Follow up viewing on key concepts and research

The How of Happiness

Barbara Fredrickson on the positive ratio

Barbara Fredrickson on Positive emotions and broaden and build

Some graphics

Gallup global wellbeing index.

 

The Nun Study

Cross Cultural research–Reading

Within- and between-nations differences in norms for experiencing emotions were analyzed in a cross-cultural study with 1,846 respondents from 2 individualistic (United States, Australia) and 2 collectivistic (China, Taiwan) countries. A multigroup latent class analysis revealed that there were both universal and culture-specific types of norms for experiencing emotions. Moreover, strong intranational variability in norms for affect could be detected, particularly for collectivistic nations. Unexpectedly, individualistic nations were most uniform in norms, particularly with regard to pleasant affect. Individualistic and collectivistic nations differed most strongly in norms for self-reflective emotions (e.g., pride
and guilt). Norms for emotions were related to emotional experiences within nations. Furthermore, there were strong national differences in reported emotional experiences, even when norms were held constant. Sourced: Eid and Diener (2001)

Read: Chapter on Culture, Development and Happiness

Whether emotion is universal or social is a recurrent issue in the history of emotion study among psychologists. Some researchers view emotion as a universal construct, and that a large part of emotional experience is biologically based. However, emotion is not only biologically determined, but is also influenced by the environment. Therefore, cultural differences exist in some aspects of emotions, one such important aspect of emotion being emotional arousal level. All affective states are systematically represented as two bipolar dimensions, valence and arousal. Arousal level of actual and ideal emotions has consistently been found to have cross-cultural differences. In Western or individualist culture, high arousal emotions are valued and promoted more than low arousal emotions. Moreover, Westerners experience high arousal emotions more than low arousal emotions. By contrast, in Eastern or collectivist culture, low arousal emotions are valued more than high arousal emotions. Moreover, people in the East actually experience and prefer to experience low arousal emotions more than high arousal emotions. Mechanism of these cross-cultural differences and implications are also discussed. Source: Lim 2016

Read: Emotional Perceptions across Cultures

Most Emotionally Aware Countries

Country	Percentage of Country’s Population*
Philippines	60
El Salvador	57
Bahrain	56
Oman	55
Colombia	55
Chile	54
Costa Rica	54
Canada	54
Guatemala	54
Bolivia	54
Ecuador	54
Dominican Republic	54
Peru	54
Nicaragua	54
United States	54

*Percentage of the country’s population who said they had experienced the full range of positive and negative emotions on the previous day.

Least Emotionally Aware Countries

Country	Percentage of Country’s Population*
Singapore	36
Georgia	37
Lithuania	37
Russia	38
Madagascar	38
Ukraine	38
Belarus	38
Kazakhstan	38
Nepal	38
Kyrgyzstan	38

*Percentage of the country’s population who said they had experienced the full range of positive and negative emotions on the previous day. Source