Pura vida, or pure life, is not just a tourism marketing slogan. In Costa Rica , the government funds education, health care, and conservation instead of a military, and family and friends come first. Pura vida is accessible to visitors because socializing is such an important part of the culture. The point is to not take anything too seriously and to savor doing nothing of importance.
The idea is epitomized by kintsugi , the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with a special lacquer dusted with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. Observing the changes of the natural world—growth as well as decay—is another way to tune into wabi sabi. Bathing in an onsen is another way locals unwind.
In the Shirahama hot spring resort area in Wakayama Prefecture, travelers can muse on time and nature at the centuries-old Saki-no-Yu open-air baths, set among the rocks overlooking the Pacific. Even in the swirl of the capital, travelers can catch their breath: Russell recommends the Institute for Nature Study, a park where creeks wind though tree-covered vales.
Many companies offer kintsugi workshops open to travelers. That desire, and the willingness to suffer, may explain why Russian bathhouse culture is not only about sweating profusely but also about smacking yourself with birch twigs and running outside afterward to cover yourself in snow. Turns out there is no universal definition for this pleasant emotion. Research shows that different cultures around the world have unique concepts of well-being and happiness.
It is probably safe to assume that every human in any society has a desire to be happy. While the pursuit of happiness is a constitutional right in the United States, it takes on a different meaning in other cultures.
Here is how Marianna Pogosyan, Ph. What is happiness to people around the world and how does culture shape our experience of it? To most Americans, happiness is an unalienable human right and is commonly associated with positive experiences as well as personal achievements. When asked to describe features of happiness, the Japanese, on the other hand, alluded to social harmony, the transient nature of happiness, along with its socially disruptive consequences.
Cross-cultural studies on ideal affect have revealed that while Americans associate happiness with high arousal positive states such as elation, enthusiasm and excitement, Hong Kong Chinese define happiness through more low arousal positive states e. There are also differences in the meaning that the term happiness holds across cultures. For instance, researchers have observed that in certain languages, including Polish, Russian, German, and French, happiness conjures up states and conditions that are more rare compared to English.
In the US, the definition of happiness no longer includes the notion of good luck and fortune, as it once did in the s. Not all languages refer to happiness the same way. In Chinese, there are actually several different terms for happiness, each of which have a slightly different meaning. Hsu and her colleagues are carrying out their own happiness survey in China, with the hope of learning how to better measure happiness not just in China, but in other countries, as well.
Google Scholar. Burleson, B. The experience and effects of emotional support: What the study of cultural and gender differences can tell us about close relationships, emotion, and interpersonal communication. Casali, A. A theoretically based index of consciousness independent of sensory processing and behavior.
Casullo, M. El Significado del bienestar en estudiantes adolescentes [The meaning of well-being among adolescent students]. Chiasson, N. Happiness: A look into the folk psychology of four cultural groups. Cross Cult. Christopher, J. Critical cultural awareness: Ccontributions to a globalizing psychology.
Dambrun, M. Measuring happiness: from fluctuating happiness to authentic-durable happiness. Delle Fave, A. Michalos Dordrecht: Springer , — Meaning as inter-connectedness: theoretical perspectives and empirical evidence. The eudaimonic and hedonic components of happiness. Delle Fave, F. Massimini, and M. Bassi Dordrecht: Springer Science , — Denzin, N. Handbook of Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Diener, E. Keyes Dordrecht: Springer , — Emery, F.
Form and Content in Industrial Democracy. Abingdon: Tavistock. Eriksen, T. European Value Survey European Values Study Hungary. Feynman, R. The Feynman Lectures on Physics. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Ford, B. Culture shapes whether the pursuit of happiness predicts higher or lower well-being. Fowers, B. Placing virtue and the human good in psychology.
Greenacre, M. Correspondence Analysis in Practice, 2nd Edn. Hardin, E. The cultural lens approach to evaluating cultural validity of psychological theory. Hellevik, O. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Hitokoto, H. Interdependent happiness: theoretical importance and measurement validity. Happiness Stud. Ho, S. Social harmony in Hong Kong: Level, determinants and policy implications. Hofstede, G. Culture's Consequences. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Huta, V. Pursuing pleasure or virtue: the differential and overlapping well-being benefits of hedonic and eudaimonic motives.
Eudamonia and its distinction from hedonia: developing a classification and terminology for understanding conceptual and operational definitions. Inglehart-Welzel Cultural Map of the World World Values Survey. Ip, P.
Harmony as happiness? Social harmony in two Chinese societies. Jablonka, E. Jayasundar, R. Morandi and A. Nambi Dordrecht: Springer , — Joshanloo, M. Eastern conceptualizations of happiness: fundamental differences with Western views.
Kahneman, D. Kilpatrick, F. Self-anchoring scaling: a measure of individuals' unique reality worlds. Kim, M. What makes Koreans happy? Exploration on the structure of happy life among Korean adults. Kitayama, S. Culture, emotion and well-being: good feelings in Japan and the United States. Cultural affordances and emotional experience: socially engaging and disengaging emotions in Japan and the United States. Soc Psychol. Kjell, O. Sustainable well-being: a potential synergy between sustainability and well-being research.
The harmony in life scale complements the satisfaction with life scale: expanding the conceptualization of the cognitive component of subjective well-being. Kotlar, J. Goal setting in family firms: goal diversity, social interactions, and collective commitment to family-centered goals. Theory Pract. Kuhl, J. Being someone: the integrated self as a neuropsychological system. Kulke, H. A History of India. London: Routledge. Lee, Y.
The construct and measurement of peace of mind. Lu, L. Understanding happiness: a look into the Chinese folk psychology. Mathews, G. Happiness, culture, and context. Wellbeing , 2, — Mogilner, C. The shifting meaning of happiness. Social Psychol. Ng, E. Understanding well-being in multi-levels: a review.
Health Cult. Oishi, S. Concepts of happiness across time and cultures. B 39, — Culture, interpersonal perceptions, and happiness in social interactions. B 34, — Oyserman, D. Rethinking individualism and collectivism: evaluation of theoretical assumptions and meta-analyses. Pande, N. Peterson, C. The future of optimism.
Pflug, J. Folk theories of happiness: a cross-cultural comparison of conceptions of happiness in Germany and South Africa. Ramakrishna Rao, K. New Delhi: D. Rego, A. How individualism-collectivism orientations predict happiness in a collectivistic context. Richardson, F. On psychology and virtue ethics.
Rojas, M. Life satisfaction and satisfaction in domains of life: is it a simple relationship? Selin and G. Contentment and affect in the estimation of happiness. Ruby, M. Not all collectivisms are equal: Opposing preferences for ideal affect between East Asians and Mexicans. Emotion 12, — Ryff, C. Happiness is everything, or is it? Explorations on the meaning of psychological well-being. Salagame, K. Perspectives on well-being in the Indian tradition. Sawaumi, T. Japanese control strategies regulated by urgency and interpersonal harmony: evidence based on extended conceptual framework.
Schimmel, J. Development as happiness: the subjective perception of happiness and UNDP's analysis of poverty, wealth and development. Schwartz, S. An overview of the Schwartz theory of basic values. Online Read. CrossRef Full Text. Sedikides, C. Schaller, J.
Simpson, and D. Shiraev, B. A Slife, B. Problematic ontological underpinnings of positive psychology: a strong relational alternative. The research on how people around the world conceive of well-being, in fact, reveals some major differences among nations. Understanding these differences gives us a much richer picture of global happiness than any index can depict.
But more important, it provides a suite of models for well-being that each of us can follow. O n first pass, the ways people around the world say they experience happiness have some obvious commonalities. Inner harmony might sound universal, but it can mean very different things in different places.
For example, while shooting a documentary film in Denmark on the pursuit of happiness two years ago, I found that the Danes often described inner harmony in terms of hygge, which is something like coziness and comfortable conviviality.
Meanwhile, I have found that Americans tend to define it in terms of their skills meeting their passions, usually in the context of work. Derek Thompson: Workism is making Americans miserable. And from there, the differences among countries only widen. The same study cited above found, for example, that 49 percent of Americans referred explicitly to family relationships in their definition of happiness, while Southern Europeans and Latin Americans generally conceived of it in terms of oneself: Just 22 percent of Portuguese, 18 percent of Mexicans, and 10 percent of Argentines talked about their families in their happiness definitions.
Writing in the International Journal of Wellbeing in , two Japanese scholars surfaced an important cultural difference in the definition of happiness between Western and Asian cultures. In large countries, even comparing people within the same borders can be difficult to accomplish accurately.
Happiness is defined very differently in northern versus southern India, for example.
0コメント