Subjective wellbeing across cultures: why do differences exist?

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Subjective wellbeing across cultures why do
differences exist?

• Daisung Jang and Do-Yeong Kim
• Department of Psychology,
• Macquarie University
• Sydney, Australia

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Collectivism and Individualism

• Triandis (1995, 2000) and Markus and Kitayama
  (1991,1994)
• Collectivism
• Importance of interpersonal relationships
• Tendency to rely or to be interdependent
• Individualism
• Importance of freedom and autonomy of the self
• Social interactions characterised by expectation
  of fair exchange

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Implicit and Explicit Wellbeing

• Do cross cultural differences exist in self
  reported and implicit appraisals of life
  satisfaction?
• What is the nature of these differences in Asian
  and European Australians?
• How can these differences be attributed to
  differences in culture?

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Differences in Self Reported Wellbeing

• Personal versus collected sense of wellbeing
• Culture is an organising framework that
  influences how people process information
  (Kitayama, Duffy, Kawamura, Larsen, 2003), then
  cross cultural differences in wellbeing may also
  be a result of differential processing of
  information relevant to wellbeing judgement
• Diener (1984) proposed one such model in the way
  wellbeing may be differentially processed top
  down and bottom up processes

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Top down approach to life satisfaction
Life events
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Bottom up approach to life satisfaction
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Implicit Notions of Wellbeing

• Self reported levels of wellbeing may be affected
  by culturally specific influences (Kitayama
  Uchida, 2003)
• An implicit appraisal of wellbeing is one that is
  not only held against conscious decision, but
  also an appraisal that is made/accrued over time
  (Kim, 2004)
• Implicit notions of wellbeing may provide a bias
  reduced way of assessing wellbeing
• Simultaneous use of self reported and implicit
  (multimethod approach) levels of wellbeing may be
  useful in determining how cross cultural
  differences arise

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Implicit Notions of Wellbeing

• If the evidence shows that culturally consistent
  notions of wellbeing are more important, then the
  degree to which implicit measures show / do not
  show similar patterns of results could add to the
  explanation of why cross cultural differences
  emerge

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Manipulation

• Positive mood is also known to be important in
  consideration in judging life satisfaction in
  individualist and collectivist cultures (Suh,
  Diener, Oishi, Triandis, 1998)
• Mood is known to be differently experienced
  across cultures (Gross John, 2003)
• Manipulation of positive mood in individual and
  collected contexts

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Research Questions

• How do differences in explicit and implicit
  wellbeing arise?
• Do culturally consistent notions of wellbeing
  exist in East Asian and European Australians?
• Do implicit measures of wellbeing reflect such
  culturally laden notions such as
  personal/collected wellbeing?

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Method

• N116
• 60 Asian Australians, 56 European Australians
• Participants completed pen and paper
  (Satisfaction with life scale Diener et al.
  1985) as well as implicit measures of wellbeing
  (ILS, Kim, 2004)
• Participants then underwent one of 2 manipulation
  conditions (individual or group manipulation of
  positive mood), or a control condition.

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Method

• Positive mood induction
• Modified Velten (1968) self statement task
  (shortened, as used by Russell Teasdale, 1983)
• Positive mood induction lasted 6 minutes
• All self statements were modified for the group
  induction of positive mood all I were altered
  to We
• Controls did nothing for 6 minutes

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Method

• After the manipulation, participants completed
  pen and paper measures of the same current mood
  and life satisfaction, as well as the ILS-G and
  ILS-U at the second time.

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Results and Discussion
Manipulation Effect on Self-Report SWB
Measure European Australians
Increase in reported life satisfaction
4
2
0
Control
Individual
Group
-2
Manipulation Condition
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Results and Discussion
Manipulation Effect on Self-Report SWB
Measure Asian Australians
Increase in reported life satisfaction
4
2
0
Control
Individual
Group
-2
Manipulation Condition
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Results and Discussion

• As expected, a personal sense of wellbeing was
  more important in European Australians
• However, simply feeling positive did not lead to
  an increase in life satisfaction
• European Australians were selective in their
  processing of information relevant to wellbeing
• May reflect a top down process in determining
  levels of wellbeing (Diener, 1984)

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Results and Discussion

• Unexpectedly, the group induction of positive
  mood was not more salient than the individual
  induction both had similar effects on life
  satisfaction for Asian Australians
• Asian Australians did not discriminate between
  contexts but referred to the relative positivity
  of the situation when judging life satisfaction
• May be reflecting a bottom up approach to
  wellbeing judgement (Diener, 1984).

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Secondary Analysis

• Analyses also showed that for Asian Australians,
  time spent in Australia was associated with
  higher life satisfaction (r .33), more positive
  than negative levels of affect (r. 30) and lower
  emotional suppression (r -.29)

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Discussion

• The length of time lived in Australia is
  associated with greater wellbeing for Asian
  Australians why is this the case?
• Scant literature on differences in migrant
  experience between US and Australia reveal a
  similar pattern Rosenthal and Feldman (1990)
  McGrath et al. (2001)
• The length of time lived in Australia is
  associated with greater wellbeing for Asian
  Australians why is this the case?

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Implications

• What people report about themselves is not
  necessarily directly comparable cross culturally
• Culturally compatible notions of wellbeing exist
  in collectivist and individualist cultures
• Implicit notions of wellbeing appear to be
  independent of temporarily induced culturally
  laden information relevant to wellbeing
• Australia has unique properties that does not
  result in a disparity of wellbeing in migrants

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NB 19/8/05

• Since presentation of this data, the test sample
  was found to be heterogenous The Asian
  Australian sample consisted of both permanent
  residents of Australia who had lived a
  considerable amount of their lives in Australia
  and overseas Chinese students.
• The two groups were found to respond to the
  manipulation differently, that is, permanent
  residents responses resembled European
  Australians responses and overseas Chinese
  showed a different pattern of response.

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NB 19/8/05

• Decision was made to re-analyse data using only
  overseas Chinese participants, with more cases
  added to appropriately counterbalance n across
  sample groups.
• Results obtained using this homogenous sample
  revealed that overseas Chinese participants did
  not enhance their explicit SWB on individual
  manipulation of positive mood, but did so for
  group manipulation of positive mood. Implicit SWB
  did not alter as a function of manipulation.

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NB 19/8/05

• Overall picture of the results suggest a
  different explanation to the one previously
  discussed for explicit SWB, a culture
  appropriate notion of SWB was apparent in the two
  samples (European Australian and Overseas
  Chinese) . However, for implicit SWB, no such
  evidence was found.
• Cultures of comparable implicit SWB appear to
  articulate their level of wellbeing in different
  and culture appropriate ways. The type of
  stimulation required to experience SWB is
  determined by overarching cultural demands
  (cultural syndromes, Triandis, 1998, 2001).
  Data also indicates that culture may be a
  determining factor in how people process
  information relevant to their SWB.