Abstract
In this chapter, we detail some of the main challenges of cross-cultural studies on well-being. We argue that these challenges revolve around underlying problems concerning the definition and assessment of well-being. Our specific focus is on three main challenges: (a) what to measure, (b) how to measure, and (c) the need for time- and cost-efficient measures. We argue that these challenges are relevant for an accurate analysis and understanding of cross-cultural differences in well-being. Finally, we describe the development of a new instrument designed to address some of the problems raised. The Pemberton Happiness Index, a brief measure of integrative well-being, taps into general, hedonic, eudaemonic, and social well-being and combines two methodologies to comprise both remembered and experienced well-being.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
A potential problem in cross-cultural research that we do not discuss here is the differential pattern of response styles among countries. For example, Vittersø et al. (2005) found that Norwegians and Greenlanders did not differ in their mean scores on a life satisfaction scale, but latent trait analyses showed that Greenlanders tended to answer all items of the questionnaire more randomly and more extremely. Kapteyn et al. (2010) described a similar effect when comparing life satisfaction estimations of American and Dutch participants: The Dutch were more avoidant of making extreme negative or positive evaluations. Other issues reviewed in the literature (e.g., order of items, item functioning, or scale numbers), although important independently (e.g., Deaton 2011), do not seem to substantially affect cross-cultural comparisons (see Oishi 2010).
- 2.
Furthermore, people can judge life satisfaction from a general perspective or through specific domains of satisfaction (e.g., with friends, family, education, neighborhood, or work) which may lead to different results (Diener et al. 2000).
- 3.
According to his review, in many countries, there has been a secular shift in the meaning of “happiness” from an emphasis on “lucky and fortunate conditions” to inner feeling states. Incidentally, Diener (2000) found that in countries where “happiness” is mainly used to define satisfaction of one’s goals and desires (e.g., Spain or Italy), happiness is seen as more desirable than in countries or regions where happiness is defined in terms of luck (e.g., East Asia, France, Germany, and Russia).
- 4.
Most current measures of well-being are based on self-reports, even though self-reports of emotional states can be vulnerable to self-presentation biases, memory biases, and the ability to perceive and label emotions. Some authors have proposed alternative procedures based on reaction time to probe stimulus or in experimental measures to assess implicit beliefs (e.g., Diaz et al. 2009).
- 5.
Although there are several types of ESM procedures (see Scollon et al. 2003), this approach has provided valuable online data, which are not subject to cognitive biases linked to retrospective accounts.
- 6.
These questions are included in the World Values Survey.
- 7.
Chi-square analyses were conducted between each item and the criterion (i.e., overall satisfaction with the day before). Items that showed the highest overall mean eta-squared values were selected for inclusion in the final scale.
- 8.
Pride and guilt are good examples of emotions that are relevant yet included neither in the PHI nor in many well-being scales. Using ESM, Scollon et al. (2004) found that Asian Americans, Indians in India, and Japanese in Japan all reported less pride and more guilt than European Americans and Hispanic Americans. Furthermore, whereas the authors did not find cross-cultural variability in sadness, the cross-cultural variability was three times greater for guilt and more than 10 times greater for pride.
References
Abdallah, S., Thompson, S., & Marks, N. (2008). Estimating worldwide life satisfaction. Ecological Economics, 65, 35–47.
Benet-Martinez, V., & Oishi, S. (2008). Culture and personality. In O. P. John, R. W. Robins, & L. A. Pervin (Eds.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (pp. 542–567). New York: Guilford.
Cantril, H. (1965). The pattern of human concern. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Cummins, R. A. (2006). Personal Wellbeing Index – Adult (4th ed.). The International Wellbeing Group. Melbourne: Australian Centre on Quality of Life, Deakin University.
Cummins, R. A., & Nistico, H. (2002). Maintaining life satisfaction: The role of positive cognitive bias. Journal of Happiness Studies, 3, 37–69.
Deaton, A. (2008). Income, health, and well-being around the world: Evidence from the Gallup World Poll. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 22, 53–72.
Deaton, A. (2011). The financial crisis and the well-being of Americans. National Bureau of Economic Research (Working Paper 17128). Retrieved October 10, 2011 from http://www.nber.org/papers/w17128
Delle Fave, A., & Bassi, M. (2009). The contribution of diversity to happiness research. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 4, 205–207.
Diaz, H., Horcajo, J., & Blanco, A. (2009). Development of an implicit overall well-being measure using the Implicit Association Test. Spanish Journal of Psychology, 12, 604–617.
Diener, E. (1984). Subjective well-being. Psychological Bulletin, 95, 542–575.
Diener, E. (2000). Subjective well-being: The science of happiness, and a proposal for a national index. American Psychologist, 55, 34–43.
Diener, E., & Chan, M. (2011). Happy people live longer: Subjective well-being contributes to health and longevity. Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being, 3, 1–43.
Diener, E., & Suh, E. M. (2000). Culture and subjective well-being. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Diener, E., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2002). Very happy people. Psychological Science, 13, 81–84.
Diener, E., Emmons, R. A., Larsen, R. J., & Griffin, S. (1985). The satisfaction with life scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49, 71–75.
Diener, E., Scollon, C. K., Oishi, S., Dzokoto, V., & Suh, E. M. (2000). Positivity and the construction of life satisfaction judgments: Global happiness is not the sum of its parts. Journal of Happiness Studies, 1, 159–176.
Diener, E., Oishi, S., & Lucas, R. E. (2003). Personality, culture, and subjective well-being: Emotional and cognitive evaluations of life. Annual Review of Psychology, 54, 403–425.
Diener, E., Wirtz, D., Tov, W., Kim-Prieto, C., Choi, D., Oishi, S., & Biswas-Diener, R. (2009). New well-being measures: Short scales to assess flourishing and positive and negative feelings. Social Indicators Research, 97, 143–156.
Diener, E., Kahneman, D., Tov, W., & Arora, R. (2010). Income’s association with judgments of life versus feelings. In E. Diener, J. Helliwell, & D. Kahneman (Eds.), International differences in well-being (pp. 3–15). New York: Oxford University Press.
Eid, M. (2008). Measuring the immeasurable: Psychometric modeling of subjective well-being data. In M. Eid & R. Larsen (Eds.), The science of subjective well-being (pp. 141–169). New York: Guilford.
Eid, M., & Diener, E. (2001). Norms for experiencing emotions in different cultures: Inter-and intranational differences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 869–885.
Harter, J. K., & Gurley, V. (2008). Measuring well-being in the United States. Association for Psychological Science Observer, 21(8). Retrieved from http://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/getArticle.cfm?id=2394
Helliwell, J. F., & Barrington-Leigh, C. P. (2010). Measuring and understanding subjective well-being. Canadian Journal of Economics, 43, 729–753.
Hervas, G., & Vazquez, C. (2010). Remembering and experiencing well-being: Results from an international study. Paper presented at the 5th European Conference on Positive Psychology, Copenhagen, June 2010.
Hervas, C., & Vazquez, C. (2012). Validation of a brief measure of integrative well-being in seven languages: The Pemberton Happiness Index. Submitted for publication.
Huebner, E. S., Gilman, R., & Laughlin, J. (1999). The multidimensionality of children’s well-being reports: Discriminant validity of life satisfaction and self-esteem. Social Indicators Research, 46, 1–22.
Kahneman, D. (1999). Objective happiness. In E. Diener, N. Schwarz, & D. Kahneman (Eds.), Well-being: The foundations of hedonic psychology (pp. 3–25). New York: Russell Sage.
Kahneman, D., & Krueger, A. B. (2006). Developments in the measurement of subjective well-being. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 20, 3–24.
Kahneman, D., Krueger, A. B., Schkade, D. A., Schwarz, N., & Stone, A. A. (2004). A survey method for characterizing daily life experience: The day reconstruction method. Science, 306, 1776–1780.
Kahneman, D., Krueger, A. B., Schkade, D., Schwarz, N., & Stone, A. A. (2006). Would you be happier if you were richer? A focusing illusion. Science, 312, 1908–1910.
Kapteyn, A., Smith, J. P., & van Soest, A. (2010). Life satisfaction. In E. Diener, J. Helliwell, & D. Kahneman (Eds.), International differences in well-being (pp. 70–104). New York: Oxford University Press.
Kashdan, T. B., Biswas-Diener, R., & King, L. A. (2008). Reconsidering happiness: The costs of distinguishing between hedonics and eudaimonia. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 3, 219–233.
Keyes, C. L. (1998). Social well-being. Social Psychology Quarterly, 61, 121–140.
Keyes, C. L., & Annas, J. (2009). Feeling good and functioning well: Distinctive concepts in ancient philosophy and contemporary science. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 4, 197–201.
Keyes, C. L., Ryff, C., & Shmotkin, D. (2002). Optimizing well-being: The empirical encounter of two traditions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 1007–1022.
Lopez, S. J., & Snyder, C. R. (Eds.). (2003). Positive psychological assessment: A handbook of models and measures. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Lu, L., & Gilmour, R. (2004). Culture and conceptions of happiness: Individual oriented and social oriented subjective well-being. Journal of Happiness Studies, 5, 269–291.
Lucas, R. E., Diener, E., & Suh, E. (1996). Discriminant validity of well-being measures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 616–628.
Lyubomirsky, S., & Lepper, H. S. (1999). A measure of subjective happiness: Preliminary reliability and construct validation. Social Indicators Research, 46, 137–155.
Lyubomirsky, S., King, L., & Diener, E. (2005). The benefits of frequent positive affect: Does happiness lead to success? Psychological Bulletin, 131, 803–855.
Mesquita, B., & Leu, J. (2007). The cultural psychology of emotion. In S. Kitayama & D. Cohen (Eds.), Handbook of cultural psychology (pp. 734–759). New York: Guilford.
Morrison, M., Tay, L., & Diener, E. (2011). Subjective well-being and national satisfaction: Findings from a worldwide survey. Psychological Science, 22, 166–171.
Oishi, S. (2002). The experiencing and remembering of well-being: A cross cultural analysis. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 1398–1406.
Oishi, S. (2010). Culture and well-being: Conceptual and methodological issues. In E. Diener, D. Kahneman, & J. F. Helliwell, (Eds.), International differences in well-being (pp. 34–69). New York: Oxford University Press.
Oishi, S., & Diener, E. (2003). Culture and well-being: The cycle of action, evaluation and decision. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 1398–1406.
Oishi, S., & Schimmack, U. (2010). Culture and well-being: A new inquiry into the psychological wealth of nations. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5, 463–471.
Oswald, A. J., & Wu, S. (2010). Objective confirmation of subjective measures of human well-being: Evidence from the USA. Science, 327, 576–579.
Reis, H. T., & Gable, S. L. (2000). Event-sampling and other methods for studying everyday experience. In H. T. Reis & C. M. Judd (Eds.), Handbook of research methods in social and personality psychology (pp. 190–222). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Russell, J. A. (1991). Culture and the categorization of emotion. Psychological Bulletin, 110, 426–450.
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2001). On happiness and human potential: A review of research on hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 141–166.
Ryan, R. M., & Frederick, C. M. (1997). On energy, personality, and health: Subjective vitality as a dynamic reflection of well-being. Journal of Personality, 65, 529–565.
Ryan, R. M., & Huta, V. (2009). Wellness as healthy functioning or wellness as happiness: The importance of eudaimonic thinking. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 4, 202–204.
Ryff, C. D. (1989). Happiness is everything, or is it? Explorations on the meaning of psychological well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 1069–1081.
Ryff, C. D., & Keyes, C. L. (1995). The structure of psychological well-being revisited. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 719–727.
Schimmack, U., Radhakrishnan, P., Oishi, S., Dzokoto, V., & Ahadi, S. (2002). Culture, personality, and subjective well-being: Integrating process models of life satisfaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 582–593.
Schimmack, U., Oishi, S., & Diener, E. (2005). Individualism: A valid and important dimension of cultural differences between nations. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 9, 17–31.
Schwarz, N. (1999). Self-reports: How the questions shape the answers. American Psychologist, 54, 93–105.
Scollon, C. N., Kim-Prieto, C., & Diener, E. (2003). Experience sampling: Promises and pitfalls, strengths and weaknesses. Journal of Happiness Studies, 4, 5–34.
Scollon, C. N., Diener, E., Oishi, S., & Biswas-Diener, R. (2004). Emotions across cultures and methods. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 35, 304–326.
Scollon, C. N., Howard, A. H., Caldwell, A. E., & Ito, S. (2009). The role of ideal affect in the experience and memory of emotions. Journal of Happiness Studies, 10, 257–269.
Scollon, C. N., Koh, S., & Au, E. (2011). Cultural differences in the subjective experience of emotion: When and why they occur. Personality and Social Psychology Compass, 5, 853–864.
Stewart-Brown, S., Tennant, A., Tennant, R., Platt, S., Parkinson, J., & Weich, S. (2009). Internal construct validity of the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS): A Rasch analysis using data from the Scottish Health Education Population Survey. Health and Quality of Life Outcomes, 7, 15. doi:10.1186/1477-7525-7-15.
Suh, E. M., & Koo, J. (2008). Comparing subjective well-being across cultures and nations: The “what” and “why” questions. In M. Eid & R. J. Larsen (Eds.), The science of subjective well-being (pp. 414–427). New York: Guilford Press.
Tamir, M., & Gross, J. J. (2011). Beyond pleasure and pain? Emotion regulation and positive psychology. In K. Sheldon, T. Kashdan, & M. Steger (Eds.), Designing the future of positive psychology: Taking stock and moving forward (pp. 89–100). New York: Oxford University Press.
Tennant, R., Hiller, L., Fishwick, R., Platt, S., Joseph, S., Weich, S., Parkinson, J., Secker, S., & Stewart-Brown, S. (2007). The Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale (WEMWBS): Development and UK validation. Health and Quality of Life Outcomes, 5, 63. doi:10.1186/1477-7525-5-63.
Tov, W., & Diener, E. (2007). Culture and subjective well-being. In S. Kitayama & D. Cohen (Eds.), Handbook of cultural psychology (pp. 691–713). New York: Guilford.
Tsai, J. L., Knutson, B., & Fung, H. H. (2006). Cultural variation in affect valuation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 288–307.
van Hemert, D. A., Poortinga, Y. H., & van de Vijver, F. J. R. (2007). Emotion and culture. A meta-analysis. Cognition and Emotion, 21, 913–943.
Vargas, H. (2010). Estudio de los conceptos cotidianos de happiness y felicidad desde un enfoque probabilístico (Doctoral dissertation). Universidad Autonoma de Madrid. [A study on the concepts of ‘happiness’ and ‘felicidad’ from a probabilistic framework]. Retrieved June 1, 2012 from http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/50782
Vázquez, C., Hervás, G., Rahona, J. J., & Gómez, D. (2009). Psychological well-being and health: Contributions of positive psychology. Annuary of Clinical and Health Psychology, 5, 15–28.
Vázquez, C., Rahona, J. J., Gómez, D., & Hervás, G., (2011). Mind over matter: A national representative study of the relative impact of physical and psychological problems on life satisfaction. Submitted for publication.
Veenhoven, R. (2000). Wellbeing in the welfare state: Level not higher, distribution not more equitable. Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis, 2, 91–125.
Veenhoven, R. (2007). Measures of gross national happiness. In OECD: Statistics, knowledge and policy. Measuring and fostering the progress of societies (2007), pp. 231–253. Retrieved on June 15th, 2012 from: http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/11280/
Veenhoven, R. (2009). How universal is happiness? In E. Diener, J. Helliwell, & D. Kahneman (Eds.), International differences in well-being (pp. 328–350). New York: Oxford University Press.
Veenhoven, R. (2011). World database of happiness, ongoing register of scientific research on subjective enjoyment of life. http://worlddatabaseofhappiness.eur.nl
Vittersø, J., Biswas-Diener, R., & Diener, E. (2005). The divergent meaning of life satisfaction: Item response modeling of the satisfaction with life scale in Greenland and Norway. Social Indicators Research, 74, 327–348.
Waterman, A. S. (2008). Reconsidering happiness: A eudaimonist’s perspective. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 3, 234–252.
Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 1063–1070.
Wirtz, D., Kruger, J., Scollon, C. N., & Diener, E. (2003). What to do on spring break? Predicting future choice based on online versus recalled affect. Psychological Science, 14, 520–524.
Xu, J., & Roberts, R. E. (2010). The power of positive emotions: it’s a matter of life or death: Subjective well-being and longevity over 28 years in a general population. Health Psychology, 29, 9–19.
Yamaguchi, S., Greenwald, A. G., Banaji, M. R., Murakami, F., Chen, D., Shiomura, K., et al. (2007). Apparent universality of positive implicit self-esteem. Psychological Science, 18, 498–500.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Vazquez, C., Hervas, G. (2013). Addressing Current Challenges in Cross-Cultural Measurement of Well-Being: The Pemberton Happiness Index. In: Knoop, H., Delle Fave, A. (eds) Well-Being and Cultures. Cross-Cultural Advancements in Positive Psychology, vol 3. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4611-4_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4611-4_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-4610-7
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-4611-4
eBook Packages: Behavioral ScienceBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)