Achieving subjective well-being around the world : the moderating influence of gender, age and national goals for socializing children

Document Type

Journal article

Source Publication

Journal of Happiness Studies

Publication Date

4-2016

Volume

17

Issue

2

First Page

587

Last Page

608

Publisher

Springer Netherlands

Keywords

Subjective well-being, Needs satisfaction, Culture, Socialization goals for children, Age and gender

Abstract

We propose that one’s subjective well-being (SWB) arises from the satisfaction of one’s basic needs, but that the importance of attaining specific needs will vary according to one’s gender, age, and national culture. We argue that the role of one’s national-cultural background in that process can best be unpackaged in terms of the emphasis of a nation’s citizens on the goals for socializing children, namely, self-directedness versus other-directedness and civility versus practicality. Accordingly, we analyzed the responses of 65,025 persons across 50 nations to questions on the World Values Survey about their perceived state of health, financial satisfaction, trust of in-group members, and sense of personal control over events. Using HLM analysis, we showed that all four factors were significant predictors of SWB pan-nationally, but that the linkages of financial satisfaction and trust of in-group members to SWB were moderated by a nation’s self-directedness and civility; those of financial satisfaction and health were moderated by age. These results indicate that the socialization emphases characterizing one’s national culture operate to make some of the key contributors to one’s SWB more or less predictive. Cross-national studies are thereby vindicated in their capacity to reveal nation-specific formulas for psychological processes leading to SWB.

DOI

10.1007/s10902-015-9614-z

Print ISSN

13894978

E-ISSN

15737780

Publisher Statement

Copyright © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015 .

Access to external full text or publisher's version may require subscription.

Full-text Version

Publisher’s Version

Language

English

Recommended Citation

Lun, V. M.-C., & Bond, M. H. (2015). Achieving subjective well-being around the world: The moderating influence of gender, age and national goals for socializing children. Journal of Happiness Studies, 17(2), 587-608. doi: 10.1007/s10902-015-9614-z

Share

COinS