Browsing by Author "Igou, E.R."

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Introduction to a Culturally Sensitive Measure of Well‑Being: Combining Life Satisfaction and Interdependent Happiness Across 49 Diferent Cultures
(Journal of Happiness Studies, 2022) Akotia, C.S.; Krys, K.; Haas, B.W.; Igou, E.R.; Kosiarczyk, A.; Kocimska‑Bortnowska, A.
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 inter-dependent 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.
Personal Life Satisfaction as a Measure of Societal Happiness is an Individualistic Presumption: Evidence from Fifty Countries
(Springer, 2021) Krys, K.; Park, J.; Kocimska‑Zych, A.; Kosiarczyk, A.; Selim, H.A.; Wojtczuk‑Turek, A.; Haas, B.W.; Uchida, Y.; Torres, C.; Capaldi, C.A.; Bond, M.H.; Zelensk, J.M.; Lun, V.M.; Maricchiolo, F.; Vauclair, C.; Šolcová, I.P.; Sirlopú, D.; Xing, C.; Vignoles, V.L.; Tilburg, W.A.P.V.; Teyssier, J.; Sun, C.; Stoyanova, S.; Serdarevich, U.; Schwarz, B.; Sargautyte, R.; Røysamb, E.; Romashov, V.; Rizwan, M.; Pavlović, Z.; Pavlopoulos, V.; Osch, Y.V.; Okvitawanli, A.; Nadi, A.; Nader, M.; Fariza, M.N.; Mosca, O.; Mohorić, T.; Barrientos, P.E.; Malyonova, A.; Liu, X.; Lee, J.H.; Kwiatkowska, A.; Kronberger, N.; Kračmárová, L.K.; Kascakova, N.; Işık, I.; Igou, E.R.; Igbokwe, D.O.; Hanke‑Boer, D.; Gavreliuc, A.; Garðarsdóttir, R.B.; Fülöp, M.; Gamsakhurdia, V.; Esteves, C.S.; Domínguez‑Espinosa, A.; Denoux, P.; Charkviani, S.; Baltin, A.; Mira, A.D.M.; Appoh, L.; Albert, I.; Akotia, C.S.; Adamovic, M.
Numerous studies document that societal happiness is correlated with individualism, but the nature of this phenomenon remains understudied. In the current paper, we address this gap and test the reasoning that individualism correlates with societal happiness because the most common measure of societal happiness (i.e., country-level aggregates of personal life satisfaction) is individualism-themed. With the data collected from 13,009 participants across ffty countries, we compare associations of four types of happiness (out of which three are more collectivism-themed than personal life satisfaction) with two diferent meas ures of individualism. We replicated previous fndings by demonstrating that societal happiness measured as country-level aggregate of personal life satisfaction is correlated with individualism. Importantly though, we also found that the country-level aggregates of the collectivism-themed measures of happiness do not tend to be signifcantly correlated with individualism. Implications for happiness studies and for policy makers are signaled
Societal emotional environments and cross-cultural differences in life satisfaction: A forty-nine country study
(Taylor & Francis Group, 2021) Krys, K.; Yeung, J.C.; Capaldi, C.A.; Lun, V.M.; Torres, C.; van Tilburg, W.A.P.; Bond, M.H.; Zelenski, J.M.; Haas, B.W.; Park, J.; Maricchiolo, F.; Vauclair, C.; Kosiarczyk, A.; Kocimska-Zych, A.; Kwiatkowska, A.; Adamovic, M.; Pavlopoulos, V.; Fülöp, M.; Sirlopu, D.; Okvitawanli, A.; Boer, D.; Teyssier, J.; Malyonova, A.; Gavreliuc, A.; Uchida, Y.; Serdarevich, U.; Akotia, C.; Appoh, L.; Mira, A.; Baltin, A.; Denoux, P.; Dominguez-Espinosa, A.; Esteves, C.S.; Gamsakhurdia, V.; Garðarsdóttir, R.B.; Igbokwe, D.O.; Igou, E.R.; Işık, I.; Kascakova, N.; Kračmárová, L.K.; Kronberger, N.; Lee, J.H.; Liu, X.; Barrientos, P.E.; Mohorić, T.; Mustaffa, N.F.; Mosca, O.; Nader, M.; Nadi, A.; van Osch, Y.; Pavlović, Z.; Šolcová, I.P.; Rizwan, M.; Romashov, V.; Røysamby, E.; Sargautyte, R.; Schwarz, B.; Selecká, L.; Selim, H.A.; Stogianni, M.; Sun, C.; Xing, C.; Vignoles, V.L.
In this paper, we introduce the concept of ‘societal emotional environment’: the emotional climate of a society (operationalized as the degree to which positive and negative emotions are expressed in a society). Using data collected from 12,888 participants across 49 countries, we show how societal emotional environments vary across countries and cultural clusters, and we consider the potential importance of these differences for well-being. Multilevel analyses supported a ‘double-edged sword’ model of negative emotion expression, where expression of negative emotions predicted higher life satisfaction for the expresser but lower life satisfaction for society. In contrast, partial support was found for higher societal life satisfaction in positive societal emotional environments. Our study highlights the potential utility and importance of distinguishing between positive and negative emotion expression, and adopting both individual and societal perspectives in well-being research. Individual pathways to happiness may not necessarily promote the happiness of others.