family; happiness; well-being; interdependent happiness; life satisfaction; culture; relational mobility
Abstract :
[en] 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 countries (N = 49). We found that the strength of
the idealization of family over personal happiness preference was small (average Cohen’s ds = .20, range −.02 to.48), but present in 98% of the studied countries, with statistical significance
in 73% to 75%, and variance across countries <2%. We also found that the size of this effect
did vary somewhat across cultural contexts. In Latin American cultures highest on relational
mobility, the idealization of family over personal happiness was very small (average Cohen’s ds
for Latin America = .15 and .18), while in Confucian Asia cultures lowest on relational mobility,
this effect was closer to medium (ds > .40 and .30). Importantly, we did not find strong support
for traditional theories in cross-cultural psychology that associate collectivism with greater
prioritization of the family versus the individual; country-level individualism–collectivism was not
associated with variation in the idealization of family versus individual happiness. Our findings
indicate that no matter how much various populists abuse the argument of “protecting family
life” to disrupt emancipation, family happiness seems to be a pan-culturally phenomenon. Family
well-being is a key ingredient of social fabric across the world, and should be acknowledged by
psychology and well-being researchers and by progressive movements too.
Disciplines :
Social, industrial & organizational psychology
Author, co-author :
Krys, Kuba; Polish Academy of Sciences
Yeung, June Chun; Polish Acacemy of Sciences
Haas, Brian W.; University of Georgia
Murdock, Elke ; University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (FHSE) > Department of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences (DBCS)
External co-authors :
yes
Language :
English
Title :
Family First: Evidence of Consistency and Variation in the Value of Family Versus Personal Happiness Across 49 Different Cultures
Publication date :
2023
Journal title :
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology
ISSN :
0022-0221
Publisher :
SAGE Publications, New York, United States - New York
Bond M. H. (2002). Reclaiming the individual from Hofstede’s ecological analysis—A 20-year odyssey: Comment on Oyserman et al. (2002). Psychological Bulletin, 128, 73–77.
Bond M. H. (2013). The pan-culturality of well-being: But how does culture fit into the equation? Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 16(2), 158–162. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajsp.12024
Brislin R. W. Lonner W. Thorndike R. M. (1973). Cross-cultural research methods. John Wiley & Sons.
Brewer P. Venaik S. (2011). Individualism—Collectivism in Hofstede and GLOBE. Journal of International Business Studies, 42, 436–445.
Cheng C. Cheung M. W.-L. Montasem A., & 44 members of the International Network of Well-Being Studies. (2016). Explaining differences in subjective well-being across 33 nations using multilevel models: Universal personality, cultural relativity, and national income. Journal of Personality, 84(1), 46–58.
Delle Fave A. Brdar I. Wissing M. P. Araujo U. Castro Solano A. Freire T. Soosai-Nathan L. (2016). Lay definitions of happiness across nations: The primacy of inner harmony and relational connectedness. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1–23.
Diener E. Emmons R. A. Larsen R. J. Griffin S. (1985). The Satisfaction With Life Scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49, 71–75.
Diener E. Napa-Scollon C. K. Oishi S. Dzokoto V. Suh E. M. (2000). Positivity and the construction of life satisfaction judgments: Global happiness is not the sum of its parts. Journal of Happiness Studies, 1, 159–176.
Diener E. Suh E. M. Smith H. Shao L. (1995). National differences in reported subjective well-being: Why do they occur? Social Indicators Research, 34(1), 7–32. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf01078966
Economist Intelligence Unit. (2020). Democracy Index 2019—A year of democratic setbacks and popular protest.
Higgins E. T. (1987). Self-discrepancy: A theory relating self and affect. Psychological Review, 94, 319–340. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.94.3.319
Hitokoto H. Uchida Y. (2015). Interdependent happiness: Theoretical importance and measurement validity. Journal of Happiness Studies, 16, 211–239.
Hofstede G. (2001). Culture’s consequences: Comparing values, behaviors, institutions and organizations across nations. Sage publications.
Hornsey M. Bain P. Harris E. Lebedeva N. Kashima E. Guan Y. Gonzalez R. Chen S. Blumen S. (2018). How much is enough in a perfect world? Psychological Science, 29, 1393–1404.
Hui C. H. Triandis H. C. (1986). Individualism-collectivism: A study of cross-cultural researchers. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 17, 225–248.
Inglehart R. (1997). Modernization and postmodernization. Princeton University Press.
Jasielska D. Stolarski M. Bilewicz M. (2018). Biased, therefore unhappy: Disentangling the collectivism-happiness relationship globally. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 49(8), 1227–1246.
Joshanloo M. Weijers D. (2014). Aversion to happiness across cultures: A review of where and why people are averse to happiness. Journal of Happiness Studies, 15, 717–735.
Ko A. Pick C. M. Kwon J. Y. Barlev M. Krems J. A. Varnum M. E. W. Neel R. Peysha M. Boonyasiriwat W. Brandstätter E. Crispim A. C. Cruz J. E. David D. David O. A. de Felipe R. P. Fetvadjiev V. H. Fischer R. Galdi S. Galindo O... Kenrick D. T. (2020). Family matters: Rethinking the psychology of human social motivation. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 15, 173–201.
Krys K. Capaldi C. A. Uchida Y. Cantarero K. Torres C. Işık İ. Yeung V. W. L. Haas B. W. Teyssier J. Andrade L. Denoux P. Igbokwe D. O. Kocimska-Bortnowska A. Villeneuve L. Zelenski J. M. (2022). Preference for modernization is universal, but expected modernization trajectories are culturally diversified: A nine-country study of folk theories of societal development. Asian Journal of Social Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajsp.12533
Krys K. Capaldi C. A. van Tilburg W. Lipp O. Bond M. Vauclair M. Manickam S. Dominguez-Espinosa A. Torres C. Lun V. Teyssier J. Miles L. Hansen K. Szarota P. Yu A. A. Xing C. Wise R. Wagner W. Yu A. A... Ahmed R. A. (2018). Catching up with wonderful women: The women-are-wonderful effect is smaller in more gender egalitarian societies. International Journal of Psychology, 53, 21–26. http://doi.org/10.1002/ijop.12420
Krys K. Capaldi C. A. Zelenski J. M. Park J. Nader M. Kocimska-Zych A. Uchida Y. (2021). Family well-being is valued more than personal well-being: A four-country study. Current Psychology, 40, 3332–3343. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-019-00249-2
Krys K. Uchida Y. Oishi S. Diener E. (2019). Open society fosters satisfaction: Explanation to why individualism associates with country level measures of satisfaction. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 14, 768–778. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2018.1557243
Krys K. Vignoles V. L. de Almeida I. Uchida Y. (2022). Outside the “cultural binary”: Understanding why Latin American collectivist societies foster independent selves. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 17(4), 1166–1187. https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916211029632
Krys K. Yeung J. C. Capaldi C. A. Lun V. M. C. Torres C. van Tilburg W. A. Bond M. H. Zelenski J. M. Haas B. W. Park J. Maricchiolo F. Vauclair C.-M. Kosiarczyk A. Kocimska-Zych A. Kwiatkowska A. Adamovic M. Pavlopoulos V. Fülöp M. Sirlopu D...Vignoles V. L. (2022). Societal emotional environments and cross-cultural differences in life satisfaction: A forty-nine country study. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 17(1), 117–130. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2020.1858332
Kuppens P. Realo A. Diener E. (2008). The role of positive and negative emotions in life satisfaction judgment across nations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95(1), Article 66.
Lu L. Gilmour R. (2004). Culture and conceptions of happiness: Individual oriented and social oriented SWB. Journal of Happiness Studies, 5(3), 269–291. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-004-8789-5
McAdams D. P. Albaugh M. Farber E. Daniels J. Logan R. L. Olson B. (2008). Family metaphors and moral intuitions: How conservatives and liberals narrate their lives. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95(4), 978–990. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0012650
McNamara R. A. Henrich J. (2017). Kin and kinship psychology both influence cooperative coordination in Yasawa, Fiji. Evolution and Human Behavior, 38, 197–207.
Minkov M. Dutt P. Schachner M. Morales O. Sanchez C. Jandosova J. Mudd B. (2017). A revision of Hofstede’s individualism-collectivism dimension. Cross Cultural & Strategic Management, 24, 386–404. https://doi.org/10.1108/CCSM-11-2016-0197
Nisbett R. E. Peng K. Choi I. Norenzayan A. (2001). Culture and systems of thought: Holistic versus analytic cognition. Psychological Review, 108, 291–310. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.108.2.291
Sampson E. E. (1981). Cognitive psychology as ideology. American Psychologist, 36, 730–743.
Schwartz S. H. (2008). The 7 Schwartz cultural value orientation scores for 80 countries [Dataset]. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.1.3313.3040
Steel P. Taras V. Uggerslev K. Bosco F. (2018). The happy culture: A theoretical, meta-analytic, and empirical review of the relationship between culture and wealth and subjective well-being. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 22(2), 128–169.
Szarota P. Rahman E. Cantarero K. (2021). Globalization, sharia law, and cultural hybridity: A case of marriage preferences of young Bangladeshis. Social Psychological Bulletin, 16(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.32872/spb.3889
Takano Y. Osaka E. (2018). Comparing Japan and the United States on individualism/collectivism: A follow-up review. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 21, 301–316. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajsp.12322
Thomson R. Yuki M. Talhelm T. Schug J. Kito M. Ayanian A. H. Becker J. C. Becker M. Chiu C.-Y. Choi H.-S. Ferreira C. M. Fülöp M. Gul P. Houghton-Illera A. M. Joasoo M. Jong J. Kavanagh C. M. Khutkyy D. Manzi C... Visserman M. L. (2018). Relational mobility predicts social behaviors in 39 countries and is tied to historical farming and threat. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115, 7521–7526.
Uchida Y. Oishi S. (2016). The happiness of individuals and the collective. Japanese Psychological Research, 58, 125–141.
United Nations Development Programme. (2015). Human development report.
Van Osch Y. Zeelenberg M. Breugelmans S. M. (2016). On the context dependence of emotion displays: Perceptions of gold medalists’ expressions of pride. Cognition and Emotion, 30, 1332–1343. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2015.1063480
Welzel C. (2013). Freedom rising. Cambridge University Press.
World Bank. (2017). GDP per capita, PPP (current international $) [Database]. International Comparison Program. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD
Yuki M. Sato K. Takemura K. Oishi S. (2013). Social ecology moderates the association between self-esteem and happiness. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49, 741–746.