Cross-cultural validation of fear of happiness scale across 14 national groups
Document Type
Journal article
Source Publication
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology
Publication Date
2-1-2014
Volume
45
Issue
2
First Page
246
Last Page
264
Publisher
Sage Publications, Inc.
Keywords
fear of happiness, subjective well-being, happiness, emotion, cross-cultural, religion
Abstract
A survey of the cultural notions related to happiness and the existing empirical evidence indicate that some individuals endorse the belief that happiness, particularly an immoderate degree of it, should be avoided. These beliefs mainly involve the general notion that happiness may lead to bad things happening. Using multigroup confirmatory factor analysis and multilevel modeling, this study investigates the measurement invariance, cross-level isomorphism, predictive validity, and nomological network of the fear of happiness scale across 14 nations. The results show that this scale has good statistical properties at both individual and cultural levels. The findings also indicate that this scale has the potential to add to the knowledge about how people conceive of, and experience, happiness across cultures.
DOI
10.1177/0022022113505357
Print ISSN
00220221
E-ISSN
15525422
Publisher Statement
Copyright © The Author(s) 2013
Access to external full text or publisher's version may require subscription.
Full-text Version
Publisher’s Version
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Joshanloo, M., Lepshokova, Z. K., Panyusheva, T., Natalia, A., Poon, W.-C., Yeung, V. W.-l,… Jiang, D.-Y. (2014). Cross-cultural validation of fear of happiness scale across 14 national groups. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 45(2), 246-264. doi: 10.1177/0022022113505357