What makes people happy around the world: happiness in different cultures

Happiness. It's easy to imagine it's a universal emotion. But is it really? In fact, cross-cultural research suggests the opposite. The relationship between different cultures and happiness is far from simple, and may vary greatly from country to country. Indeed, in some parts of the world, happiness is not necessarily desirable. For example, in Chinese culture, funerals are a happy occasion, and preparing for them may generate levels of enthusiasm that are difficult to understand in the West. In this culture, people go to great lengths to prepare their funerals, choose the clothes they will wear, find matching shoes and jewelry, plan the meals to be served, etc. From a Western point of view, it may be easy to imagine that they are preparing for a wedding instead!

Happiness in different cultures: what makes people happy?

The more we learn about how to understand happiness across cultures, the more we realize that it is never easy to find common ground between different cultures and their well-being and happiness. This topic has attracted the attention of researchers for decades. For example, surveys such as Pew's Ladder of Life and the Study of Universal Values attempt to measure life satisfaction and well-being on a global scale. Year after year, the UN's World Happiness Report ranks countries according to their happiness levels and tries to understand what makes people happy. All of these surveys and reports provide interesting insights into the "components" of happiness across cultures. While it's important to remember that there is no standard recipe, the results suggest that there are almost two ways of understanding and experiencing well-being and happiness: the Western method and the non-Western way.

Culture and Happiness: East vs. West

In Western societies, income and wealth are often seen as important factors when it comes to achieving happiness. But does this mean that less affluent people are doomed to unhappiness? Not necessarily. In fact, some studies show that poor people in Eastern countries are actually happier, perhaps because happiness in those cultures is closely linked to factors other than income and material possessions, such as personal relationships. It is also interesting to note how happiness levels seem to decline as developing countries get richer, such as in India, where people report being less happy as their income levels grow. However, a country's development levels are not the only factor. Take two developed countries, such as the United States and Japan, and you'll still see differences in how happiness is perceived. In the United States, freedom and personal achievement are powerful factors in building happiness, while in Japan, the concept is associated with good luck, moderation, and social harmony. This suggests that cultural values are important if we want to understand how people in different cultures find happiness. Among these cultural values, family ties and social roles are a top priority for happiness in different cultures. Strong human ties and personal relationships are important in places like Switzerland, Iceland, and Australia, just as in East Asian or Latin American countries. Moreover, global studies confirm that happiness is made up of different blocks, and that the five most common "building blocks" (other than income) are access to social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, and being in an environment of trust and generosity.

Defining happiness through language

The difference in how happiness is experienced across different cultures is also evident in the language. Words like "happiness" and "happiness" carry different connotations in Eastern and Western cultures and cannot always be translated directly. For example, Mandarin has multiple words for "happiness" which are not quite equivalent to the English concept, as they can mean anything from "good mood" to "having meaning in life" or "having a good life." In fact, in Mandarin, happiness is also defined as "enjoying a good death", which is unimaginable in English-speaking cultures! The way happiness is defined in different languages also indicates how different its experience is across cultures. For example, the Danish word "lykke" translates to "happiness," but it has little to do with the way happiness is experienced in the United States, where it involves a state of celebration. Similarly, Hong Kong's Cantonese word "happiness" is associated with low arousal, meaning more like "calm" or "relaxing" than celebration.

What makes people happy: the pursuit of joy

The factors that contribute to happiness in different cultures aren't the only thing that varies, as people's attitudes towards happiness also vary. For most of us, the pursuit of happiness is a foregone conclusion, and we may make changes to our lives as part of that pursuit. But in reality, not everyone strives for happiness in such an active way. For example, people in Eastern cultures such as China, Japan, and Taiwan do not seek happiness. In fact, they may actually be alienated from the idea because they think they will face bad luck if they do. This is related to cultural beliefs, such as the idea that opposites go hand in hand or that excessive of something good will be punished. In other cultures, happiness is associated with luck or chance, so people may not see a reason to actively pursue it as a goal. This is the case in Russia, Germany, France, and Norway, where perceptions differ from the concept of happiness in the United States, where it is seen as a human right worth pursuing. In other cases, the pursuit of individual happiness may lead to conflict with other values, such as maintaining social harmony, so the pursuit of them is less important.