Scientific journal paper Q1
Personal life satisfaction as a measure of societal happiness is an individualistic presumption: evidence from fifty countries
Kuba Krys (Kuba, K.); Joonha Park (Park, J.); Agata Kocimska-Zych (Kocimska-Zych, A.); Aleksandra Kosiarczyk (Kosiarczyk, A.); Heyla A. Selim (Selim, H. A.); Agnieszka Wojtczuk-Turek (Wojtczuk-Turek, A.); Brian W. Haas (Haas, B. W.); Yukiko Uchida (Uchida, Y.); Claudio Torres (Torres, T); Colin Capaldi (Capaldi, C.); Michael Harris Bond (Bond, M. H.); John M. Zelenski (Zelenski, J. M.); Vivian Miu-Chi Lun (Lun, V. M.-C.); Fridanna Maricchiolo (Maricchiolo, F.); Christin-Melanie Vauclair (Vauclair, C.- M.); Iva Poláčková Šolcová (Šolcová, I. P.); David Sirlopú (Sirlopú, D.); Cai Xing (Xing, C.); Vivian L. Vignoles (Vignoles, V. L.); Wijnand A. P. van Tilburg (van Tilburg, W. A. P.); Julien Teyssier (Teyssier, J.); Chien-Ru Sun (Sun, C.-R.); Stanislava Yordanova Stoyanova (Stoyanova, S. Y.); Ursula Serdarevich (Serdarevich, U.); Beate Schwarz (Schwarz, B.); Ruta Sargautyte (Sargautyte, R.); Espen Røysamb (Røysamb, E.); Vladyslav Romashov (Romashov, V.); Muhammad Rizwan (Rizwan, M.); Zoran Pavlović (Pavlović, Z.); Vassilis Pavlopoulos (Pavlopoulos, V.); Yvette van Osch (van Osch, Y.); Ayu Okvitawanli (Okvitawanli, A.); Azar Nadi (Nadi, A.); Martin Nader (Nader, M.); Mustaffa Nur Fariza (Fariza, M. N.); Oriana Mosca (Mosca, O.); Tamara Mohorić (Mohoric, T.); Pablo Eduardo Barrientos (Barrientos, P. E.); Arina Malyonova (Malyonova, A.); Xinhui Liu (Liu, X.); J. Hannah Lee (Lee, J. H.); Anna Kwiatkowska (Kwiatkowska, A.); Nicole Kronberger (Kronberger, N.); Lucie Klůzová Kračmárová (Kračmárová, L. K.); Natalia Kascakova (Kascakova, N.); İdil Işık (Işık, I.); Eric R. Igou (Igou, E. R.); David O. Igbokwe (Igbokwe, D. O.); Diana Hanke-Boer (Hanke-Boer, D.); Alin Gavreliuc (Gavreliuc, A.); Ragna B. Garðarsdóttir (Garðarsdóttir, R. B.); Marta Fulop (Fulop, M.); Vladimer Gamsakhurdia (Gamsakhurdia, V.); Carla Esteves (Esteves, C.); Alejandra Dominguez-Espinosa (Dominguez-Espinosa, A.); Patrick Denoux (Denoux, P.); Salome Charkviani (Charkviani, S.); Arno Baltin (Baltin, A.); Arévalo D. M. Mira (Mira, A. D. M.); Lily Appoh (Appoh, L.); Isabelle Albert (Albert, I.); Charity S. Akotia (Akotia, C. S.); Mladen Adamovic (Adamovic, M.); et al.
Journal Title
Journal of Happiness Studies
Year (definitive publication)
2021
Language
English
Country
Netherlands
More Information
Web of Science®

Times Cited: 52

(Last checked: 2025-12-22 21:48)

View record in Web of Science®


: 3.4
Scopus

Times Cited: 52

(Last checked: 2025-12-20 15:38)

View record in Scopus


: 2.9
Google Scholar

Times Cited: 89

(Last checked: 2025-12-19 10:32)

View record in Google Scholar

This publication is not indexed in Overton

Abstract
Numerous studies document that societal happiness is correlated with individualism, but the nature of this phenomenon remains understudied. In the current paper, we address this gap and test the reasoning that individualism correlates with societal happiness because the most common measure of societal happiness (i.e., country-level aggregates of personal life satisfaction) is individualism-themed. With the data collected from 13,009 participants across fifty countries, we compare associations of four types of happiness (out of which three are more collectivism-themed than personal life satisfaction) with two different measures of individualism. We replicated previous findings by demonstrating that societal happiness measured as country-level aggregate of personal life satisfaction is correlated with individualism. Importantly though, we also found that the country-level aggregates of the collectivism-themed measures of happiness do not tend to be significantly correlated with individualism. Implications for happiness studies and for policy makers are signaled.
Acknowledgements
--
Keywords
Family happiness,Interdependent happiness,Life satisfaction,Self-construals,Individualism,Collectivism,Well-being,Culture
  • Psychology - Social Sciences
  • Other Social Sciences - Social Sciences
Funding Records
Funding Reference Funding Entity
71873133 National Natural Science Foundation of China
YS 17–43 Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation
20-08583S Grantová Agentura České Republiky
2016/23/D/HS6/02946 Polish National Science Centre
P17806 Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan (MEXT)
UIDB/03125/2020 Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia
K-111 789 Hungarian Scientific Research Fund
DSF 2017-2018 Università degli Studi Roma Tre
PQ301298/2018-1 CNPq