[ad_1]
10 Oct Which Values Make You Happy? It Might Depend on Where You Live
One of the things I’ve observed over the years is that many people oversimplify their thinking about happiness.
Happiness isn’t just one thing.
Happiness means different things to different people.
Happiness can vary depending on your cultural background.
All of this is (obviously) OK but all of this can be helpful to understand if one wants to better enjoy REAL happiness …
via the Greater Good by Kira Newman
When a new psychology study comes out, its findings—gratitude makes people happy! meditating can boost your mood!—are often taken as truth about humanity as a whole. But in recent years, researchers have pointed out that much of psychology research involves participants who are WEIRD: Western, Educated, and from Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic countries.
Why is that a problem? Because it could be the case that the insights we’re learning about how to live happy, meaningful lives privilege one group’s experiences—and they may not be as useful to people from other cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds.
A new study surveyed people in five regions around the world to see if the factors that influenced their happiness might be different. The discrepancies that the researchers found lend support to concerns that our current knowledge about well-being isn’t as universal as we might think.
“The implicit claim in previous research that ‘one size fits all’ is probably incorrect,” write Bruce Headey and his colleagues at the DIW Berlin research institute.
Values and happiness
The study was based on the World Values Survey, which surveyed hundreds of thousands of people around the world from 1999 to 2014. The researchers decided to focus on five regions:
- Western countries, including the United States, Britain, Australia, Spain, and others;
- Latin America;
- Asian-Confucian countries: Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan;
- Ex-communist countries: Russia and Eastern Europe; and
- Communist countries: China and Vietnam.
People in each region reported on their values and priorities in life—the things that matter most to them. These included…
… keep reading the full & original article HERE
[ad_2]
Source link
