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 fifty countries, we compare associations of four types of happiness (out of which three are more collectivism-themed than personal life satisfaction) with two different measures of individualism. We replicated previous findings 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 significantly correlated with individualism. Implications for happiness studies and for policy makers are signaled.

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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.

Somatic burden has become one of the most common psychological reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide. This study examined the prevalence of somatic burden, latent profiles, and associated factors of somatic symptoms during the pandemic in a large sample of Russians. We used cross-sectional data from 10,205 Russians collected during October-December, 2021. Prevalence of somatic burden was assessed with the Somatic Symptom Scale-8. Latent profiles of somatic burden were identified using latent profile analysis. Multinomial logistic regression was used to examine demographic, socioeconomic, and psychological associated factors of somatic burden. Over one-third (37%) of the Russians reported being somatised. We selected the three-latent profile solution with high somatic burden profile (16%), medium somatic burden profile (37%), and low somatic burden profile (47%). The associated factors of greater somatic burden were female gender, lower education, history of COVID-19 disease, refusing vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 infection, poorer self-rated health, greater fear of COVID-19 pandemic, and living in regions with higher excess mortality. Overall, this study contributes to knowledge about the prevalence, latent profiles, and associated factors of somatic burden during the COVID-19 pandemic. It can be useful to researchers in psychosomatic medicine and practitioners in the health care system.

The objective of this research is to assess the characteristics of the relationships between the cognitive and emotional components of ethnic, civic, and global identities with the emigration activity among students of Belarus (n=208), Kazakhstan (n=200), and Russia (n=250) aged 18 to 25 years. The assessment of emigration activity was carried out using six items. To measure identity types, we used the Questionnaire for assessing the positivity and uncertainty of ethnic identity by A.N. Tatarko and N.M. Lebedeva and the Identification with All Humanity Scale by S. McFarland in adaptation of T.A. Nestik. The negative assessment of one’s own ethnicity is a predictor to emigration intentions among Belarusian students. Students in Kazakhstan and Russia have emigration intentions connected with a positive attitude towards the global community of people and a negative attitude towards citizens of their countries. In addition, Russian students with a high level of emigration intentions have imprecise representations of their own ethnicity. Emigration behavior of Belarusian students have links with negative attitudes towards the citizens of their country and towards their own ethnic affiliation. In Russian students, this behavior is also associated with a negative attitude towards the citizens of their country, but combined with a positive attitude towards the global community of people. Kazakhstani students have no statistically significant links in this case. The results confirm the importance of taking into account the civic and sociocultural contexts when organizing activities to prevent the emigration behavior of youth.