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Have you ever considered why we want to be happy?
Is it because happiness feels so good?
Because science keeps revealing its wealth of benefits?
Or perhaps because we are convinced that happiness is the paramount variable in a good life; the sine qua non of making the most of the time we’ve been given; the fairy godmother whose presence, we presume, will cast a veil of satisfaction over everything else?
The pursuit of happiness has become such a prevalent undertaking for our species that we are inclined to do just about anything to experience it, to optimize it, to keep it.
We take this insatiable thirst for being happy for granted, assuming that everyone else shares the same longing. But thanks to the ever-complex interplay of biology and environment, this may not be the case. For instance, our cultural backgrounds play a powerful role in shaping our emotional lives. This includes our ideal affect—the desired emotional states that we strive for in our day-to-day lives, whether consciously or unconsciously.
A recent large-scale study involving data from 61 countries suggests that happiness maximization—when people idealize attaining the highest level of happiness—is not universal. Instead, it is a more prevalent attribute of individuals from WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic) cultures. According to the study, for the vast percentage of participants from Germany (86 percent) and Iceland (84 percent), an ideal level of happiness is being at least “very happy.” On the other hand, for the majority of participants (over 70 percent) from other parts of the world, including Japan, Bhutan, and Ghana, ideal levels of happiness are lower than “very happy” and closer to “moderately happy.”
Researchers have proposed various explanations for this cultural tendency to maximize happiness. These include the historical prevalence of benign ecological, economic, and geographic habitats across WEIRD cultures, with relatively less existential pressures from harsh environments compared to other parts of the world. These favourable conditions then allowed people the affordance to idealize the pursuit of happiness.
Together with his colleagues from around the world, psychologist Kuba Krys, lead author of the happiness maximization study, investigates culture’s role in how people conceptualize the good life. Ideals about what a good life looks like vary across cultures, and understanding those ideals can help researchers form a more comprehensive picture of human flourishing. One insight that has emerged for Krys from surveying thousands of participants worldwide is how important it is for people to feel part of a collective, something bigger than themselves. “To be a good human,” he says, “is probably to be a good part of a bigger thing.”
Here are five insights from Krys, in his own words, on what we can learn from cross-cultural studies on well-being.
Happiness terminology can get lost in translation
In many Western cultures, the terms subjective well-being, happiness, and life satisfaction often have overlapping meanings and are used interchangeably. The distinctions between them, if they are made, are relatively subtle: happiness is typically understood as more affective, whereas life satisfaction is understood as a more cognitive evaluation of one’s life as a whole. In the dominant Western psychological model, subjective well-being consists of three core components: life satisfaction, frequent positive affect, and infrequent negative affect. In the Western context, the tendency to treat subjective well-being as equivalent to happiness is understandable. In many non-Western contexts, however, subjective well-being may include much more than being satisfied with life, frequently happy, and rarely unhappy. A good life may involve living in harmony with others or with nature; fulfilling duties and obligations; maintaining relational balance; or living a spiritual life through connection with a higher power, ancestors, or a larger moral order. Thus, the subjective well-being and happiness equation may be a manageable simplification in some Western contexts, but it becomes a conceptual error when applied globally.
Not everyone maximizes happiness
Our research suggests that maximizing happiness is a distinctly Western perspective, one less common in other cultures. It may also be a relatively recent phenomenon in human history that co-evolved with various eco-environmental factors, such as low risk of natural disasters or pathogen prevalence. However, for older generations in many societies, this focus on happiness is far from self-evident. They are not against being happy, but they recognize that there are other ways of living, and that life need not revolve so heavily around the pursuit of happiness.
The more happiness, the better? Not necessarily
There is a difference between working to escape unhappiness and investing all our efforts into building upon already moderate levels of happiness. We should help each other and ourselves as much as possible to lessen suffering. But relentlessly striving for ceiling-levels of personal happiness could be problematic, as it might come at the cost of other important considerations. If happiness arises as a by-product of a good way of living, wherein we are being mindful of others and pursuing meaningful goals, then the more happiness, the better.
Learning from differences can be enriching
If we remain open and curious about other ways of being in the world, there’s much we can learn from each other. Instead of having a single script of behavior, we can expand our repertoire of thinking, feeling, and behaving. Think of it like acquiring a broader palette of colors. No single color is better than another. But if you have only one color to paint your life with, the picture will likely be less intriguing than if you had a variety of colors at your disposal. However, your color preferences and how you would actually use them will be individual; not everybody is compatible with every way of being, and not everyone desires this kind of variety. Some people prefer the familiarity and certainty that things will not change around them.
Many paths to a good life
It’s difficult to find a truly universal recipe for human flourishing, because so much of it depends on the context in which we live. For instance, consider the role of spirituality in a good life. In our research, we have found that, unlike many Western secularized societies, a connection to a higher power is thoroughly ingrained in the vision of a good life in many non-Western cultures. Harmony is another important contributor to a good life in certain cultures. Perhaps the most basic ingredients of flourishing would include practicing moderation, nurturing good relationships, and pursuing meaningful goals.
Many thanks to Kuba Krys for his time and insights. Krys is an associate professor at the Institute of Psychology of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
