own and parental ratings on parental goals were predictive of Indians' wellbeing.
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National Differences in Predictors of Suicide Among Young and Elderly Citizens: Linking Societal Predictors to Psychological Factors
TL;DR: It was found that psychological citizen factors, like home satisfaction and happiness, mediated the impact of societal variables, like the sex ratio, in predicting suicide rates.