Aversion to Happiness and Life Satisfaction Relationship within Various Ethnic Groups in US
Abstract
The happiness of individual is one of the central concepts of the positivistic psychology and for the long time has been considered the most important goal in the life of the individual, especially in Western culture. At the same time the recent research works in the field has challenged this view in cross-cultural context, making the conclusion that happiness might not be considered the primarily value in some cultures and as a result the perceptions of happiness differ across nations. Our research work is planning to focus on the investigation of the relationship between life satisfaction and perception of happiness within different cultural groups in US and introduce the aversion to happiness variable within the framework of this investigation. We are planning to verify if the different perceptions of happiness across cultures influence the life satisfaction of their representatives and whether the aversion to happiness influences the individual life satisfaction in different cultural groups. Keywords: orientations to happiness, aversion to happiness, subjective well-being, life satisfaction, hedonia, eudaimonia, four cluster solution.
Aversion to Happiness and Life Satisfaction Relationship within Various Ethnic Groups in US
The happiness is one of the main life goals in the modern society and people spent most of their lives seeking for the feeling of happiness. The culture-specific attributes of happiness perception have not been in focus of happiness studies for the substantial period of time. Most of the researchers took as given that happiness is essential for the life satisfaction of the individual and such approach is clearly understandable within Western society, where the subjective well-being is always considered the primarily aim of any individual. As a result, it is not surprising that the new approach to the analysis of the perception of happiness and life satisfaction relationship came from the East. It was verified that Eastern and Western culture have different orientations to happiness. Western people possess the hedonic approach to happiness, focusing on the achievement of the pleasure in life and the reduction of negative emotions, whereas Eastern people understand happiness in eudaimonic perspective, which means that life satisfaction can be achieved through the meaningful actions in the process of the self-realization of the inner potential of the individual.
The additional contribution to the happiness research studies was made by the introduction of the aversion to happiness concept, according to which in some cultures happiness is not considered the most important value. In spite of the substantial amount of works focused on the analysis of the life satisfaction in the cross-cultural context in recent years, the results of these studies is rather controversial in terms of the statistical significance of the relationship between the orientations to happiness and life satisfaction, as well as in other aspects. Our research work is planning to contribute to the research in the field through the investigation of the relationship between life satisfaction and perception of happiness within different cultural groups in …