Folk Theories of Happiness: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Conceptions of Happiness in Germany and South Africa

Pflug, Jan

doi:10.1007/s11205-008-9306-8

Cited by 108 publications

(88 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…This is a serious limitation and more exploratory studies are needed to create a more culture-fair methodology. Research indicates that individual conceptions of happiness are to some extent universal (Pflug 2009) but that culture and society are both important in determining how people perceive happiness (Delle Fave et al 2013b;Joshanloo 2012), suggesting that concepts of happiness are culture-specific. Analysis of happiness categories ought to take into account the particular cultural domain and data gathering should, as far as possible, be free from assumptions about the nature of happiness so that participants can freely describe their understanding of happiness.…”

Section: Lay Conceptions Of Happinessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lay Understanding of Happiness and the Experience of Well-Being: Are Some Conceptions of Happiness More Beneficial than Others?

Bojanowska

Zalewska

2015

J Happiness Stud

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The aim of the study was to understand aspects of life that men and women associate with happiness and to explore the connections between these associations and well-being (measured as positive affect, negative affect and life satisfaction) in different periods of life. Participants were 785 people who were asked to list associations that came to mind on hearing the word 'happiness'. The moderating roles of gender and period of life (adolescence/adulthood, transition/no transition) were analysed. Participants associated happiness mostly with health and relationships. Other categories included knowledge, work, material goods and freedom. Those who associated happiness with work had higher levels of positive affect. Associating happiness with relationships predicted greater life satisfaction, whereas associating it with material goods predicted lower satisfaction. Gender moderated the relationship between associations and positive affect: associating happiness with material goods decreased positive affect among men but no such effect was observed among women; associating happiness with relationships was beneficial for women but unbeneficial for men. Additionally, associations with material goods predicted lower positive affect, especially in times of transition. Associating happiness with knowledge decreased positive affect in adolescents and increased it in adults. Some ways of understanding happiness improved life satisfaction but none were related to negative affect. The relationship between concepts of happiness and positive affect is complex; some concepts are unbeneficial only for some people and during certain periods of life.

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Section: Lay Conceptions Of Happinessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lay Understanding of Happiness and the Experience of Well-Being: Are Some Conceptions of Happiness More Beneficial than Others?

Bojanowska

Zalewska

2015

J Happiness Stud

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“…We did not propose any specific hypothesis about the content category 'opposite of happiness'. We explored whether this category was present in children and adolescents' definitions to a similar degree as in adults' definitions, in which 19% of participants defined happiness in terms of this content category (Pflug, 2009). …”

Section: Study 2: Children's and Adolescents' Conception Of Happinessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Children’s and Adolescents’ Conceptions of Happiness

2015

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Previous research on children's and adolescents' happiness has mainly focused on the different variables that may contribute to it. However, very few studies have investigated the beliefs that children and adolescents hold about happiness. It is important to study developmental differences in the conceptions of happiness as beliefs affect people's emotions and behaviors, and they may help explain how children and adolescents strive for their own (and potentially others') happiness. To that aim, we asked 162 children and adolescents to define - in their own words - what happiness meant for them. Their responses were coded according to two different systems derived from previous finding with adults and children. Overall, results showed that hedonic conceptualization of happiness were mainly present in late childhood; whereas eudaimonic conceptualizations were mainly present in adolescence

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“…Russia > USA (Beekun et al, 2005;Ahmed et al, 2003) South Africa > Germany (Pflug, 2008) Croatia > USA (Tavakoli et al, 2003) Taiwan > USA (Lu, 2001;Cherry et al, 2003) Spain > Mexico (Husted et al, 1996) Egypt > USA (Marta et al, 2003) Ukraine > USA (Kennedy & Lawton, 1996) Taiwan > Australia > USA (Allmon et al, 1997) X China > EU (Vittel and Patwardhan, 2008) El Salvador > USA = Canada (Chiasson et al, 1996) Malaysia > USA (Karande et al, 2000) India > USA (Kracher et al, 2002) India = China = Malaysia (Zabid & Ho, 2003;Zabid & Ibrahim, 2008) Philippines > USA (Vasquez et al, 2001) Chile > Australia (Robertson et al, 2002) Mexico > Spain (Husted et al, 1996) Malaysia > New Zealand (Goodwin & Goodwin, 1999) China > Australia (Tsui & Windsor, 2001) II USA = Canada > El Salvador (Chiasson et al, 1996) USA > Russia (Beekun et al, 2005;Ahmed et al, 2003) USA > Philippines (Vasquez et al, 2001) Norway > USA (Falkenberg, 1998) Germany > South Africa (Pflug, 2008) Australia > USA X USA > Egypt (Marta et al, 2003) USA > Taiwan (Lu, 2001;Cherry et al, 2003) USA > Ukraina (Kennedy & Lawton, 1996) USA > Norway (Falkenberg, 1998) USA > Brazil (Volkema and Fleury, 2002) USA ...…”

Section: 2happiness Predicted By the Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A "by product" of this first purpose will be a ranking of ethical approaches in terms of individual happiness as dependent of individual characteristics. Next, there is a huge psychological, social and economic literature aiming at motivating (for recent examples, Pflug, 2008;Lu, 2001) or at assessing (for recent examples, Welsch, 2003;Peirò, 2006;Inglehart et al, 2008;Heylighen and Bernheim, 2000;Haller and Hadler, 2006;Veenhoven, 2005;Hayo, 2007;Lelkes, 2006) the observed differences in happiness contents in different countries or cultures, on the one hand; on the other hand, at justifying (for recent examples, Robertson and Crittenden, 2003;Gossling, 2003;Jensen, 2008) or at measuring (for recent examples, Brammer et al, 2006;Franke andNadler, 2008, Forsyth et al, 2008;Guiso et al, 2003;Cherry et al, 2003;Beekun et al, 2005;Ahmed et al 2003;Singhapakdi et al, 2001;Karande et al, 2000;Tavakoli et al, 2003;Vasquez et al 2001;Volkema & Fleury, 2002;Lu & Gilmour, 2004;Robertson et al 2002;Zabid and Ho, 2003;Zabid and Ibrahim, 2008;Kracher et al, 2002;Vittel and Patwardhan, 2008;Marta et al, 2001;Blodgood et al, 2008) the observed differences in ethical approaches prevailing in different countries or cultures. The second purpose of this paper is to apply the analytical model to explain the observed differences in happiness in different countries or cultures in terms of the observed different ethical approaches prevailing in different countries or cultures, under very plausible assumptions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Which Ethics Will Make us Individually and Socially Happier? A Cross-Culture and Cross-Development Analytical Model

Zagonari

2009

J Happiness Stud

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This paper provides an analytical model representing four polar ethical approaches, by linking them to the main ethics suggested by the philosophical, psychological, and socio-economic literature. Moreover, it develops the analytical model in order to obtain rankings of the 4 polar ethical approaches in terms of happiness and, consequently, to provide insights on which ethical approach should be adopted by each individual, according to his characteristics (income level, in DCs or in LDCs, aspiration level): some dynamics are predicted, if the Golden and the Copper rules are applied. Finally, this paper provides insights on which ethical approach should be adopted by each society, according to its characteristics (DCs or LDCs, social distribution of aspiration levels), by predicting happiness levels in alternative countries, according to the prevailing ethics, and by comparing these predictions with the observed happiness levels, in order to provide an empirical test of the analytical model: some dynamics are predicted, with non-Protestant DCs moving to higher, and Protestant DCs towards lower, happiness levels (conditioned to the per capita income), due to the increasing and decreasing rejection of the Golden and Copper rules, respectively, and with LDCs moving to lower (conditioned to the increasing per capita income) in the short-run and higher happiness levels in the long run, by establishing and entertaining conditions that set clear incentives for moral behaviour, in order to increase and decrease the adoption of the Golden and Copper rules, respectively. 2

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Folk Theories of Happiness: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Conceptions of Happiness in Germany and South Africa

Abstract: Happiness, Folk theory, Germany, South africa,

Cited by 108 publications

References 41 publications

Lay Understanding of Happiness and the Experience of Well-Being: Are Some Conceptions of Happiness More Beneficial than Others?

Lay Understanding of Happiness and the Experience of Well-Being: Are Some Conceptions of Happiness More Beneficial than Others?

Children’s and Adolescents’ Conceptions of Happiness

Which Ethics Will Make us Individually and Socially Happier? A Cross-Culture and Cross-Development Analytical Model

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