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

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