3 Results
3.1 Country-Level Differences Between the Ideal Level of LS and IH
Figure
1 displays country-level differences between ideal LS and ideal IH (∆
Ideal LS-IH). Bars above zero indicate countries where LS tends to be idealized more than IH. Conversely, bars below zero indicate countries where IH tends to be idealized more than LS. We found that IH is idealized more than LS in twenty-one, and LS is idealized more than IH in seventeen out of forty-eight countries (see Fig.
1). In eleven countries the difference was not statistically different than zero. This finding suggests that world-wide rankings based on WEIRD-originating measures, such as LS, of well-being may be biased against Confucian-originating collectivistic type of well-being, such as IH.
We carried out a series of regressions between the difference scores (∆
Ideal LS-IH, bars on Fig.
1) and eight dimensions of cultural models of selfhood (Vignoles et al.,
2016). We found that two dimensions of selfhood, self-expression (vs harmony), and self-direction (vs receptiveness to influence) were associated with country level differences between idealized LS as compared to IH (see Table 1 in SOM). Next, we regressed ∆
Ideal LS-IH on both these dimensions of selfhood in one analysis and found that self-expression remained significantly associated with differences scores, while self-direction did not (
Bself-expression = 0.365,
p < 0.001;
Bself-direction = − 0.065,
p = 0.61). This finding indicates that LS is idealized over IH in cultures that tend to shape self-expressive selfhood, and that IH is idealized over LS in cultures that tend to shape harmony-oriented selfhoods. We repeated these analyses for the individual-level data (see Table 1 in SOM) and found some small effects (the highest beta = 0.035). Combined, these findings indicate that the phenomenon we describe is of cultural nature.
3.2 Country-Level Differences Between the Actual Levels of LS and IH
We found that across our data set, actual levels of LS and IH were highly correlated with one another (
ractual LS x IH = 0.88,
p < . 001). The high country-level correlations between actual levels of LS and IH may indicate that the conclusions tend to be essentially the same irrespective of which type of well-being one employs. This reasoning however, was not supported by our data. Despite the observation that actual LS and IH were strongly associated with one another, one variable may systematically bias country level comparisons or rankings. In order to investigate this issue, we plotted the association between IH and LS on Fig.
2, with the solid line representing the actual fit-line, and the dashed line representing the hypothetical fit-line at which LS and IH would be completely undifferentiated from one another (i.e., LS = IH). The larger the gap between the solid and the dashed line, the more differentiated LS and IH are from one another. The observation that the solid and the dashed lines are different from one another indicates that LS and IH are not measuring the exact same construct across different countries.
An inspection of Fig.
2 also indicates that there are some countries where the LS and IH approaches tend to measure well-being in a similar way. For example, Mexico, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Brazil, are all in close proximity to the dashed line. However, the vast majority of countries in our sample, tend to lie distant from the dashed line indicating that for these countries there tends to be a difference between actual LS and IH. At the country-level of analyses, the SD for well-being revolved around 0.40 (
SDLS = 0.48,
SDIH = 0.36). This finding means that approximately half of countries in our sample display a pattern where country levels of well-being are at least one standard deviation lower when derived using LS as compared to IH.
For countries with the largest gap between actual LS and IH, such as Georgia, Japan, China, and Korea (ΔActual LS-IH < − 0.70), the well-being score would be around two standard deviations higher had it been based on IH and not LS. Combined, these results indicate that well-being around the world is often underestimated by employing WEIRD-themed measures of well-being, such as LS alone, as compared to other measures, such as IH.
3.3 Cultural Norms for Type of Happiness
Figure
3 displays country level weights for each type of well-being. Each weight is calculated based on average idealized well-being scores for all participants within each country. For illustration, weights are plotted with respect to zero, where zero represents no change in weight. In terms of calculating CS Well-being, zero corresponds to a weight of exactly 25% (i.e., 1 out 4 types of well-being). Positive values indicate that a type of well-being is idealized more, and thus weighed more (> 25%) as compared to the other types of well-being. While negative values indicate that a form of well-being is idealized less, and thus weighted less (< 25%) as compared to the other types of well-being.
As can be seen, across the entire sample, there exists considerable heterogeneity in the pattern of well-being weights (Fig.
3). For example, for individual life satisfaction (light blue), the Czech Republic showed the highest weight (0.0052), while Japan showed the lowest weight (− 0.0246). For family life satisfaction (dark blue), Ukraine showed the highest weight (0.0140), while Ghana showed the lowest weight (− 0.0063). For individual interdependent happiness (pink), Ghana showed the highest weight (0.0059), while the Czech Republic showed the lowest weight (− 0.0120). For family interdependent happiness (red), Japan showed the highest weight (0.0212), and Portugal showed the lowest weight (− 0.0041).
3.4 Rankings According to Culturally Sensitive Happiness
A comparison of the two rank orders (column furthest to the right: ∆ in Table 2 in SOM) reveals that while some countries remained at approximately the same rank (∆ < 3) (n = 36), many countries showed substantial differences in rank across the two methods (∆ ≥ 3) (n = 12). The three countries that showed the largest shifts in rank order between the two methods were Norway (∆ = 15), Malaysia (∆ = 19) and France (∆ = − 13). An inspection of the weights for each country (Fig.
3), indicates that both Norway and Malaysia shifted, in part, because their SWLS individual scores were weighted less (Norway = − 0.0063, Malaysia = − 0.0109) with respect to the other types of well-being. France, on the other hand, showed a lower ranking using the CS Well-being approach than when using the SWLS approach, occurring in part, because SWLS individual scores were weighted more (0.0035) with respect to the other types of well-being.
3.5 Culturally Sensitive Happiness and Emotional Experience
Table 2 (see in SOM) displays correlation coefficients (partial Pearson’s r) for associations between individual differences in culturally sensitive well-being and the experience of positive and negative emotions. Partial r values represent the association within each country between individual differences in well-being and the experience of emotions, while controlling for age, gender and education of their parents. Across all countries, individual differences in CS Well-being showed a significant positive association with the experience of positive emotions (all p ‘s < 0.001). The majority of countries also showed a significant negative association between CS Well-being scores and the experience of negative emotions (n = 40, p < 0.05 vs. n = 8 p > 0.05). A comparison of strength of correlation coefficients derived using the CS Well-being approach versus the SWLS approach revealed that the link with the experience of positive emotions tended to be stronger when using CS Well-being than the SWLS approach (mean-value: CS Well-being: r = 0.455; SWLS: r = 0.429, t = 3.10 p = 0.003), the link with the experience of negative emotions tended to be stronger when using SWLS than the CS Well-being approach (mean-value: CS Happiness: r = − 0.215; SWLS: r = − 0.234, t = 3.17, p = 0.003). These findings indicate that both ways of measuring well-being and emotional experiences work in a similar fashion, and also suggests that CS may be more tuned to positive emotions and SWLS may be more tuned to negative emotions (see Table 2 in SOM).
3.6 Culturally Sensitive Happiness, Individualism and Selfhoods
Table 6 in SOM displays the results of regression analyses testing for associations between each well-being measurement approach and culture level variables. We found that country-level SWLS scores were associated with individualism (B = 0.435, p = 0.018), while country-level CS well-being scores were not (B = 0.154, p = 0.234). The attenuated correlation for CS Well-being as compared to SWLS indicates that CS Well-being may be more culturally objective (i.e., less biased towards individualistic values) with respect to SWLS (see Table 6 in SOM).
For cultural models of selfhood (self-construal scale), we found that country-level SWLS scores were positively associated with self-direction versus receptiveness to influence (B = 0.724, p = 0.003), consistency versus variability (B = 0.497, p = 0.001), self-expression versus harmony (B = 0.594, p = 0.001) and de-contextualized versus contextualized self (B = 0.795, p < 0.001). For CS Well-being, we found that country-level CS well-being scores were positively associated only with de-contextualized versus contextualized self (B = 0.444, p = 0.001). This finding also suggests that CS well-being may be more culturally objective than SWLS.
4 Discussion
We developed a new approach to measure levels of well-being across diverse cultural contexts. We designed a new culturally sensitive approach to measuring well-being along two dimensions based on mounting empirical evidence that cultures vary in the way well-being and/or happiness is valued and construed. Cultures vary in relative focus on the individual versus the family (Delle Fave et al.,
2016; Krys et al.,
2019b,
2022a), and in construing well-being using an individual-focused life satisfaction framework versus an interdependent conceptual framework (Hitokoto & Uchida,
2015; Krys et al.,
2020). Accordingly, our new, culturally sensitive approach adjusts individual-level well-being scores according to the particular type of well-being that tends to be valued within a respondent’s indigenous culture. This new approach represents an incremental improvement to the array of methods available to researchers seeking to measure, describe, and compare levels of well-being across the world.
It is important to note that, empirically, the CS approach is not substantially different from the vast array of other well established quantitative measures of well-being. Indeed, our new CS measure of well-being is explicitly comprised of several thoroughly tested and well validated measures of well-being. Each of the measures used to calculate CS Well-being, as well as many others, has been shown to be highly reliable and valid across many different cultural contexts. We acknowledge that the current status quo of empirical research on well-being is highly valid, credible, and valuable. Empirically, the advent of the CS approach represents a slight, yet important, improvement in the fidelity of well-being measurement.
The CS approach represents a substantial improvement with respect to other measures when considered conceptually. The vast majority of existing evidence for differences in country-level well-being was derived based on the use of identical measures across diverse cultural contexts (Cheng et al.,
2016; Diener et al.,
1995; Hofstede,
2001; Jasielska et al.,
2018; Kuppens et al.,
2008; Steel et al.,
2018). Well-being research is a subfield within psychological science that is in need of tools that are more applicable across diverse cultural contexts. Many large scale studies show that an overwhelming majority of empirical psychological research is based on WEIRD samples (Adams et al.,
2017; cf. Lee et al.,
2021). For example, an analysis of the top journals across six sub-disciplines of psychology found that 68% of participants were American and that 96% of participants were from Western industrialized nations (Arnett,
2008). The development of the CS approach to measure well-being is a marked, incremental step towards conceptualizing psychological phenomena less ethnocentrically.
The CS approach involves the use of several different previously established and well-validated measures. Although all the measures used in our study have been shown to be valid and reliable across several different cultural contexts, there also exists evidence that different well-being measures (including the IH) do not perform in the same way across different cultural contexts. Recently Gardiner et al. (
2020) found that well-being measures tend to perform better when they are used within the culture in which they were developed. This finding further supports the importance and potential utility of using culturally sensitive measures of well-being for large-scale cross-cultural research.
We found that individual LS, as measured by the SWLS, is positively associated with country-level values of individualism. This finding is consistent with prior reports that LS tends to covary with societal levels of individualism (Cheng et al.,
2016; Diener et al.,
1995; Hofstede,
2001; Kuppens et al.,
2008; Steel et al.,
2018). Conversely, we did not observe that CS well-being was associated with societal levels of individualism. We did however find that across both types of well-being measures, country level values of de-contextualized versus contextualized self, were positively associated with happiness. De-contextualized versus contextualized self represents how much a person thinks about their identity within the context of others (e.g.,
Someone could understand who you are without needing to know which social groups you belong to vs
If someone wants to understand who you are, they would need to know which social groups you belong to). Prior research demonstrates that contextualism is an important facet of cultural collectivism (Owe et al.,
2013). Our current findings suggest the de-contextualism may also confer some societal characteristics linked to well-being measured in several different ways.
We also found that both methods of measuring well-being tended to be associated with the experience of positive and negative emotions (
r = -0.215). This finding supports the construct validity of CS Well-being and contributes to a growing body of research demonstrating the link between emotional experience and life satisfaction (Kang et al.,
2003; Kuppens et al.,
2008). Across our sample, we also found that the association between CS Well-being and positive emotions (
r = 0.455) were stronger than between well-being and negative emotions (
r = −0.215). This finding is consistent with that of a previous study showing that the experience of positive emotions is more strongly related to life satisfaction than the absence of negative emotions (Kuppens et al.,
2008). Emotional experience seems to play an important role in determining many different forms well-being, that include happiness and LS.
This study and the CS approach are limited in several important ways. We focused on only two different types of well-being originating from WEIRD and Confucian cultural contexts: LS and IH. There exist other forms of well-being and/or happiness that are applicable to people of other cultures. For example, spirituality is strongly associated with well-being in Africa and Latin America (Selman et al.,
2013), and dispositional
simpatico (emphasis on expressive displays of personal charm, graciousness, and hospitality) is an important part of well-being and happiness within many Latin-American cultures (Sanchez-Burks et al.,
2000). This study is also limited in terms of the way participants responded to each scale. More specifically, being asked about one’s individual life-satisfaction may indirectly affect the way one responds to items related to interdependent happiness of one’s family. Furthermore, it remains unclear whether our instructions to think about ideal levels of well-being (Diener et al.,
2000) activated the ideal self or the ought self (Higgins,
1987); future studies may need to employ more direct instruction. In addition, this study is limited in the way culture was operationalized. In our analyses, we equated culture with country. However there exists considerable heterogeneity of cultural values within countries, which we did not consider here. These issues need further empirical research to uncover their potential effects.
Furthermore, we conceptualized well-being more in terms of feeling good than functioning well or one’s sense of meaning. One’s sense of meaning is often construed as an important factor related to happiness and well-being in many different parts of the world (Costin & Vignoles,
2020; Oishi & Diener,
2014). The fact that these other aspects of well-being and/or happiness were not included in the current study is an important limitation. We anticipate that future research will consider how these other forms of well-being and/or happiness can be incorporated into global and cross-cultural studies on well-being. Furthermore, future research is needed based on more representative samples. Our study was based primarily on student samples and serves as one step towards developing more culturally sensitive indices of well-being. Lastly, this study was also limited in that measures individualism-collectivism were obtained from country-level databases and not measured directly in this study. By adding data from different databases, assessed on national level, an additional level of ambiguity was created. We anticipate that this study will stimulate further empirical research on culturally sensitive methods of measuring many different psychological constructs.
The above limitations and future directions are of “technical” nature. However, it is also important to highlight other broad and conceptual issues. For example, as of the beginning of 2000s, most people and most nations tend to report being happy or very happy (e.g., Oishi et al.,
2007). Despite this fact, policy-makers and scientists are striving to develop ways to enhance happiness. We affirm that happiness of many people and many nations can be enhanced, but in our understanding, well-being is not completely interchangeable with happiness. What other-than-happiness constructs people across cultures recognize as key components to their good life, and what are their ideal levels, is currently an important but open empirical question.
The results of this study have practical implications. This tool holds potential to examine the way several other culture-level variables, such as cultural tightness-looseness (Gelfand et al.,
2011) or relational mobility (Thomson et al.,
2018), may correspond to variation in well-being. Furthermore, our findings illustrate the importance of considering how much a particular construct is valued within a context, and that this approach could be applied to other psychological phenomenon. For example, cultures vary in terms of what types of social policies are valued and prioritized (Krys et al.,
2022b). Thus, by incorporating what types of societal goals a culture or country tends to have, policy makers may be better positioned to measure how proximate or distal actual realization of culture-specific goals are.
People around the world want to be happy. Therefore, more and more governing bodies employ well-being as a compass for guiding their societies (Durand,
2018). To escape post-colonial traps in well-being indicators research and in policy-making, researchers and international governing bodies may need to acknowledge that happiness across cultures has various facets. Doing so will promote “buy-in” from many non-WEIRD societies. Large-scale cross-cultural research on well-being will be improved by considering more culturally sensitive measures of well-being. We hope this study serves as one small step forward inspiring this research focus.
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