Happy just because. A cross-cultural study on subjective wellbeing in three Indigenous societies

Abstract

While cross-cultural research on subjective well-being and its multiple drivers is growing, the study of happiness among Indigenous peoples continues to be under-represented in the literature. In this work, we measure life satisfaction through open-ended questionnaires to explore levels and drivers of subjective well-being among 474 adults in three Indigenous societies across the tropics: the Tsimane’ in Bolivian lowland Amazonia, the Baka in southeastern Cameroon, and the Punan in Indonesian Borneo. We found that life satisfaction levels in the three studied societies are slightly above neutral, suggesting that most people in the sample consider themselves as moderately happy. We also found that respondents provided explanations mostly when their satisfaction with life was negative, as if moderate happiness was the normal state and explanations were only needed when reporting a different life satisfaction level due to some exceptionally good or bad occurrence. Finally, we also found that issues related to health and–to a lesser extent–social life were the more prominent explanations for life satisfaction. Our research not only highlights the importance to understand, appreciate and respect Indigenous peoples’ own perspectives and insights on subjective well-being, but also suggests that the greatest gains in subjective well-being might be achieved by alleviating the factors that tend to make people unhappy.

High life satisfaction reported among small-scale societies with low incomes

“…This is at odds with the consensus view given in ref. 29 , but is consistent with previous cross-cultural studies of subjective well-being suggesting that most people are fairly happy by default ( 23 , 56 ). It also underscores the dominant role that nonmaterial factors, such as social support and trust, could play in raising the future happiness of peoples across the world ( 57 ).…”

The Satisfaction with Life Scale in Adolescent Samples: Measurement Invariance across 24 Countries and Regions, Age, and Gender

“…For example, in an European-American cultural context, the definition of well-being relies heavily on high arousal positive emotions and individual achievement, whereas in an East Asian cultural context, well-being is defined in terms of both positive and negative emotions and close interpersonal relationships (Uchida & Ogihara, 2012 ). Understanding of well-being in many African countries is rooted in relational and material, rather than psychological, aspects of life (e.g., White & Jha, 2018 ), whereas health has a key role in life satisfaction judgments in many Indigenous societies with limited access to health care services (Reyes-García et al, 2021 ). Research on lay conceptualizations of well-being and the good life across different countries and continents clearly show that these concepts are complex, and encompass a wide variety of ideas and beliefs which might lead to different understanding of life satisfaction across cultures, and consequently to different functioning of SWLS items among samples from different cultures.…”

Cultural values and changes in happiness in 78 countries during the COVID-19 pandemic: An analysis of data from the World Happiness Reports

“…Some aspects of happiness appear to be similar in diverse cultural settings, even in childhood ( Song et al, 2020 ), while others have been found to vary across cultures from the earliest stages of the life cycle ( Rajhans et al, 2016 ; Liu et al, 2021 ). These variations are due to differences in parenting practices, and in the beliefs and rules governing both personal and social conduct and the evaluation of life events ( Jordan and Graham, 2012 ; Simsek and Demir, 2014 ; Rudan et al, 2016 ; Reyes-Garcia et al, 2021 ; von Suchodoletz and Hepach, 2021 ; Wang, 2022 ). All of these are fundamentally “rooted in culture and tradition” ( Daniels, 2019 ).…”