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Introduction to a culturally sensitive measure of well-being: combining life satisfaction and interdependent happiness across 49 different cultures

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posted on 2023-06-10, 05:24 authored by Kuba Krys, Brian W Haas, Eric Raymond Igou, Aleksandra Kosiarczyck, Agata Kocimska-Bortnowska, Anna Kwiatkowska, Vivian Miu-Chi Lun, Fridanna Maricchiolo, Joonha Park, Iva Polácková Šolcová, David Sirlopu, Yukiko Uchida, Christin-Melanie Vauclair, Vivian VignolesVivian Vignoles, others
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, collected mostly from students, across forty-nine countries. We demonstrate that the relative idealization of the two types of well-being varies across cultural contexts and are associated with culturally different models of selfhood. Furthermore, we show that rankings of societal well-being based on life satisfaction tend to underestimate the contribution from interdependent happiness. We introduce a new culturally sensitive method for calculating societal well-being, and examine its construct validity by testing for associations with the experience of emotions and with individualism-collectivism. This new culturally sensitive approach represents a slight, yet important improvement in measuring well-being.

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Published version

Journal

Journal of Happiness Studies

ISSN

1389-4978

Publisher

Springer Nature

Page range

1-21

Department affiliated with

  • Psychology Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2022-11-10

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2023-01-17

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2022-11-09

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