IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/jhappi/v14y2013i6p1839-1856.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Visualizing the Good Life: A Cross-Cultural Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Gregory Bonn
  • Romin Tafarodi

Abstract

How can we visualize similarity and difference across cultural conceptions of a good or worthy life? To examine the internal structure of such conceptions, we asked 584 university students from mainland China and Canada to indicate the relative importance of 30 elements or criteria commonly used in defining a good life. Statistical comparison and multidimensional scaling were used to reveal the form and extent of group commonalities and differences on the criteria and their meaning in relation to underlying dimensions of individual and cultural variation. The results suggested that South Asian Canadians were more oriented towards moral, spiritual, and beneficent concerns in envisioning a good life than were the mainland Chinese and Western European Canadians. The Chinese, for their part, tended to emphasize practical, prudential, and socially defined goods. This contrasted with the Western European Canadians, who showed more preference for personally defined, internal goods. East Asian Canadians fell between Chinese and Western European Canadians in overall orientation, reflecting their biculturality. All groups placed heavy emphasis on close and enduring relationships. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Suggested Citation

  • Gregory Bonn & Romin Tafarodi, 2013. "Visualizing the Good Life: A Cross-Cultural Analysis," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 14(6), pages 1839-1856, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:jhappi:v:14:y:2013:i:6:p:1839-1856
    DOI: 10.1007/s10902-012-9412-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10902-012-9412-9
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10902-012-9412-9?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joseph Henrich & Steve J. Heine & Ara Norenzayan, 2010. "The Weirdest People in the World?," RatSWD Working Papers 139, German Data Forum (RatSWD).
    2. Romin Tafarodi & Greg Bonn & Hanyu Liang & Jiro Takai & Satoshi Moriizumi & Vivek Belhekar & Amruta Padhye, 2012. "What Makes for a Good Life? A Four-Nation Study," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 13(5), pages 783-800, October.
    3. Frank Busing & Patrick Groenen & Willem Heiser, 2005. "Avoiding degeneracy in multidimensional unfolding by penalizing on the coefficient of variation," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 70(1), pages 71-98, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Erik Carlquist & Pål Ulleberg & Antonella Delle Fave & Hilde E. Nafstad & Rolv M. Blakar, 2017. "Everyday Understandings of Happiness, Good Life, and Satisfaction: Three Different Facets of Well-being," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 12(2), pages 481-505, June.
    2. Maria Carella & Thaís García-Pereiro & Roberta Pace, 2022. "Subjective Well-Being, Transnational Families and Social Integration of Married Immigrants in Italy," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 161(2), pages 785-816, June.
    3. Gregory Bonn & Romin Tafarodi, 2014. "Chinese and South Asian Conceptions of the Good Life and Personal Narratives," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 15(4), pages 741-755, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hind Dib‐slamani & Gilles Grolleau & Naoufel Mzoughi, 2021. "Is theft considered less severe when the victim is a foreign company?," Post-Print hal-03340844, HAL.
    2. Shi, Yun & Cui, Xiangyu & Zhou, Xunyu, 2020. "Beta and Coskewness Pricing: Perspective from Probability Weighting," SocArXiv 5rqhv, Center for Open Science.
    3. Stephen L. Cheung & Agnieszka Tymula & Xueting Wang, 2022. "Present bias for monetary and dietary rewards," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(4), pages 1202-1233, September.
    4. Plante, Charles & Lassoued, Rim & Phillips, Peter W.B., 2017. "The Social Determinants of Cognitive Bias: The Effects of Low Capability on Decision Making in a Framing Experiment," SocArXiv u62cx, Center for Open Science.
    5. John A. List, 2024. "Optimally generate policy-based evidence before scaling," Nature, Nature, vol. 626(7999), pages 491-499, February.
    6. Nicolas Jacquemet & Adam Zylbersztejn, 2014. "What drives failure to maximize payoffs in the lab? A test of the inequality aversion hypothesis," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 18(4), pages 243-264, December.
    7. Dai, Zhixin & Zheng, Jiwei & Zizzo, Daniel John, 2024. "Theories of reasoning and focal point play with a matched non-student sample," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    8. Jenny C Su & Chi-Yue Chiu & Wei-Fang Lin & Shigehiro Oishi, 2016. "Social Monitoring Matters for Deterring Social Deviance in Stable but Not Mobile Socio-Ecological Contexts," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(11), pages 1-13, November.
    9. Sirola, Nina, 2023. "Going beyond the call of duty under conditions of economic threat: Integrating life history and temporal dilemma perspectives," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    10. Holli-Anne Passmore & Ying Yang & Sarena Sabine, 2022. "An Extended Replication Study of the Well-Being Intervention, the Noticing Nature Intervention (NNI)," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 23(6), pages 2663-2683, August.
    11. Erik Carlquist & Pål Ulleberg & Antonella Delle Fave & Hilde E. Nafstad & Rolv M. Blakar, 2017. "Everyday Understandings of Happiness, Good Life, and Satisfaction: Three Different Facets of Well-being," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 12(2), pages 481-505, June.
    12. Pamela Jakiela & Edward Miguel & Vera Velde, 2015. "You’ve earned it: estimating the impact of human capital on social preferences," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(3), pages 385-407, September.
    13. Epton, Tracy & Ghio, Daniela & Ballard, Lisa M. & Allen, Sarah F. & Kassianos, Angelos P. & Hewitt, Rachael & Swainston, Katherine & Fynn, Wendy Irene & Rowland, Vickie & Westbrook, Juliette & Jenkins, 2022. "Interventions to promote physical distancing behaviour during infectious disease pandemics or epidemics: A systematic review," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 303(C).
    14. Leon D. Lotter & Amin Saberi & Justine Y. Hansen & Bratislav Misic & Casey Paquola & Gareth J. Barker & Arun L. W. Bokde & Sylvane Desrivières & Herta Flor & Antoine Grigis & Hugh Garavan & Penny Gowl, 2024. "Regional patterns of human cortex development correlate with underlying neurobiology," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-21, December.
    15. El Harbi, Sana & Bekir, Insaf & Grolleau, Gilles & Sutan, Angela, 2015. "Efficiency, equality, positionality: What do people maximize? Experimental vs. hypothetical evidence from Tunisia," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 77-84.
    16. Jorge Sinval & M. Joseph Sirgy & Dong-Jin Lee & João Marôco, 2020. "The Quality of Work Life Scale: Validity Evidence from Brazil and Portugal," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 15(5), pages 1323-1351, November.
    17. Cornand, Camille & Hubert, Paul, 2020. "On the external validity of experimental inflation forecasts: A comparison with five categories of field expectations," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    18. Steger, Diana & Schroeders, Ulrich & Wilhelm, Oliver, 2019. "On the dimensionality of crystallized intelligence: A smartphone-based assessment," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 76-85.
    19. Dannenberg,Astrid & Martinsson,Peter, 2015. "The effect of nonbinding agreements on cooperation among forest user groups in Nepal and Ethiopia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7325, The World Bank.
    20. Moore, Alexander K. & Lewis, Joshua & Levine, Emma E. & Schweitzer, Maurice E., 2023. "Benevolent friends and high integrity leaders: How preferences for benevolence and integrity change across relationships," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:jhappi:v:14:y:2013:i:6:p:1839-1856. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.