Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Subjective Well-Being Across Cultures, Eunkook M. Suh, Shigehiro Oishi

Online Readings in Psychology and Culture

All individuals strive to be happy. How they pursue this ultimate human goal, however, seems to vary in interesting ways across cultures. Three key findings have emerged from recent scientific research: 1) individualist cultures are happier than collectivists, 2) psychological attributes characterizing the self (e.g., self-esteem, self-consistency) are more relevant to the happiness of Western individualists than to the happiness of collectivists, and 3) the self-judgment of happiness is anchored on different types of cues and experiences across cultures.