Final Reading Response

Hi this is for a Psychology class called Science of Happiness. The idea of this writing is to answer the prompts with a couple of sentences around a paragraph each using the readings provided for each prompt. Label each response with the reading title and prompt to make it clear. The total writing should be 2-3 page single space for all the prompts combined.

Keltner (2023): CH 6: Wild Awe  (BOOK)

What is the meaning of “wild awe” according to Keltner and how can we cultivate it?

World Happiness Report (2020)

Reid et al. (2022).

What are the three key dimensions of green space theauthors measured and what facets of mental health were they associated with during the COVID-19 pandemic? Do you think these relationships would vary outside of a pandemic context?

Gruber, Mauss & Tamir (2011). A dark side of happiness?

Mauss et al (2011). Can seeking happiness make people unhappy?

How does Mauss measure the pursuit of happiness? According to the authors, in what context(s) can seeking happiness make people unhappy?

Dejonckheere et al. (2022). Perceiving societal pressure to be happy is linked to poor

How did the authors measure societal pressure to be happy, and what facets of emotional well-being were linked to it? Do you think these data apply to experiences of CU Boulder students today?

Oishi, Graham, Kesebir, & Galinha (2013). Concepts of happiness across time and cultures.

What different methods did the authors use to analyze concepts of happiness across-cultures? What were some culture-specific findings versus findings that were generalizable across cultures? What do you think an important next-step in this research could be?

In what contexts does individualism relate to negative effects on happiness? What does this suggest about the interaction between individualism and cultural context on happiness? Do you agree or disagree with the conclusions made by the authors?

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OPEN
Perceiving societal pressure to be
happy is linked to poor well‑being,
especially in happy nations
Egon Dejonckheere1,2*, Joshua J. Rhee3, Peter K. Baguma4, Oumar Barry5, Maja Becker6,
Michał Bilewicz7, Thomas Castelain8, Giulio Costantini9, Girts Dimdins10, Agustín Espinosa11,
Gillian Finchilescu12, Malte Friese13, Maria Cecilia Gastardo‑Conaco14, Angel Gómez15,
Roberto González16, Nobuhiko Goto17, Peter Halama18, Camilo Hurtado‑Parrado19,
Gabriela M. Jiga‑Boy20, Johannes A. Karl21, Lindsay Novak22, Liisi Ausmees23,
Steve Loughnan24, Khairul A. Mastor25, Neil McLatchie26, Ike E. Onyishi27,
Muhammad Rizwan28, Mark Schaller29, Eleonora Serafimovska30, Eunkook M. Suh31,
William B. Swann Jr32, Eddie M. W. Tong33, Ana Torres34, Rhiannon N. Turner35,
Alexander Vinogradov36, Zhechen Wang37, Victoria Wai‑lan Yeung38, Catherine E. Amiot39,
Watcharaporn Boonyasiriwat40, Müjde Peker41, Paul A. M. Van Lange42,
Christin‑Melanie Vauclair43, Peter Kuppens2 & Brock Bastian3
Happiness is a valuable experience, and societies want their citizens to be happy. Although this
societal commitment seems laudable, overly emphasizing positivity (versus negativity) may create an
1
Department of Medical and Clinical Psychology, Tilburg University, Warandelaan 2, 5037 AB Tilburg,
The Netherlands. 2Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, KU Leuven, Tiensestraat 102,
Leuven, Belgium. 3Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne,
Australia. 4School of Psychology, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda. 5Department of Psychology,
University Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar, Senegal. 6CLLE, Université de Toulouse, CNRS, Toulouse, France. 7Faculty
of Psychology, University of Warsaw, Warszawa, Poland. 8Instituto de Investigaciones Psicológicas, Universidad
de Costa Rica, San Pedro Montes de Oca, Costa Rica. 9Department of Psychology, University of Milan-Bicocca,
Milan, Italy. 10Department of Psychology, University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia. 11Department of Psychology,
Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima, Peru. 12Department of Psychology, University of the
Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. 13Department of Psychology, Saarland University, Saarbrücken,
Germany. 14Department of Psychology, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Philippines. 15Department of
Social and Organizational Psychology, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Madrid, Spain. 16Escuela
de Psicología, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile. 17Department of Psychology, Kyoto Notre
Dame University, Kyoto, Japan. 18Center of Social and Psychological Sciences, Slovak Academy of Sciences,
Bratislava, Slovakia. 19Department of Psychology, Konrad Lorenz University and Troy University, Bogotá,
Colombia. 20School of Psychology, Swansea University, Swansea, UK. 21School of Psychology, Victoria University of
Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand. 22Department of Psychology, University of Illinois, Chicago, USA. 23Institute
of Psychology, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia. 24Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh,
Edinburgh, UK. 25School of Liberal Studies, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Malaysia. 26Psychology
Department, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK. 27Department of Psychology, University of Nigeria, Nsukka,
Nigeria. 28Department of Psychology, University of Haripur, Haripur, KPK, Pakistan. 29Department of Psychology,
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. 30Institute for Sociological, Political and Juridical Research,
University of Ss Cyril and Methodius, Skopje, North Macedonia. 31Department of Psychology, Yonsei University,
Seoul, South Korea. 32Department of Psychology, University of Texas, Austin, USA. 33Department of Psychology,
National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore. 34Department of Psychology, Federal University of
Paraíba, Paraíba, Brazil. 35School of Psychology, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, UK. 36Department of
Psychology, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Kyiv, Ukraine. 37School of Social Development and
Public Policy, Fudan University, Shanghai, China. 38Department of Applied Psychology, Lingnan University, Tuen
Mun, Hong Kong. 39Department of Psychology, Université du Québec À Montréal, Montreal, Canada. 40Faculty of
Psychology, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand. 41Department of Psychology, MEF University, Istanbul,
Turkey. 42Department of Experimental and Applied Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam,
The Netherlands. 43Centre for Psychological Research and Social Intervention, Instituto Universitário de Lisboa
(ISCTE-IUL), CIS-IUL, Lisboa, Portugal. *email: E.H.Dejonckheere@tilburguniversity.edu
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unattainable emotion norm that ironically compromises individual well-being. In this multi-national
study (40 countries; 7443 participants), we investigate how societal pressure to be happy and not sad
predicts emotional, cognitive and clinical indicators of well-being around the world, and examine how
these relations differ as a function of countries’ national happiness levels (collected from the World
Happiness Report). Although detrimental well-being associations manifest for an average country,
the strength of these relations varies across countries. People’s felt societal pressure to be happy and
not sad is particularly linked to poor well-being in countries with a higher World Happiness Index.
Although the cross-sectional nature of our work prohibits causal conclusions, our findings highlight
the correlational link between social emotion valuation and individual well-being, and suggest that
high national happiness levels may have downsides for some.
Humans value happiness. Around the world, individuals share a similar aspiration to lead a satisfying and happy
­life1, yet there is also an emerging recognition that this personal quest in itself may have well-being consequences.
Placing a premium on the value of positive emotion is known to paradoxically undermine our well-being, not
only as a function of how we value happiness ­ourselves2–4, but also as a function of how the society we live in
emphasizes the importance of being ­happy5–7.
Preliminary work suggests that the deleterious effects of pursuing happiness may vary across ­nations8,9. Here,
we aim to provide a robust cross-national test of this (predictive) effect, investigating whether the experienced
social value placed on happiness ironically relates to poorer well-being across a large sample of nations. We
also examine a previously unexplored source of variance between countries, their global levels of self-reported
happiness, assessed with an established metric for societal well-being, the World Happiness Index ­(WHI10).
By examining the link between social valuation of emotion and well-being across the globe, we aim to provide
further insight into the important link between culture and individual emotional f­ unctioning11,12.
The societal pressure to be happy and subjective well‑being
Happiness or in scientific terms, high subjective well-being13 is advantageous and desired, not in the least because
it signals accomplishment and optimal f­ unctioning14. For individuals, high subjective well-being is associated
with personal thriving in various life domains (e.g., work, social relations, physical ­health15–17). But also, for
nations more broadly, social indicators research consistently illustrates that happy inhabitants indicate societal
flourishing on economic, social, and political ­fronts18. Together, these favorable outcomes explain people’s natural
tendency to value happiness, both for themselves and their fellow man.
Although this social engagement with happiness appears admirable, recent research also highlights the risks
of overly promoting positive emotion, which can result in a felt social pressure to be ­happy19–23. Today, the
message that happiness is an important life goal is expressed at many different levels in modern societies, and
social-emotion research shows that people readily internalize these salient emotion s­ tandards24–26. On a macrolevel, for example, the prominence of happiness is evidenced explicitly by the numerous happiness coaches,
campaigns and self-help books that provide us with tips and tricks to cultivate the most positive m
­ indset27, but
also more implicitly, by the seemingly perfect lives of influencers on social m
­ edia28, and the ubiquity of smiling
faces and happiness allusions in prime-time commercials and ­magazines29,30. On a micro-level, people may feel
pressured by their friends, family or colleagues to present themselves in an overly positive way, because these
close social contacts directly or indirectly encourage them to feel h
­ appy31,32. At last, this subjective experience
may even exist in the absence of concrete, objective ­antecedents33. Regardless of the specific mechanism, this
one-sided social emphasis on happiness also risks simultaneously cultivating the perception that there is little
room for n
­ egativity9. Indeed, in many modern societies or social groups, the natural experience of negative
emotion is easily s­ tigmatized34, regarded as maladaptive for our mental well-being35, and as something troublesome that instantly needs ­cure36,37. Also in this case, social others may shape the internal expectation that
negativity is ­undesired24,25. Nevertheless, occasional feelings of stress, sadness or anxiety are an inevitable reality
for every human being, making it virtually impossible to constantly comply with the apparent stringent norm
to be h
­ appy5. Because this unattainable standard readily reveals discrepancies between our actual emotional life
and the emotions society apparently approves of, the perceived failure to meet social expectations is known to
trigger negative meta-emotions, pessimistic self-attitudes and ruminative r­ esponding7,20,38,39, with the resulting
ironic aggravation of these undesired emotional s­ tates40,41.
Eventually, the chronic failure to adhere to these unrealistic emotion standards may compromise people’s
well-being, as demonstrated by a large body of correlational and experimental research with various indicators
of subjective well-being13. Emotionally, the experimental induction to value happiness (e.g., via happinessextolling mock articles or verbal communication) paradoxically elicits blunted positive emotional responding to
enjoyable ­events3, increased rumination over negative ­emotion7, and stronger feelings of ­loneliness22. On the flip
side, experiencing societal pressure to avoid negativity (e.g., induced via mock articles that emphasize the social
cost of negative emotion) instigates increased negative emotion (both in terms of intensity and d
­ uration9) and
equally triggers l­ oneliness19. Cognitively, the societal valuation of positive emotions (and the perceived devaluation of negative ones) relates to lower life satisfaction judgments for people who occasionally feel n
­ egative9,21.
Finally, in the clinical realm, excessively valuing positivity has been linked to more depressive symptoms in both
­adolescent23 and adult s­ amples42, and compared to healthy controls, depressed patients hold stronger beliefs
that they should feel more positive and less ­negative43. Within individuals, perceiving social pressure not to feel
negative paradoxically predicts increases in depressive symptomatology over t­ ime5.
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An important question that currently remains unanswered is to what extent the detrimental link between
the felt social pressure to be happy and individual well-being is universal versus culture-specific11,12. The vast
majority of cited studies are typically confined to single-nation (Western) samples (e.g., 5,19,20). In the few cases
where cultural variation is central to their investigation, researchers mainly relied on a small sample of different
geographical regions (e.g., United States, Germany, Russia, East ­Asia8) or their study was limited to different
nationalities living in the same country (e.g., Australian and East Asian students living in A
­ ustralia9). Therefore,
a comprehensive and cross-national evaluation of the tendency to place a social premium on happiness and
the associated well-being problems with doing so, together with the examination of potential country-level
moderators, is a crucial next step in understanding the link between social emotion valuation and individual
adaptive ­functioning21.
Country‑level happiness: The World Happiness Index
Although there are many avenues through which the social value placed on happiness may be inadvertently communicated and reinforced, it is possible that the happiness seen in other members of society may aggravate the
ironic and negative (predictive) well-being effects of the felt social pressure to achieve personal ­happiness44–46.
Signs of human happiness can manifest in a multitude of ­ways47, and are not limited to the explicit expression of
overt joyful behavior alone (e.g., smiling facial expressions, positive verbal communication, etc.). Happiness is
also evident in other more subtle, implicit overt cues (e.g., having more social contact, engaging in pleasurable
activities, etc.), and finally also includes truly covert experiences of joy and related behaviors (e.g., feeling happy,
providing a high happiness rating in a well-being survey, etc.).
If the happiness that is displayed by other citizens adds to the personal pressure to be happy or amplifies its
(predictive) well-being effects, then national levels of self-reported happiness within a given society could pick
up on this process. One of the most prominent and established barometers to evaluate national levels of selfreported happiness is the WHI, an annual metric published by the Sustainable Development Solution Network
commissioned by the United N
­ ations10. Based on the subjective happiness ratings of a large-scale and nationally
representative sample (collected by the Gallup World P
­ oll48), this initiative aims to present a global ranking of
the most happy and unhappy nations in the world.
At its core, the WHI is thought to summarize how happy the average person within a country typically ­feels10.
However, it is equally possible that in countries in which citizens report higher levels of happiness, people, on
average, also experience more social pressure to be happy and not sad, because social norms prescribing the
value of happiness are elevated within these countries. If this hypothesis is correct, we should expect a meaningful country-level relation between the average perceived social pressure to be happy within a country and its
national WHI score.
Second, the possibility exists that in countries with higher national happiness levels, people’s own personal
failure to (at times) live up to society’s prescribed standard to be happy may be accentuated by other people’s
actual happiness. Based on an integration of the previously cited body of socio-cultural6–8 and (meta-)emotional38–43 research, it is possible that, for some individuals, the happiness seen in others may set up a forced
social comparison c­ ontext44–46 in which discrepancies between one’s own emotional life and society’s perceived
expectations are more painfully apparent, because others seemingly comply with the prevailing standard to be
happy with little trouble. In this regard, social network research shows that happiness is distributed unequally
within ­societies49,50, and this imbalance in happiness could create the detrimental basis for social comparison
in a population. Indeed, for people who regularly experience negative emotion, being confronted with happy
people inevitably highlights the fact that their feelings are out of step with the emotional lives of o
­ thers46, and this
self-other incongruity could aggravate the negative (predictive) well-being effects of the felt social pressure to
strive for ­happiness7,20,45. If this rationale is correct, we should expect that the negative relation between people’s
perceived social pressure to pursue happiness and their well-being is ironically stronger in high WHI countries.
The current study
To determine how the perceived social pressure to pursue happiness relates to people’s subjective well-being
around the world, we conducted a large-scale cross-national study (40 countries; 7,443 participants). In a first
step, we examined whether the detrimental well-being associations of this felt pressure replicated across a wide
array of countries. We surveyed for both participants’ perceived social pressure to be h
­ appy51, as well as not to
20
be depressed or a­ nxious . Regarding their subjective well-being, we acknowledged the multi-componential
structure of this ­construct13,52. In line with established conventions on how to survey subjective well-being53, we
considered both emotional (i.e., the frequency and intensity of positive [PA] and negative affect [NA]), cognitive (i.e., life satisfaction) and clinical indicators (i.e., depressive, anxiety-, and stress-related symptomatology).
In a second step, we examined the role of nations’ global happiness levels as a potential source of betweencountry variance explaining the negative well-being associations of the felt social pressure to feel positive and
not negative. To this end, we obtained a global WHI score for each participating country from the World Happiness ­Report10. This score is based on the average life evaluation of a nationally representative s­ ample48, using
the Cantril ­Ladder54. Respondents are asked to evaluate the quality of their current life on a 11-rung ladder that
ranges from worst possible life (zero) to best possible life (ten). Consequently, the WHI is more an indication of
the average life satisfaction displayed by the inhabitants of a particular country, rather than their global subjective well-being10.
First, we explored whether higher national WHI scores are associated with stronger felt social pressure to be
happy and not anxious or depressed. Second, we examined the moderating role of countries’ WHI score on the
relation between this felt social pressure and people’s well-being. We hypothesized that the perceived societal
pressure to feel happy and not anxious or depressed ironically shows stronger detrimental relations with people’s
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Descriptive statistics
Variables
Mean (SD)
Correlations
ICC
α within
α between
.06
.80
.89
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
WHI
.19
− .05
.33 *
.04
− .12
− .10
.16
.04
.30
.37 *
− .35 *
.85 ***
− .51 ***
− .37 *
− .09
− .42 **
− .05
− .27
− .21
− .29
.93 ***
.64 ***
.58 ***
.64 ***
.54***
.44 **
.23
− .32 *
− .40 *
− .14
− .35 *
.05
− .02
− .21
.57 ***
.49 **
.63 ***
.48**
.48 **
.29
.90***
.88 ***
.22
.26
.06
.79 ***
.32 *
.21
− .06
.23
.41 **
.23
.63 ***
.23
Cognitive subjective well-being
1. Life satisfaction
4.30 (1.29)
Emotional subjective well-being
2. PA Frequency
5.60 (1.54)
.03
.74
.83
.47 ***
3. NA Frequency
4.74 (1.85)
.08
.75
.92
− .38 ***
− .43 ***
4. PA Intensity
5.60 (1.66)
.03
.77
.83
.39 ***
.76 ***
− .35 ***
5. NA intensity
4.80 (1.96)
.06
.77
.89
− .34 ***
− .41 ***
.82 ***
− .22 ***
Clinical subjective well-being
6. Depression
1.75 (0.65)
.12
.83
.95
− .44 ***
− .48 ***
.63 ***
− .39 ***
.58 ***
7. Anxiety
1.69 (0.60)
.11
.78
.95
− .23 ***
− .33 ***
.55 ***
− .25 ***
.52 ***
.63 ***
8. Stress
2.00 (0.61)
.12
.80
.95
− .25 ***
− .40 ***
.61 ***
− .31 ***
.58 ***
.65 ***
.70 ***
Perceived emotion norm
9. SEHS
6.01 (1.34)
.11
.75
.94
− .05 *
− .10 ***
.27 ***
− .08 **
.24 ***
.21 ***
.22 ***
.24 ***
10. SEDAS
5.56 (1.18)
.11
.72
.95
− .21 ***
− .23 ***
.31 ***
− .18 ***
.29 ***
.27 ***
.23 ***
.26 ***
.54 ***
.26
Table 1.  Summary statistics and correlations among all measures. ICC = Intra-class correlation, ratio of
between-country variance to total variance. Within- and between-country multilevel internal consistencies
(α) were calculated ­following79. Correlations below the diagonal represent the average within-country
correlation between people’s personal scores, correlations above the diagonal represent the between-country
correlations between country means (i.e., national scores). WHI = World Happiness Index; PA = Positive Affect;
NA = Negative Affect; SEHS = Social Expectancies to be Happy Scale; SEDAS = Social Expectancies not to feel
Depressed or Anxious Scale; *p ≤ .05, **p ≤ .01, ***p ≤ .001.
subjective well-being in high WHI nations. In these happy contexts, the painful observation that other people
are (seemingly) emotionally able to live up to society’s expectations when you yourself are unable to do so,
likely makes personal deviations from the desired emotion standard more ­salient24,44. In this sense, the negative
(predictive) well-being effects of the felt social pressure to strive for happiness (and avoid sadness) are likely to
be reinforced in high WHI countries.
To evaluate how the perceived societal pressure to feel (a) positive and (b) not negative is linked to poor subjective well-being, we performed two (separate) series of multilevel models (participants nested within countries)
with the different subjective well-being indicators as outcomes of interest. Although previous work established a
causal and unidirectional effect of experiencing pressure to be happy and not sad on subjective well-being (e.g.,
7,9
), we acknowledge that our selection of outcomes and predictors in the current cross-sectional multilevel context is somewhat arbitrary, and that we are ultimately restricted to correlational claims (but see SI 6, where we
show that this arbitrary decision does not impact our conclusions). For each model, we examined the random
effect distributions of these types of pressure in the prediction of well-being to see if detrimental links manifest
globally or whether nation-specific relations appear. Next, to explore the role of countries’ WHI score, we examined its country-level relation with the average felt social pressure within a country, and evaluated its cross-level
interaction with people’s felt social pressure to see whether national happiness levels moderated the withincountry relations with well-being (see Methods for more detailed information about our statistical analyses).
Results
Descriptive statistics. Before answering the research questions central to this investigation, different elements in Table 1 deserve special consideration. First, within nations, the interrelation between the social pressure to feel positive and not negative is moderately positive (r = 0.54, p < 0.001). This suggests a common factor in the perceived social pressure to pursue positivity and to avoid negativity, but also underscores the uniqueness of both constructs. Second, in line with previous ­research2–6,9,19,21,23, both types of social pressure show the expected pattern of associations with all well-being indicators. Feeling social pressure to be happy and not sad is associated with reduced life satisfaction, experiencing less frequent and intense positive, but more frequent and intense negative emotions, and more symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress (|r|s ≥ 0.05, ps ≤ 0.050). Finally, between countries, national WHI scores are only significantly related to countries’ average life satisfaction levels (r = 0.37, p = 0.017); but not with emotional or clinical markers of well-being. This confirms the convergent (and discriminant) validity of this country-level metric, because the WHI only assesses countries’ average life satisfaction and not global subjective well-being. Universal versus nation‑specific subjective well‑being effects. The fixed effects in Table 2 indicate how the perceived social pressure to be happy and not anxious or depressed (separately) relate to all subjective well-being markers for the average country in our sample. These results are fully in line with the average withinnation correlations in Table 1. Within the average country, the social pressure to be happy and not sad is linked to lower life satisfaction judgements (βs ≤ −0.05, ps ≤ 0.024). Emotionally, experiencing these types of social pressure relate to less frequent and intense positive, but more frequent and intense negative emotions (|β|s ≥ 0.09, Scientific Reports | Vol:.(1234567890) (2022) 12:1514 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-04262-z 4 www.nature.com/scientificreports/ Perceived social pressure to be happy Fixed effect Perceived social pressure not to be depressed or anxious SD random effects # Positive # Negative # Null Fixed effect SD random effects # Positive # Negative # Null 0.11 5 10 25 − 0.23*** 0.10 5 24 10 Cognitive subjective well-being Life satisfaction − 0.05* Emotional subjective well-being PA Frequency − 0.11*** 0.14 4 14 22 − 0.27*** 0.15 13 18 8 NA Frequency 0.36*** 0.09 36 0 4 0.46*** 0.08 35 0 4 PA Intensity − 0.09** 0.13 3 10 27 − 0.24*** 0.13 3 28 8 NA intensity 0.36*** 0.10 32 0 8 0.46*** 0.09 34 0 5 Clinical subjective well-being Depression 0.10*** 0.05 32 0 8 0.14*** 0.04 33 0 6 Anxiety 0.09*** 0.03 33 1 6 0.11*** 0.03 31 0 8 Stress 0.10*** 0.04 34 0 6 0.12*** 0.04 32 1 6 Table 2.  Exploring the universality of the detrimental well-being effects of the perceived social pressure to be happy and not to be depressed or anxious. Each fixed effect represents the observed relation for the average country in our sample. The standard deviation of the random effects distribution describes the observed variability around that average association. For each well-being variable, we report the number of significant positive, significant negative and null-associations across countries (n = 40 for the perceived social pressure to be happy; n = 39 for the perceived social pressure not to be depressed or anxious, due to an irreversible coding error for Poland). Both types of pressure were within-country centered. The number of associations that mirror the fixed effect are bolded. PA = Positive Affect; NA = Negative Affect; *p ≤ .05, **p ≤ .01, ***p ≤ .001. ps ≤ 0.003, R%s = 100%). Finally, in the clinical realm, feeling pressured to be happy and not sad predicts stronger symptoms of depression, anxiety and general distress (βs ≥ 0.09, ps < 0.001). The (predictive) well-being effects of the felt social pressure not to feel negative are typically stronger than to feel positive. However, when examining the variability in random effects, we observe considerable between-country heterogeneity for some well-being indicators. This points towards a potential moderating impact of critical nation-level variables that exacerbate or alleviate the debilitating link between the felt social pressure to be happy and not sad and personal well-being. In particular, country-specific patterns appear for positive markers of subjective well-being (i.e., life satisfaction, PA frequency and intensity). For these indicators, the average negative relation with both types of social pressure significantly switches sign in 3 to 13 of the countries in our sample (and is non-significant in 10 to 28 countries). In contrast, for negative markers of subjective well-being (i.e., clinical symptoms, NA frequency and intensity), the average positive association with these types of pressure only turns negative in maximum 1 country (and is non-significant in 4 to 8 countries), suggesting a more universal detrimental association. The moderating role of national happiness levels. To explain this between-country variability in (predictive) well-being effects, we examine the role of nations’ global levels of self-reported happiness on the perceived social pressure to be happy and not sad in two ways. First, inspecting the correlations above the diagonal in Table 1, national WHI scores are not significantly related to the average felt societal pressure within a country (rs ≤ 0.23, ps ≥ 0.112). Thus, contrary to what we predicted, the perceived societal norms that prescribe people to feel happy and not anxious or depressed are not particularly elevated in countries with a high WHI score. Second, however, when exploring the moderating impact of national happiness levels, we observe how the within-country association between almost all subjective well-being indicators and the felt societal pressure to be happy and not sad changes as a function of a country’s WHI score (see Fig. 1). For the perceived social pressure to be happy, significant cross-level interactions with nations’ WHI score indicate that these effects are stronger in countries that report higher levels of national happiness. In line with our hypothesis, perceiving social pressure to be happy is linked to poorer subjective well-being in high WHI countries, both emotionally (|β|s ≥ 0.07, ps ≤ 0.016, R%s ≤ 87%), cognitively (β = −0.08, p = 0.003) and clinically (βs ≥ 0.03, ps ≤ 0.006). Indeed, as can be seen from Panel A in Fig. 2, comparing the countries in our sample with a lower (− 1 SD) versus higher (+ 1 SD) WHI score, the link between people’s perceived social pressure to be happy and their subjective well-being is substantially stronger in the latter. In terms of absolute magnitude differences, the absolute explanatory effect of the perceived social pressure to be happy in people’s well-being is almost always small to non-existent in low WHI nations (|β|s ≤ 0.08; except for the prediction of the frequency and intensity of NA feelings). In contrast, in high WHI nations, the absolute predictive effect of this pressure ranges from 0.12 to 0.44. In terms of relative magnitude, the (absolute) difference in predictive effects between low and high WHI countries is the smallest for the clinical indicators (difference in |β|s ≤ 0.06), and the largest for the emotional indicators of psychological well-being (difference in |β|s ≥ 0.12). Finally, the graphical visualization of these significant cross-level interactions in Fig. 3 (Panel A) further unfolds the moderating impact of national WHI scores. Independent of WHI status, the perceived social pressure to be happy predicts poorer subjective well-being in all indicators. However, in high WHI countries this prediction is always stronger, generally producing larger differences in well-being in happier nations between people who experience little versus a great deal of social pressure to be happy. Scientific Reports | (2022) 12:1514 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-04262-z 5 Vol.:(0123456789) www.nature.com/scientificreports/ Figure 1.  Exploring the differential role of the perceived social pressure (a) to be happy and (b) not to be depressed or anxious in various well-being indicators as function of countries’ World Happiness Index (WHI). Dots represent the magnitude of the fixed effects in each multilevel model (red = significant; gray = nonsignificant with α = .05), error bars refer to the 95% confidence interval. Intercepts are not presented for optimal visibility, but were always significant with ps ≤ .001. Original values, standard errors, test statistics and p-values can be found in Supplementary Tables 2 and 3. PA = Positive Affect; NA = Negative Affect; LS = Life Satisfaction; SEHS = Social Expectancies to be Happy Scale; SEDAS = Social Expectancies not to feel Depressed or Anxious Scale. For the felt societal pressure not to be depressed or anxious, we observe a pattern of results that is highly similar. Here, significant cross-level interactions with countries’ WHI score indicate that most negative (predictive) well-being effects of participants’ perceived societal pressure to not feel negative are stronger in countries that report higher levels of national happiness. Emotionally, in countries with a high WHI score, the perceived societal pressure to avoid negative emotion shows stronger ties to a reduced experience of PA (both in terms of frequency and intensity; βs ≤ −0.09, ps ≤ 0.005, R%s ≤ 93%) and an increased experience of NA (in terms of intensity, β = 0.07, p = 0.017, R% = 67%; but not frequency, β = 0.04, p = 0.146, R% = 80%). Cognitively, this societal pressure predicts poor life satisfaction, particularly in happy nations (β = −0.07, p = 0.005). Clinically, in high WHI countries, feeling socially pressured not to feel depressed or anxious paradoxically predicts more symptoms of depression and general distress (βs ≥ 0.03, ps ≤ 0.003), but not anxiety (β = 0.02, p = 0.057). An explicit comparison of lower (− 1 SD) versus higher (+ 1 SD) WHI nations in Fig. 2 (Panel B) further elucidates the differences in the strength of these within-country associations. For all well-being indicators, the link with people’s perceived social pressure not to feel anxious or depressed is substantially weaker in low WHI countries, except for the frequency of NA and anxiety symptoms. Regarding absolute magnitude differences, the (absolute) explanatory effect of the perceived social pressure not to feel negative in people’s well-being never exceeds 0.19 in countries with a lower WHI score, except for the frequency and intensity of NA. In contrast, in high WHI countries, the absolute significant predictive effect of this pressure is almost always higher, ranging from 0.15 to 0.53. In terms of relative magnitude, the (absolute) difference in explanatory effects between low and high WHI nations is smallest for anxiety symptoms (difference in β = 0.03) and strongest for the frequency in PA (difference in β = 0.17). Finally, Panel B in Fig. 3 again illustrates that, for all well-being indicators, people who experience social pressure not to feel negative always report poorer subjective well-being, irrespective of their country’s WHI score. However, in high WHI nations this link is usually stronger (except for NA frequency and anxiety symptoms), Scientific Reports | Vol:.(1234567890) (2022) 12:1514 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-04262-z 6 www.nature.com/scientificreports/ Figure 2.  The predictive effect of people’s perceived social pressure (A) to be happy and (B) not to be depressed or anxious for all well-being indicators in high and low WHI countries (− 1/ + 1 SD). The magnitude and transparency of the edges corresponds with the strength of the association. Green lines represent positive relations, red lines negative relations. Gray lines indicate that the cross-level interaction was non-significant, meaning that the person-level relation between the perceived emotion norm and subjective well-being did not meaningfully differ in low versus high WHI countries (also denoted with an *). WHI = World Happiness Index; SEHS = Social Expectancies to be Happy Scale; SEDAS = Social Expectancies not to feel Depressed or Anxious Scale; PA = Positive Affect; NA = Negative Affect; F = Frequency; I = Intensity; LS = Life Satisfaction; DEP = Depressive symptoms, ANX = Anxiety symptoms, STR = Stress symptoms. which leads differences in personal well-being in happier countries to be more extreme when comparing citizens who perceive considerable versus little social pressure not to feel negative. Discussion The present cross-national study set out to explore how the perceived social emotion norms to pursue positivity and avert negativity play a role in people’s subjective well-being around the world. Breaking down well-being into its different c­ onstituents13,52, we robustly demonstrated how the perceived societal premium on happiness (and aversion of sadness) in most countries paradoxically relates to fewer and less intense experiences of positive emotions (with an opposite pattern for negative emotions), lower life satisfaction evaluations, and more symptomatic complaints related to depression, anxiety and general distress. However, we also demonstrated that these negative (predictive) well-being effects are not entirely universal, corroborating the preliminary findings of earlier s­ tudies8,9. Particularly for positive markers of subjective wellbeing, we observed how the (predictive) effects of the felt social pressure to be happy and not sad are subject to substantial national differences. That is, in a great number of countries, feeling socially pressured to be happy and not sad was actually unrelated to positive well-being, and in a small minority an opposite association even emerged. Here, the perceived social premium on happiness was related to higher life satisfaction evaluations, and Scientific Reports | (2022) 12:1514 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-04262-z 7 Vol.:(0123456789) www.nature.com/scientificreports/ Figure 3.  Unfolding all cross-level interactions between countries’ WHI score and participants’ perceived social pressure (a) to be happy and (b) not to be depressed or anxious in the prediction of individual subjective wellbeing. To distinguish between low (− 1 SD) and high (+ 1 SD) values, we adopted the average within-country SD for person-level predictors, and the between-country SD for countries’ WHI score. Gray plots indicate that the cross-level interaction was not significant (also denoted with an *). WHI = World Happiness Index; SEHS = Social Expectancies to be Happy Scale; SEDAS = Social Expectancies not to feel Depressed or Anxious Scale; PA = Positive Affect; NA = Negative Affect; LS = Life Satisfaction. a more frequent and intense experience of positive emotion. In contrast, for negative indicators of subjective wellbeing, the (predictive) effects of the felt social pressure to be happy and not sad were more universally negative. In almost all countries, experiencing pressure to be happy and not sad was related to more and stronger negative feelings, and stronger symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress. This difference suggests that the presence of negative well-being (e.g., frequent and intense negative emotions or psychopathological symptoms) likely discloses discrepancies with the prevailing societal emotion standard that are more salient, compared to the absence of positive well-being (e.g., little to low positive emotions or poor life satisfaction). This finding coincides with Scientific Reports | Vol:.(1234567890) (2022) 12:1514 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-04262-z 8 www.nature.com/scientificreports/ the observation that experiencing social pressure to avoid negativity overall typically shows poorer well-being associations than the pressure to pursue positivity. Exploring the factors that drive this country-level variability in (predictive) well-being effects, we found that feeling pressured to be happy and not sad is particularly associated with poor well-being in countries with high national happiness levels. Although these perceived happiness norms in themselves are, on average, not more elevated among citizens of high-ranked WHI nations, the personal belief that social others view the experience of positive emotions as a key indicator of success in life (and devalue negative emotions) is found to hold an especially negative relation to people’s well-being in happier countries. Regarding actual (causal) process explanations, the cross-sectional nature of our data prevents us to uncover the exact explanatory mechanisms underlying the current moderation, but the idea that the happiness seen in others in high WHI countries could ironically amplify the negative relation between the perceived social pressure to be happy and personal well-being opens up multiple avenues for future research. For example, it is possible that citizens of high WHI nations are typically more expressive of their happiness, as previous cross-cultural studies established national differences in emotional display r­ ules55. Not only would this explain a higher WHI ranking for these countries, more overt signs of happiness would also produce a stronger detrimental basis for negative social comparison in unhappy p ­ eople7,46). Second, it could be that high WHI countries also suffer from more 49,50 happiness ­inequality . Nation-level aggregates do not reveal how happiness is distributed within a c­ ountry53, but a stronger imbalance in happiness would explain why unhappy individuals feel compelled to align their feelings with those of the majority group. If true, this perceived social pressure would not only further impair these outcasts’ personal well-being, it would also again lead to more happiness inequality, ultimately contributing to a self-sustaining feedback mechanism. Regardless of the specific mechanism, our findings emphasize that an exclusive focus or overreliance on national aggregates may be misleading to inform well-being policy, a concern that has been repeatedly expressed by the social indicator movement in the p ­ ast53,56. Although the WHI is meaningfully related to countries’ average life satisfaction levels, underscoring the construct validity of this index on a national level (i.e., this metric does not echo country-level averages in emotional or clinical well-being10), the present results suggest that the WHI may be less equipped to provide insight into the subjective well-being of specific citizens. Indeed, we found that a higher WHI ranking does not necessarily indicate higher subjective well-being for everyone within that country, as the normative emotion processes in high WHI societies may paradoxically work against individual well-being for some. Overall, these findings further illustrate the concern that considerable between-person heterogeneity may undermine the unifying quality of country-level m ­ etrics56,57, and highlight the importance of additionally considering the within-nation processes that may explain this variability. Finally, with respect to the potential societal implications of our findings, nationwide (psycho-)educational campaigns that put the pressing need to be happy in perspective, while also acknowledging the valuable role of negative emotion (particularly in high WHI nations), could have beneficial effects for people’s psychological well-being in the long ­run2,5. In this way, the outdated yet dominant societal discourse that promotes a one-sided embrace of one’s emotions can make way for an updated version, in which people learn to appreciate the full scope of their emotional lives, both positive and negative. Limitations. The current findings should be considered in the light of some limitations. First, in addition to the fact that our claims about the specific process mechanisms underlying our results remain speculative on the basis of correlational data alone, we acknowledge that country-level WHI scores may not provide the optimal window of analysis to fittingly establish negative social comparison. Although the WHI clearly captures elements of this referential process at a macro-level, future studies with a more fine-grained resolution are needed to complement the current work with findings from micro-level contexts (i.e., social comparison of happiness as a result of immediate social interactions). Previous work on the prevalence of suicide in happy places has shown that both perspectives do not always converge in their ­results58,59, and other paradoxical patterns described in the happiness literature (e.g., the Easterlin ­Paradox60) have highlighted the critical importance of explicitly clarifying the level of analysis when interpreting results. In this regard, future studies could also benefit from explicitly distinguishing between different potential sources that shape people’s perceived social pressure to be happy and not sad (e.g., macro- versus micro-level, implicit versus explicit, objective antecedents versus subjective appraisals, etc.). Although this pressure is likely multi-determined, the instruments currently available do not differentiate between these different factors. Second, to assess the average life satisfaction in our own sample, we did not include the original WHI Cantril ­Ladder10,54, but rather relied on Diener’s traditional Satisfaction With Life rating s­ cale61. Although both instruments are known to correlate ­highly62, we cannot simply generalize our findings to other types of well-being assessments. Similarly, compared to the diverse and nationally representative samples in WHI ­research10, this multi-national study mainly comprised a student population, limiting the generalizability of the found associations to other sub-samples within a country. For example, with respect to different age groups, the factors that contribute to a happy life are known to change remarkably across the life ­span63, and adolescent students are generally more susceptible to the expectations of social others or the influence of peers compared to adults (e.g.,64,65). Surveying a more balanced research sample and exploring the moderating role of other theoretically relevant demographic covariates (both on an individual and societal level) will further elucidate the comprehensiveness of the established well-being associations. Finally, as is the case in all cross-national studies, expecting full language and translation equivalence across countries is difficult (e.g., some emotion words may be interpreted slightly different around the ­world66). Nevertheless, national inequivalence would likely introduce more measurement noise to the data, acting against establishing meaningful associations. Scientific Reports | (2022) 12:1514 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-04262-z 9 Vol.:(0123456789) www.nature.com/scientificreports/ Materials and methods Participants. The present research project was part of a larger cross-national study investigating how individual and cultural values influence emotional well-being and moral attitudes around the world. The initiating sites were based in Australia and Belgium, and the associated researchers contacted potential collaborators via e-mail, in which they outlined the aims and nature of the study, and provided an initial copy of the survey materials (in English). Upon agreeing to participate, all collaborating sites arranged the requisite ethical approval for data collection at their host institution, and translated the questionnaires into their native language (see SI 1 for more information about this process). The original study was approved by the Psychological Sciences Human Ethics Advisory Group in Australia (1647465.2) and the Social-Societal Ethical Committee KU Leuven in Belgium (G-2017 10 954). Each collaborating site was asked to enroll a minimum sample of 100 university students that originated from the nation of testing (e.g., no international or exchange students). In the end, we collected data from 40 different countries (42 sites), adequately covering all populated continents in the world (i.e., Europe n = 17; Asia n = 10; Africa n = 4; South America n = 4; North America n = 3; Oceania n = 2). A world map with all participating countries can be found in SI 2, together with the final sample size for each site. On average, each country collected 186 participants (SD = 129), with a total sample of 7,443 participants taking part in the study (Mage = 21.81, SDage = 5.60). The balance of gender identification consisted of 32% men, 61.2% women, 0.3% other, and 6.5% unspecified, and the majority of participants (87.6%) were enrolled in a psychology course at the time of the study. All participants provided informed consent. Procedure and materials. In each country, we adopted a standardized survey battery that was locally translated into participants’ native language (and back-translated by some but not all host institutions; see SI 1 for more information) to evaluate their subjective well-being, alongside their perception of the predominant emotion norms in their country. Participants were only sampled a single time. Next, accessing the public data of the 2019 World Happiness Report, we obtained a global WHI score for each participating ­country10. Summary statistics and correlations among all measures can be found in Table 1. Emotional well‑being components: natural positive and negative affect. To evaluate the emotional components in subjective well-being, the distinct and global experience of positive (PA) and negative affect ­(NA67), we compiled a list of four positive (happy, joyful, relaxed, calm) and four negative (sad, depressed, stressed, anxious) emotion items, respectively. The selection of these emotions was based on the circumplex model of a­ ffect68 to ensure an adequate representation of different arousal levels. We invited participants to rate their everyday emotional experience both in terms of frequency (How often have you experienced the following emotion during the last month?) and intensity (How intense was your experience of the following emotion?), as both dimensions are known to relate differently to subjective well-being69. For each emotion item, participants provided their response on a 9-point Likert scale that ranged from none of the time (one) to all of the time (nine) for frequency, and from very mild (one) to very intense (nine) for intensity. We averaged same-valenced emotion ratings for each dimension to create a score for PA and NA frequency, and PA and NA intensity. Cognitive well‑being component: satisfaction with life. We assessed life satisfaction with the Satisfaction with Life ­scale61. This 5-item questionnaire is designed to capture a broad and integrative evaluation of people’s life (e.g., The conditions of my life are excellent.), and concerns the cognitive-judgmental component in subjective well-being13. Participants rated each item on a 7-point Likert scale, ranging from strongly disagree (one) to strongly agree (seven), and we averaged across items to get a global life satisfaction score. Clinical well‑being components: mood complaints. To determine the presence of mood-related symptomatology, experiential factors that usually undermine high subjective well-being52, participants had to complete the Depression Anxiety and Stress ­Scale70. This 21-item survey is based on the tripartite model of anxiety and ­depression71, and consists of three 7-item subscales that aim to differentiate between prototypical symptoms of depression (e.g., I felt down-hearted and blue.), anxiety (e.g., I felt scared without any good reason.) and general distress (e.g., I tended to over-react to situations.70). Participants indicated how frequently they experienced each item over the last week on a 4-point scale that ranged from not at all (zero) to most of the time (three), and we averaged responses per subscale to get an indication of each symptom type severity. Perceived emotion norms. We assessed participants’ perceived societal expectancies to feel positive with the Social Expectancies about Happiness ­(SEHS51), and not to feel negative with the Social Expectancies about Depression and Anxiety Scale (­ SEDAS20). The SEHS is a 9-item survey that evaluates people’s global idea about how they think their society expects people to pursue positivity (e.g., I think that society places a great deal of pressure on people to feel happy. or People in my society view people who feel happy as more valuable.; see SI 3 for the full item list). Conversely, the SEDAS is a 13-item instrument that reveals people’s general beliefs about how they think their society disapproves of negative emotional states such as depression or anxiety (e.g., I think soci‑ ety tends to place a lot of pressure on people not to feel depressed or anxious. or I think society accepts people who feel depressed or anxious as normal. [reversed]). For both scales, participants rated each statement on a 9-point Likert scale that ranged from strongly disagree (one) to strongly agree (nine). We averaged across all items (after rescoring the reversed items), so that higher SEHS and SEDAS scores indicated stronger individual beliefs that society pressures people to be happy, and disapproves of negative emotion, respectively. Due to an irreversible coding error the SEDAS scores for Poland are missing. Scientific Reports | Vol:.(1234567890) (2022) 12:1514 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-04262-z 10 www.nature.com/scientificreports/ World happiness index. To get a robust indication of the country-level happiness reported within a particular society, we evaluated countries’ WHI score. A country’s WHI score is based on the average life evaluation of a nationally representative s­ ample10, using the Cantril L ­ adder54. In this single-item survey, respondents are asked to evaluate the quality of their current life on a 11-rung ladder that ranges from worst possible life (zero) to best possible life (ten). As such, the WHI is more an indication of the average life satisfaction displayed by the inhabitants of a particular country, rather than their global subjective well-being10. Cantril Ladder evaluations and traditional self-report measures for life satisfaction (e.g.,61) are known to correlate very ­high62. Because data collection took place in 2019, we adopted the WHI scores for that year (freely accessible online: https://​world​happi​ness.​report/​ed/​2019/). The countries that took part in our study representatively covered the global ranking (M = 6.11; SD = 0.86), with the Netherlands being the highest ranked country in our sample (7.49; position 5) and Uganda the lowest (4.19; position 136 out of 156). For the participating sites in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, we imputed the WHI score of the United Kingdom. In all analyses, we used countries’ actual WHI score, not their corresponding ranking. Statistical analyses. All analyses in this article were conducted in R (version 4.0.072). To reproduce our results and figures, researchers can consult the data, code and materials at the Open Science Framework (https://​ osf.​io/​3aut4/). All methods were carried out in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations. Multilevel analysis. To account for the hierarchical structure of the data, we performed our analyses in a multilevel framework, using the lme4 R-package73. Specifically, we ran various two-level models, with persons (n = 7,443) nested within countries (n = 40). In all models, slopes and intercept were allowed to vary randomly across countries to account for possible national differences in the found effects. For an intuitive interpretation of the model parameter estimates, we group-mean centered all person-level predictors. Country-level WHI scores were grand-mean centered. In this way, we effectively separated within- and between-country e­ ffects74. All statistical tests were two-sided. To evaluate how the perception of the societal emotion standard in a country differently relates to subjective well-being as a function of nation’s global happiness level, we ran a series of multilevel models with the various well-being indicators as the outcome of interest (i.e., cognitive, emotional and clinical well-being markers). At the person-level, we either entered participants’ perceived societal pressure to feel positive (SEHS) or not to feel negative (SEDAS) as the focal predictor (separately). At the country-level, we introduced the national WHI scores and evaluated the cross-level interactions with the global intercept and person-level predictor. A generic overview of all model formulae can be found in SI 4. We emphasize that our multilevel approach inevitably introduces an asymmetry in the specified relation between outcome and ­predictor75. Because the selection of an outcome and predictor is always somewhat arbitrary with cross-sectional data, we additionally ran all reversed models, together with a third statistical approach in which all variables were within-country standardized (to remove the asymmetry in a multilevel c­ ontext76). Results can be found in SI 6 and illustrate that this arbitrary decision did not impact our conclusions. Robustness analysis. With respect to the emotional well-being components, we acknowledge that every item operationalization of a PA and NA composite score is somewhat arbitrary. Because there is little theoretical consensus on how researchers should exactly construct these affective ­aggregates77, we performed a leave-one-out multiverse analysis for our PA and NA constructs (e.g.,78). For each of the multilevel models that involved PA or NA frequency or intensity as a predictor, we evaluated the robustness of each model parameter under different PA and NA operationalizations. Because we evaluated four specific emotion items for each affective construct, this yielded 15 alternative PA and NA operationalizations, each based on a unique combination of emotion items. We entered each unique affective aggregate as a predictor in the previously outlined models, and evaluated the proportion of models for which the significance test of each estimate (with α = 0.05) yielded identical conclusions as the model in which the PA and NA composites were based on all emotion items (of which the results are presented here). A higher robustness percentage (R%) indicates that the model parameter is less driven by particular PA and NA operationalizations. Data availability To reproduce our results and figures, researchers can consult all data and materials at the Open Science Framework (https://​osf.​io/​3aut4/). Code availability All analyses in this article were conducted in R (version 4.0.0). To reproduce our results and figures, researchers can consult the code at the Open Science Framework (https://​osf.​io/​3aut4/). Received: 12 July 2021; Accepted: 20 December 2021 References 1. Oishi, S., Diener, E. & Lucas, R. E. The optimum level of well-being: Can people be too happy?. Perspect. Psychol. Sci. 2, 346–360 (2016). 2. Ford, B. Q. & Mauss, I. B. The paradoxical effects of pursuing positive emotion: When and why wanting to feel happy backfires (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2014). 3. Mauss, I. B., Tamir, M., Anderson, C. L. & Savino, N. S. Can seeking happiness make people happy? Paradoxical effects of valuing happiness. Emotion 11, 807–815 (2011). 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Center for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies grant ANID/FONDAP 15130009 (RG). Interdisciplinary Center for Intercultural and Indigenous Studies grant ANID/FONDAP 15110006 and ANID/ FONDECYT1201788 (RG). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript. Author contributions B.B. and P.K. conceptualized the study. E.D. performed the data analysis and interpreted the results under supervision of B.B. and P.K. E.D. drafted the manuscript and J.R, B.B. and P.K. provided critical revisions. All authors were involved in the preparation of the materials, data collection and testing. All authors approved the final version of the article. Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests. Additional information Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://​doi.​org/​ 10.​1038/​s41598-​021-​04262-z. 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Negative effects of individualism on interpersonal relationships and happiness Yuji Ogihara1 * and Yukiko Uchida 2 1 2 Department of Cognitive Psychology in Education, Graduate School of Education, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan Kokoro Research Center, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan Edited by: Vinai Norasakkunkit, Gonzaga University, USA Reviewed by: Takeshi Hamamura, Chinese University of Hong Kong, China Krishna Savani, National University of Singapore, Singapore *Correspondence: Yuji Ogihara, Department of Cognitive Psychology in Education, Graduate School of Education, Kyoto University, Yoshida-honmachi, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan e-mail: ogihara.yuuji.56u@st.kyoto-u. ac.jp We examined the negative effects of individualism in an East Asian culture. Although individualistic systems decrease interpersonal relationships through competition, individualistic values have prevailed in European American cultures. One reason is because individuals could overcome negativity by actively constructing interpersonal relationships. In contrast, people in East Asian cultures do not have such strategies to overcome the negative impact of individualistic systems, leading to decreased well-being. To test this hypothesis, we investigated the relationship between individualistic values, number of close friends, and subjective well-being (SWB). Study 1 indicated that individualistic values were negatively related with the number of close friends and SWB for Japanese college students but not for American college students. Moreover, Study 2 showed that even in an individualistic workplace in Japan, individualistic values were negatively related with the number of close friends and SWB. We discuss how cultural change toward increasing individualism might affect interpersonal relationships and well-being. Keywords: individualism, subjective well-being, interpersonal relationships, culture, cultural change, globalization INTRODUCTION The literature on cultural values has discussed the sizable cross-cultural differences between personal and interpersonal social values, such as individualism/collectivism (Hofstede, 1980; Triandis, 1995), and independence/interdependence (Markus and Kitayama, 1991). Theories and evidence have repeatedly suggested that individualism or independence is more frequently observed in European American cultural contexts whereas collectivism or interdependence is more frequently observed in East Asian cultural contexts. However, globalization – “a process by which cultures influence one another and become more alike through trade, immigration, and the exchange of information and ideas” (Arnett, 2002, p. 774) – has been a powerful and unstoppable force in recent decades (Chiu et al., 2011) and cross-national or cross-cultural distinctions may be getting smaller. Globalization enables greater mobility of people, objects, money, and information across countries. Especially since the 1980s, international trade by transnational companies and enterprises has been expanding, and the ongoing developments in improved transportation and information technologies have created a globalized world. Globalization is not only making societies more international, but also more Westernized or European-Americanized. Indeed, globalization is sometimes called Americanization or Westernization (e.g., Guillen, 2001) and lay people perceive globalization to be related to the Western cultural values (Yang et al., 2011). This means that European American culture is one of the most potent cultures in the world that has a strong influence on other cultures due to the political and economical strengths of Western cultures, which continue to export not only products, technologies, and economic systems but also values, ideas, and beliefs. www.frontiersin.org As a result, there have been many cultural changes, especially in East Asian cultures, that have been affected by the spread of westernized cultural values, ideas, practices, and systems. In this research, we investigated how psychological tendencies might be affected by cultural changes, with a specific focus on the spread of individualism. INDIVIDUALISM IN THE EUROPEAN AMERICAN CULTURAL CONTEXT Individualism – “a social pattern that consists of loosely linked individuals who view themselves as independent of collectives” (Triandis, 1995, p. 2) – is one of the most influential “global values” (Pilkington and Johnson, 2003). Importantly, individualism has long been fostered in European American cultural contexts. For instance, previous studies suggested that individualism is fostered over time by economic systems (i.e., the lifestyle of herders compared to those of farmers and fishermen; e.g., Uskul et al., 2008), the Protestant ethic (e.g., Weber, 1920; Quinn and Crocker, 1999), the philosophy of ancient Greece (e.g., Nisbett, 2003), the decreased prevalence of pathogens (e.g., Fincher et al., 2008), and voluntary settlements (e.g., Kitayama et al., 2006). Individualistic systems or environments are believed to have positive influences on individuals (e.g., Waterman, 1981). For example, individualistic systems enable individuals to act autonomously and choose freely (Triandis, 1995), with high social mobility such as being able to choose desirable persons to interact with (e.g., Schug et al., 2009), which tends to increase happiness (Inglehart et al., 2008; Fischer and Boer, 2011). Furthermore, people in individualistic cultures can have strong sense of self-efficacy (Kitayama et al., 2004). However, such individualistic systems or environments can also have potentially negative effects. In particular, individualistic March 2014 | Volume 5 | Article 135 | 1 Ogihara and Uchida systems urge people to pursue personal achievement, which creates competition between individuals (Triandis, 1995). These systems can also result in high social mobility, which lead to high social anxiety (Oishi et al., 2013). In addition, the focused attention on personal achievements can bear a significant cost on interpersonal relationships (Park and Crocker, 2005). Even though having costs, individualism brings benefits such as enjoying free choice and strong sense of self-efficacy. One strategy to buffer against the negative affects of individualistic systems is developing interpersonal skills, usually employed in European American cultural contexts, including seeking new interpersonal relationships (Oishi et al., 2013), engaging in self-disclosure (Schug et al., 2010), explicitly seeking social support (Kim et al., 2006) or maintaining a high relational mobility by choosing desirable persons with whom to interact (Schug et al., 2009; Yuki and Schug, 2012). In short, in European American cultures, people are independent from each other (Markus and Kitayama, 1991, 2010) but still actively seek interpersonal relationships. Such interpersonal skills are probably acquired over an extended period through socialization, and allow people in these cultural contexts to enjoy interpersonal relationships while maintaining their independence. INDIVIDUALISM IN A JAPANESE CULTURAL CONTEXT Through globalization, Japanese society has been influenced by European American cultures. This is especially true for the aspects of Japanese society that are adopting the individualistic systems imported from European American cultures. For example, the number of companies introducing pay-per-performance systems in Japan has increased (Institute of Labor Administration, 2004). Moreover, it has been argued that education that fosters children’s autonomy has recently been emphasized in schools (Doi, 2004). With the increase of individualistic environments in Japan, people have also become more individualistic in certain respects1 . For instance, the average family size has decreased, the divorce rate has increased, and independence in child socialization has been increasingly prioritized (Hamamura, 2012). However, it has been argued that individualism in Japan might be qualitatively different from the individualism in the European American cultural contexts (Kitayama, 2010). Individualism in these cultural contexts means being independent from others but still actively making social relationships. By contrast, to be independent and achieve “individualism,” the Japanese might feel the need to distance themselves from interdependent relationships. Indeed, connotations of individualism in Japan are more negative than are those in the U.S. Specifically, in 1 It should be noted that there were some indices which did not show that Japanese have become more individualistic (Hamamura, 2012). However, all the indices that did not show the increase in individualistic tendency were self-report items of beliefs and values. In contrast, behavioral measures (i.e., average family size, divorce rate, and proportion of people living in urban areas) documented an increase of individualism. Previous research suggested that self-report items have some problems. For example, people tend to compare themselves with individuals in their culture rather than those in another culture (the reference-group effect; Heine et al., 2002). Therefore, even though one may have become more individualistic, they might not realize their increase of individualism due to a reference-group effect. Frontiers in Psychology | Cultural Psychology Individualism, subjective well-being and culture the U.S. individualism is perceived to be unique or independent, while in Japan individualism is regarded as being selfish and feeling lonely (Ogihara et al., 2013a,b). Unlike in European American cultural contexts, relational mobility is relatively low in East Asian cultural contexts; that is, people tend to interact with others with whom they already have a connection (Yuki and Schug, 2012). Hence, the Japanese are more likely to commit to a long-term relationship rather than to seek new relationships (Yamagishi and Yamagishi, 1994). However, long-term, pre-existing interpersonal relationships can bind and restrict individuals because these relationships are often rule-based, not autonomy-based. Therefore, it might be necessary for Japanese individuals to cut off traditional relationships to be independent. Moreover, once these relationships are cut off, it is difficult for the Japanese to develop new relationships. Even under the motivation to be independent, the Japanese do not actively create new relationships because they are not equipped with appropriate strategies for making and constructing new social relationships, such as actively engaging in self-disclosure (Schug et al., 2010) or explicitly seeking social support (Kim et al., 2006). In European American cultures, individualism has been fostered over a long period, so people have adequate strategies which have been acquired through socialization. In contrast, Japan was not an individualistic culture and the exposure to individualization is comparatively recent. Therefore people in Japan might not have the strategies which are appropriate in an individualistic culture. As a result, under individualistic systems, Japanese tend to cut off interpersonal relationships but do not actively build new close interpersonal relationships. Thus becoming more individualistic might decrease Japanese happiness because interpersonal relations are an important source of happiness in Japan (e.g., Uchida et al., 2008). PRESENT STUDY We examined the relationship between individualistic values, subjective well-being (SWB), and number of close relationships in Japan and the U.S. Study 1 tested the hypothesis that individualistic values would be associated with a decrease in the number of close friends and SWB in Japan, but not to close friends and SWB in the U.S. Furthermore, to examine the effect of individualistic values and structural systems, Study 2 tested if decreases in the number of close relationships and SWB would be found in a sample of adults working in an individualistic environment in Japan. We predicted that even in a workplace that has individualistic systems and requires individualistic values, individualistic values would be negatively related to the number of close friends and SWB for Japanese workers. STUDY 1 Study 1 investigated whether individualistic values would have different effects on SWB across cultures. We predicted that (1) an individualistic orientation would decrease SWB in Japan, but not in the U.S., and (2) fewer close relationships would mediate the negative effect of individualistic values on SWB in Japan, whereas individualistic values would not be related to the number of close relationships in the U.S. March 2014 | Volume 5 | Article 135 | 2 Ogihara and Uchida METHOD PARTICIPANTS AND PROCEDURE One hundred and fourteen undergraduate students at Kyoto University in Japan (62 male, 52 female; M age = 19.5, SDage = 1.77) and 62 undergraduate students at University of WisconsinMadison in the U.S. (29 male, 33 female; M age = 19.3, SDage = 1.17; 60 White and 2 Hispanic born in the U.S.) participated in this study. MEASURES Individualistic and collectivistic orientations We used the revised version of the Contingencies of Self-Worth Scale2 (Crocker et al., 2003; Uchida, 2008). This scale assesses 11 domains of self-worth (e.g., academic competence, relationship harmony). Factor analysis in each culture indicated that 9 of the 11 domains fell into two factors, namely, individualistic orientation (e.g., academic competence, and competition; αJapan = 0.92, αUS = 0.89) and collectivistic orientation (e.g., relationship harmony and other’s support; αJapan = 0.89, αUS = 0.81).The other two domains (support of family and virtue) were dropped from the analysis because of the low factor scores. A sample item in individualistic orientation is“Doing better than others gives me a sense of self-respect,” and an example of the items in collectivistic orientation is “I can’t respect myself if I break relationship harmony within my group.” Participants reported the degree to which each statement applied to them (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree). Subjective well-being Participants completed four scales to assess their SWB. First, we measured life satisfaction by using the Satisfaction With Life Scale (Diener et al., 1985; five items; e.g., “In most ways, my life is close to my ideal”). Second, the Interdependent Happiness Scale (Hitokoto et al., 2009; 32 items) was used to measure individual differences in interdependent happiness gained by maintaining harmony with significant others (e.g., “I believe that I and those around me are happy”). Participants answered these two measures on a 7-point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree). Third, we assessed positive and negative affect. Positive affect was measured with 11 items (e.g., happy, satisfied) and negative affect was measured with 15 items (e.g., depressed, sad). Fourth, we measured somatic symptoms (11 symptoms; e.g., headache and stiff joints). Participants reported how frequently (1 = never, 5 = very often) they experienced each of these affective states and somatic symptoms. All of these items have been successfully used in a survey of Midlife Development in the U.S. (MIDUS; Brim et al., 2004). All of these scales had satisfactory internal consistency (0.72 < αs < 0.90). Individualism, subjective well-being and culture shows an individual’s interpersonal relationships. Participants were asked to draw circles representing themselves and their friends on a paper and to connect related persons with lines within 10 min. After this was done, they were asked to identify the friends with whom they feel comfortable. The “close friend” variable was defined as the number of people with whom the participants felt comfortable. RESULTS ORIENTATIONS IN JAPAN AND THE U.S. The average raw scores of individualistic and collectivistic orientations are shown in Figure 1. We conducted a 2-way (orientation and culture) ANOVA and found main effects of both orientation [F(1,174) = 11.68, p < 0.001, η2p = 0.06] and culture [F(1,174) = 8.97, p < 0.01, η2p = 0.05]. In addition, the interaction between orientation and culture was significant [F(1,174) = 12.57, p < 0.001, η2p = 0.07]. The individualistic orientation score was significantly higher for the U.S. participants than for Japanese participants [F(1,173) = 17.80, p < 0.001], whereas the collectivistic orientation score was not significantly different across cultures [F(1,173) = 0.26, p = 0.61]. EFFECTS OF ORIENTATIONS ON SWB Due to generally consistent results across the four SWB measures, a single SWB index was developed using a principle component analysis (Table 1). Multiple regression analysis was conducted to examine how individualistic and collectivistic orientations affected SWB in each culture3 . In Japan, an individualistic orientation negatively affected SWB, whereas a collectivistic orientation did 3 We conducted a multiple regression analysis with independent variables of individualistic orientation, collectivistic orientation, culture, the interaction term between culture and individualistic orientation, the interaction term between culture and collectivistic orientation, age, and gender, with SWB as the dependent variable. We found a significant effect of individualistic orientation (β = −0.22, p < 0.05), but the interaction term between culture and an individualistic orientation was only close to be marginal (β = 0.16, p = 0.105). Number of close friends The number of close friends was measured using a sociogram (Kitayama et al., 2009). The sociogram is a simple diagram that 2 We chose this scale because it can successfully measure individualistic and collectivistic orientation with relative implicitness. If we used a more direct measure, that included items such as “I like doing better than others” or “I do not like breaking relationship harmony within my group,” participants might not report their actual orientation or attitudes because of social desirability. www.frontiersin.org FIGURE 1 | Raw scores of individualistic and collectivistic orientations in Japan and the U.S. (Study 1). Bars represent the standard error. March 2014 | Volume 5 | Article 135 | 3 Ogihara and Uchida Individualism, subjective well-being and culture Table 1 | Principle component scores of SWB index in Japan and the U.S. (Study 1). Japan Interdependent happiness U.S. 0.89 0.88 Negative affect −0.78 −0.82 Positive affect 0.78 0.80 Life satisfaction Somatic symptoms 0.73 0.86 −0.70 −0.70 not affect SWB (Figure 2). In contrast, in the U.S., a collectivistic orientation negatively affected SWB, and an individualistic orientation did not affect SWB. MEDIATION EFFECT OF NUMBER OF CLOSE FRIENDS We conducted a mediation analysis to test whether the number of close friends mediated the effect of an individualistic orientation on SWB. The distributions of the numbers of close friends were positively skewed. Thus, we transformed the values by computing their common logarithm (plus 1), which produced an approximately normal distribution (using the same analysis proposed by Kirkpatrick et al., 2002). In Japan, an individualistic orientation was associated with fewer close friends. Moreover, the number of close friends positively predicted SWB, even after orientation was controlled. Therefore, in Japan the number of close friends mediated the effect of an individualistic orientation on SWB (Figure 3). Furthermore, a Sobel test (Sobel, 1982) indicated that the mediating effect of the number of close friends was marginally significant (z = −1.75, p = 0.08). In contrast, we did not find such a relationship in the U.S. DISCUSSION As predicted, in Japan an individualistic orientation was negatively related to SWB, but not in the U.S. In addition, in Japan, the number of close friends mediated the negative effect of an individualistic orientation on SWB. This suggests that if people in Japan try to be independent and achieve individualism, they will have difficulty forming and maintaining close friendships. Interestingly, however, there was no relationship between an individualistic orientation and the number of close friends in the U.S. Therefore, we concluded that the effect of individualistic values differs between Japan and the U.S. Specifically, individualistic values in Japan were associated with a deterioration in close relationships and a decrease in SWB, whereas individualistic values in the U.S. did not have a negative effect on close relationships and SWB. STUDY 2 Study 1 revealed that in the U.S. an individualistic orientation did not influence SWB and interpersonal relationships, whereas in Japan individualistic orientation was negatively associated with SWB and the number of close friends. However, these results might be questioned if the negative impact of individualistic orientation in Japan was due to the conflict between individualistic orientation in personal level and the collectivistic social structure. Therefore, in Study 2, we chose a sample of women working in an individualistic-orientated workplace to examine whether negative impact of individualism found in Study 1 could be generalized to an individualistic-oriented working environment in Japan. We examined whether people with individualistic orientations working in an individualistic social structure would exhibit the same negative effects of individualism as exhibited by the Japanese participants in Study 1. METHOD PARTICIPANTS AND PROCEDURE Thirty-four women (M age = 26.6, SDage = 6.19, 22–51 years old) who worked for a large insurance company in Japan participated in the study. The data of two participants who reported they had lived abroad for more than 5 years were excluded. In this insurance company, performances and achievement-oriented goals are explicitly displayed on the wall (e.g., how many contracts each individual secured in the past 1 month); such displays are perceived as competitive. Participants answered the same questionnaire used in Study 1; all scales had satisfactory internal consistency (αindividualistic orientation = 0.90, αcollectivistic orientation = 0.87, 0.79 < αSWB scales < 0.95). RESULTS ORIENTATIONS IN ADULT SAMPLES AND STUDENT SAMPLES Raw scores for individualistic and collectivistic orientations in the adult and student samples are shown in Figure 4. We conducted a two-way (orientation and group) ANOVA and found a main effect of orientation [F(1,144) = 17.97, p < 0.001, η2p = 0.11]. In contrast, the main effect of group was not significant [F(1,144) = 0.89, p = 0.35, η2p = 0.01] nor was the interaction between orientation and group [F(1,144) = 2.07, p = 0.15, η2p = 0.01]. RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN INDIVIDUALISTIC ORIENTATION, THE NUMBER OF CLOSE FRIENDS, AND SWB FIGURE 2 | Standardized regression coefficients predicting subjective well-being in Japan and the U.S. (Study 1). **p < 0.01, *p < 0.05. Frontiers in Psychology | Cultural Psychology The results were consistent with Study 1; an individualistic orientation was negatively associated with both SWB and the number of close friends (Figure 5). Although the number of close friends March 2014 | Volume 5 | Article 135 | 4 Ogihara and Uchida FIGURE 3 | Mediation effect of the number of close friends between individualistic orientation and SWB in Japan and the U.S. (Study 1). Path coefficients on the left side of the arrows from individualistic orientation to SWB indicate standardized regression coefficients when individualistic Individualism, subjective well-being and culture orientation is a single independent variable. Those on the right side of the arrow indicate standardized regression coefficients when both individualistic orientation and the number of close friends are independent variables. Gender and age were controlled. **p < 0.01, *p < 0.05. positively predicted SWB (β = 0.41, p < 0.05), when the effect of individualistic orientation was controlled, the effect of close friends on SWB became weak (β = 0.17, p = 0.42). However, importantly, individualistic orientation had a negative relationship with both SWB and the number of close friends. DISCUSSION We found that an individualistic orientation was negatively associated with the number of close friends and SWB even for women working in an individualistic-oriented workplace. This result was the same as in the college sample in Study 1; however, we did not find a mediating relationship of close friends. One explanation for the lack of relationships between the number of close friends and SWB might lie in the sample; specifically, for the women working in an individualistic-oriented workplace, the achievement of individualistic goals required in the workplace may be more important to SWB than positive relationships with others. The result suggested, however, that even in an achievement-oriented environment in Japan, achievement-oriented individuals feel FIGURE 5 | Effect of individualistic orientation on SWB and number of close friends in Japanese individualistic-oriented environment (Study 2). Path coefficients on the left side of the arrow from individualistic orientation to SWB indicate standardized regression coefficients when individualistic orientation is a single independent variable. Those on the right side of the arrow indicate standardized regression coefficients when both individualistic orientation and the number of close friends are independent variables. Age was controlled. **p < 0.01, *p < 0.05. lower SWB and have fewer close friends. Thus, it is indicated that Japanese with individualistic orientations have fewer close friends and feel lower SWB. GENERAL DISCUSSION FIGURE 4 | Raw scores of individualistic and collectivistic orientations in adult samples and student samples in Japan. Bars represent the standard error. www.frontiersin.org We examined the effect of individualistic values on SWB in two studies. Study 1 demonstrated that an individualistic orientation was not associated with decreased SWB in the U.S., whereas an individualistic orientation was associated with fewer close friends and lower SWB in Japan. Furthermore, Study 2 showed that an individualistic orientation was also associated with a decrease in the number of close friends and SWB for adult women working in an individualistic-oriented workplace. These results suggest the negative effect of an individualistic orientation...

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