The shifting basis of life satisfaction judgments across cultures: Emotions versus norms.

TLDR

Life satisfaction may derive from personal desires or normative expectations, raising the question of whether internal processes or external norms primarily shape well‑being across cultures. The study compared the relative influence of emotions versus normative beliefs on satisfaction judgments across 61 nations (N = 62,446) using two large international datasets. Emotions predicted satisfaction more strongly than norms in individualistic cultures, while in collectivist cultures emotions and norms were equally predictive, and overall emotions correlated more strongly with satisfaction in individualistic nations.

Abstract

The relative importance of emotions versus normative beliefs for satisfaction judgments was compared among individualist and collectivist nations in 2 large sets of international data (in total, 61 nations, N = 62,446). Among nations, emotions and satisfaction correlated significantly more strongly in more individualistic nations (r = .52 in Study 1; r = .48 in Study 2). At the individual level, emotions were far superior predictors of satisfaction to norms (social approval of satisfaction) in individualist cultures, whereas norms and emotions were equally strong predictors of satisfaction in collectivist cultures. The present findings have implications for future studies on cultural notions of well-being, the functional value of emotional experiences, and individual differences in satisfaction profiles. Across the world, is the good life attained mostly by doing what a person would like to do or by doing what a person thinks he or she should do? More broadly, are internal processes, such as attitudes, beliefs, emotions, and the like, or external pro