From the PLOS press release:
A worldwide comparison of two tests that measure people’s happiness highlights the importance of a country’s cultural context and suggests that a test developed in Japan may currently be a better tool for cross-cultural research than a U.S.-developed test. Gwendolyn Gardiner of the University of California, Riverside, and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on December 9, 2020.
Most studies of happiness have used tests developed in Western countries, which typically prioritize individuals’ independence. However, studies on happiness in Eastern countries emphasize connectedness with others, or interdependence. Non-Western tests of happiness have emerged in recent years, but it is unclear how the two concepts of happiness might generalize beyond the Eastern and Western countries typically examined in happiness research.
To explore the cross-cultural applicability of Eastern versus Western concepts of happiness, Gardiner and colleagues employed two happiness tests: one developed in Japan that emphasizes interdependence and a U.S.-developed test that emphasizes independence. As part of a larger, overarching research project, 15,358 college or university students from 63 countries across six continents volunteered to complete a survey that included both tests.
Analysis of the survey data and country-specific factors showed that the test emphasizing interdependence was more reliable in countries that are more culturally similar to Japan, such as other East Asian countries, while the independence-focused test was more reliable in countries more similar to the U.S., such as Western European countries.
The study also found that, while the interdependence-focused test had slightly lower overall reliability than the independence test, it was more consistently reliable across countries. Therefore, the interdependence-focused test may be a stronger research tool for cross-cultural comparison.
Both tests showed lower reliability in African and Middle Eastern countries, suggesting the need to develop tests of happiness that are more universal.
The authors add: “The way researchers currently assess happiness is typically using a Western-biased measure that assumes one’s own happiness is largely independent of others, but we find that this viewpoint is by no means universal.”