Family First: Evidence of Consistency and Variation in the Value of Family Versus Personal Happiness Across 49 Different Cultures

Abstract

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.

A nuanced view of the extent to which samples from narrow populations are scientifically problematic.

“…These might be mean differences in the dependent variable across cultures or different correlational patterns across different cultures. For example, researchers have argued for group differences with respect to nomophobia (Gentina et al, 2023), shame (Liyanage & Usoof-Thowfeek, 2023), perceptions of the relative importance of family and personal happiness (Krys et al, 2023), and countless others. It seems prima facie irrefutable that there are differences on many dependent variables across cultures, ethnic or racial categories, religious categories, genders, or others.…”

“…If group membership is not specifically analyzed, then there is no way to draw conclusions about what auxiliary assumptions are appropriate or inappropriate for which groups 10 . We hasten to add that although we see this omission as a real problem for the many calls for diverse samples, there is much research where group membership is included in the main analyses, such as the articles in the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology cited earlier (Gentina et al, 2023; Krys et al, 2023; Liyanage & Usoof-Thowfeek, 2023). This difference perhaps highlights that considering diversity as a political statement should be distinguished from considering group membership out of genuine scientific interest.…”