The Happiness of Individuals and the Collective

Transcription

1 bs_bs_banner Japanese Psychological Research 2016, Volume 58, No. 1, Special issue: Culture-inclusive approaches doi: /jpr Review The Happiness of Individuals and the Collective YUKIKO UCHIDA* SHIGEHIRO OISHI Kyoto University University of Virginia Abstract: Happiness and well-being are often defined as internal feelings or states of satisfaction. As such, research on well-being has focused on the long-term happiness and life satisfaction of individuals. But recently, psychological researchers have also begun to examine the effects that group-level functions (e.g., nation-level economic status) have on happiness. The present article: (a) overviews measures of individual and collective happiness and the validity of these measurements; (b) explicates the role of culture in understanding the long-term happiness and life satisfaction of individuals; and (c) explores the possibility and importance of studying the happiness of collectives (e.g., work groups, organizations, cities, nations). We then discuss future directions for happiness research, proposing several methodological and theoretical areas for progress in: (a) cross-temporal analyses to examine historical changes; and (b) multilevel analyses to identify the units of culture that affect happiness. Additionally, this paper argues that policy-making and interdisciplinary approaches can make important contributions to happiness studies. Key words: culture, well-being, happiness, collective level. Happiness is often defined as a feeling or state of satisfaction that resides internally within the individual. Although this definition would appear to indicate a fleeting, momentary state of satisfaction, Webster s Unabridged Dictionary published in 1961 explicitly defines it as a chronic state, a state of well-being characterized by relative permanence, by dominantly agreeable emotion ranging in value from mere contentment to deep and intense joy in living, and by a natural desire for its continuation (emphasis added by authors, see Oishi, Graham, Kesebir, & Galinha, 2013 for various dictionary definitions). This definition, along with others predominant in the U.S. and other English-speaking nations, focuses on an individual s long-term emotional state: a happy person is a person who has pleasant feelings most of the time, and feels satisfied with his/her life overall. Therefore, it is not surprising that psychological research on happiness has focused on individuals long-term happiness and life satisfaction (Diener, 1984; Diener, Suh, Lucas, & Smith, 1999; Wilson, 1967). As research on individuals long-term happiness and life satisfaction accumulates, researchers have also begun to examine the long-term happiness and life satisfaction of nations and communities. Specifically, just as some individuals are happier than others, are some work groups, companies, and cities happier than others? The goals of the present article are to review measures of individual and collective happiness and the validity of these measurements, to explicate the role of culture in understanding the long-term happiness and life satisfaction of individuals, and to explore the possibility and *Correspondence concerning this article should be sent to: Yukiko Uchida, Kokoro Research Center, Kyoto University, 46 Yoshida-Shimoadachicho, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto , Japan. ( uchida.yukiko.6m@kyotou.ac.jp) 2015 Japanese Psychological Association. Published by Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.

2 126 Y. Uchida and S. Oishi importance of studying the happiness of the collective. We then discuss future directions for happiness research. Finally, we propose possibilities for how nations and communities can utilize happiness research. The Measurement of Happiness Opinions regarding the measurability of happiness have changed over time in psychological science as the validity and reliability of various subjective scales have been tested and proven. In 1934, George Hartmann (1934) conducted the first investigation into the stability of happiness over time, while also looking at selfinformant agreement of happiness ratings. Using Webster s definition of happiness as [a] relatively permanent state of well-being characterized by dominantly agreeable emotions ranging in value from mere contentment to positive felicity, he asked roughly 200 college students, If you compare yourself with others of the same sex and age, how would you rate your own general happiness?... Give due weight to both inner and outer factors or manifestations. Think of your average feeling or condition over several months, and try to view yourself as objectively as possible. Participants rated their happiness relative to others on a scale of 1 (most unhappy of all)to7(happiest of all). Hartmann found that this single-item measure of happiness was highly stable over a 1-month period, r =.70. In addition, he showed that participants self-reported happiness was reliably correlated with the average of four friends ratings of the participants happiness, r =.34. Hartmann also found that ascendance (an aspect of extraversion) was positively associated with self-reported happiness (r =.19), and neuroticism was inversely correlated with self-reported happiness (r =.26). He did not find any significant correlations with selfsufficiency (r =.05) or value orientations (e.g., theoretical, aesthetic, economic, political). Although Hartmann s scale was a single item, its temporal stability and self-informant correlations are equivalent to more recent multipleitem scales (e.g. the Satisfaction with Life Scale, Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985; the Subjective Happiness Scale, Lyubomirsky & Lepper, 1999). In addition, the personality correlates are also similar to the contemporary findings, which suggests construct validity. Despite earlier efforts to establish reliable and valid measures of happiness, happiness did not become a popular research topic in North America until the late 1980s (see Oishi, 2009 and Oishi, 2012 for a historical review). This is due in part to the lasting impact of behaviorism and the dominance of the experimental method in American psychology. However, with several high-profile publications in the 1980s (Diener, 1984; Diener et al., 1985; Emmons & Diener, 1985; Ryff, 1989; Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988), subjective well-being research took off and became one of the most popular research topics in American psychology (see the list of eminent psychologists in Diener, Oishi, & Park, 2014, which includes Daniel Kahneman, Martin Seligman, and Ed Diener as three of the top-10 most eminent modern psychologists). Many of the earlier publications focused on measurement issues, such as validity and reliability. Diener et al. s (1985) Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) showed high convergent and divergent validity, as well as high levels of test-retest reliability (see Diener, Inglehart, & Tay, 2013), with a 2-month test-retest reliability coefficient of.82, and a 4-year test-retest reliability coefficient of.54 (see also Pavot & Diener, 1993). By comparison, the 2-month test-retest reliability of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, one of the most widely used IQ tests, is.74 (Catron & Thompson, 1979), which the SWLS scale s test-retest reliability meets or exceeds. Subsequent research has provided further evidence for scale reliability and validity. Research has confirmed self-informant agreement (Schneider & Schimmack, 2009), as well as convergence with daily diary reports, random-moment reports, interview ratings (Sandvik, Diener, & Seidlitz, 1993), and smile intensity in Facebook profile photos (Seder & Oishi, 2012). For example, a meta-analysis of self-other agreement of life satisfaction (including various scales) showed that the

3 The happiness of individuals and the collective 127 convergence validity coefficient was.42 with 95% confidence intervals of.39 to.45. These numbers are comparable to the self-informant agreement on Big Five personality traits (Vazire, 2006). Likewise, the mean intensity of happiness across 8 days (five random moment reports per day) using the experience sampling method was substantially correlated with the SWLS (r =.46, p <.001, Schimmack, 2003). This is roughly the same as the correlation between mean state extraversion (aggregate across multiple random moment reports of extraversion) and trait extraversion (r =.42, p <.001, Fleeson & Gallagher, 2009). Thus, life satisfaction measured by the SWLS shows a similar degree of convergent validity as personality traits. 1 In sum, there is substantial evidence for the reliability and validity of several well-being scales (at least in the U.S.). For the current topic of collective happiness, however, the key question is whether or not the happiness of the collective can be measured using these subjective scales. Assuming that the reliability and validity of these scales hold across cultures (Oishi, 2006), the mean score could be indicative of the happiness of the collective. For instance, the national mean of subjective well-being assessed during 1 year was highly correlated with the national mean of subjective well-being assessed in another year (r =.67, p <.01, Diener, Diener, & Diener, 1995). The national mean of subjective wellbeing was also associated with social indicators in a predicted fashion: gross domestic product (GDP, r =.58, p <.01) and fewer human rights violations (r =.48, p <.01). Thus, the aggregate of existing measures of subjective wellbeing appears to be useful at the national level. However, it is also important to think critically about whether the happiness of the collective (e.g., work group, city, nation) can be assessed differently. Kurt Lewin (1939) 1 Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988 have gathered similarly convincing validity data for the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS). Likewise, Lyubomirsky and her colleagues have shown some reliability and validity for their subjective happiness scale (Lyubomirsky & Lepper, 1999). famously stated that, The whole is different from the sum of its parts (p. 885). If the whole is indeed different from the sum of its parts, then the happiness of the collective cannot be accurately measured by the aggregate of individual respondents self-reported happiness. In this regard, the research on collective efficacy is instructive. Instead of construing it as the aggregate of self-efficacy, sociologists have successfully measured it separately at the community level, and showed that collective efficacy predicted lower levels of violent crimes (Sampson, Raudenbush, & Earls, 1997; see also Bonanno, Romero, & Klein, 2015 for a similar discussion on psychological resilience at the level of the collective). Instead of taking the average of 10 workers, for instance, a supervisor might be able to rate the group-level happiness reliably and with validity (e.g., taking into account group cohesion and other dynamics among the workers). Unfortunately, to our knowledge, happiness researchers have not validated any group-level measures of happiness. Thus, the following review of collective happiness is based on the aggregate measure of subjective well-being. The Happiness of Individuals Since the establishment of subjective wellbeing measures in the late 1980s, researchers have begun to look at both internal factors (e.g., habitual patterns of thought) and external factors (e.g., cultural lay theories) to answer more substantive questions, such as Who is happy? and When do people feel happy? On the one hand, happiness and well-being are subjective states that are constructed from relatively stable internal or personal factors, such as genetics (De Neve, Christakis, Fowler, & Frey, 2012; Weiss, Bates, & Luciano, 2008), personality (see DeNeve & Cooper, 1998; Lucas, 2008 for review), material satisfaction (Larsen & McKibban, 2008), promotion-prevention focus (Higgins, Grant, & Shah, 1999), locus of control (Helzer & Jayawickreme, 2015) and emotion regulation (Gross & John, 2003). On the other hand, engaging in activities (Sakawa, Ohtake,

4 128 Y. Uchida and S. Oishi & Tsutsui, 2015) such as expressing gratitude, counting one s blessings, and thinking about an ideal future, also predicts happiness (see Lyubomirsky & Layous, 2013 for a review), thus leading to the occasional application of interventionist approaches to enhance happiness. Other external factors, such as having close relationships (Diener & Seligman, 2002), social status (Anderson, Kraus, Galinsky, & Keltner, 2012), economic situation (e.g., household income, Kahneman, Krueger, Schkade, Schwarz, & Stone, 2006, or job, Ohtake, Shiraishi, & Tsutsui, 2010), and experiencing life events, such as marriage or divorce (Lucas, 2007; Luhmann, Hofmann, Eid, & Lucas, 2012; Oswald & Powdthavee, 2008), are also associated with one s mean levels of happiness. In addition to these personal factors, macro-level factors have also been examined as predictors of happiness. These range from neighborhood environment (Jokela, Bleidorn, Lamb, Gosling, & Rentfrow, 2015; White, Alcock, Wheeler, & Depledge, 2013) to socio-economic environment, such as income inequality (Oishi, Kesebir, & Diener, 2011) and social capital (Helliwell & Putnam, 2004; Ram, 2010). Culture also serves as a boundary condition that can explain individual differences (Uchida, Norasakkunkit, & Kitayama, 2004) in the creation and construal of happiness. For example, Butler, Lee, and Gross (2007) found that the negative social effects of emotion suppression found by Gross and John (2003) were higher for those with European-American cultural values than for those with Asian cultural values. Further, the culture of nations can be examined to explain differences in happiness. Markus, Uchida, Omoregie, Townsend, and Kitayama (2006) investigated coverage of Olympic medalists in the American and Japanese media. In the American context, medalists were described as a superheroes : strong, attractive, unique, and competitive characters. On the other hand, Japanese media coverage described most medalists as ordinary people: weak, struggling, and receiving support from family or friends. Indeed, Japanese athletes became more emotional when they were asked about their relationships with their parents or coaches in post-competition interviews (Uchida, Townsend, Markus, & Bergsieker, 2009). These findings suggest that lay theories about how to go for the gold differ across cultures and carry further implications about how happiness is achieved via goal fulfillment. American lay theories view success and perhaps also the subsequent happiness it brings as something that is achieved by people with exceptional abilities. We can describe this as an incremental model of happiness. In this incremental model of happiness, positive situations or emotions are thought to invite more positive outcomes. Therefore, individuals are motivated to maximize the experience of positive affect to precipitate better outcomes. However, Japanese lay theories view success and perhaps also subsequent happiness as something that is achieved by people who experience hardship but are able to persevere thanks to the support of others. As Ji, Nisbett, and Su (2001) suggested, individuals in Asian cultural contexts, compared to Americans, perceive changes and evaluate their current state of happiness by taking the ups and downs of life as a whole. Thus, enduring hardship would be perceived as a necessary factor for happiness. We can call this a dialectical model of happiness. In this model, considering the trajectory of happiness is important. In summary, the ways in which people seek happiness differ across cultures. Individuals within independent cultural contexts are more likely to be motivated to maximize the experience of positive affect and to seek happiness, and this pursuit of happiness is seen as a fundamental human right to be protected in the society. In contrast, within more interdependent East Asian cultural contexts, happiness tends to be defined in terms of interpersonal connectedness or a balance between the self and others (see Uchida et al., 2004; Uchida & Ogihara, 2012 for a review), and the pursuit of happiness is not seen as a thing that the individuals can pursue, but is experienced within shared relationships.

5 The happiness of individuals and the collective 129 Happy People Across Cultures The relational and personal conditions that give rise to happiness can vary across cultures, in part due to differences in existential systems of meaning and normative ideas about what constitutes a proper person in society. In European-American cultural contexts, happiness is defined as a positive emotional state that is typically construed through achieving personal goals (Emmons, 1986) and finding positive personal attributes (Myers & Diener, 1995). Therefore, self-esteem is one of the strongest correlates of happiness (Campbell, 1981; Diener & Diener, 1995; Diener et al., 1985). For example, Taylor and Brown (1988) argued that the perception of one s positive aspects and efficacy, even when illusory, can contribute to mental health. Thus, people who feel that they are achieving their important personal goals (Emmons, 1986, 1991) report higher levels of happiness. Of course, much research suggests that social relationships, not just goal attainment, are important within European- American cultures. For example, pro-social behavior (e.g., donating or spending money on others) is predictive of happiness (Dunn, Aknin, & Norton, 2008; Weinstein & Ryan, 2010). Further, the perceived availability of support has also been found to reduce health risks (Cohen & Wills, 1985; Uchino, Cacioppo, & Kiecolt-Glaser, 1996) and similarly, people with positive social ties have better health outcomes (Kawachi & Berkman, 2000). However, some evidence has suggested that there are negative consequences to receiving social support in the U.S. For example, social support could cause one to feel overly dependent on others, thus lowering self-esteem and, in turn, happiness (Bolger & Amarel, 2007; Bolger, Foster, Vinokur, & Ng, 1996; Bolger, Zuckerman, & Kessler, 2000; Fisher, Nadler, & Whitcher-Alagna, 1982; Seidman, Shrout, & Bolger, 2006). In the U.S., therefore, invisible support might work better since it has not been shown to be harmful to self-esteem (Bolger & Amarel, 2007). Within European-American cultural contexts, social support might contribute to happiness only to the extent that support does not threaten the recipient s sense of self-esteem (Uchida, Kitayama, Mesquita, Reyes, & Morling, 2008). In contrast, within East Asian cultures, interpersonal factors, such as adapting to social norms and fulfilling relational obligations, tend to be connected with happiness (Suh, Diener, Oishi, & Triandis, 1998). Individuals who pursue interpersonal goals over personal goals (Oishi & Diener, 2001), who feel positive relational emotional experiences (Kitayama, Mesquita, & Karasawa, 2006), and who receive emotional support and experience relational harmony (Kang, Shaver, Sue, Min, & Jing, 2003; Kwan, Bond, & Singelis, 1997; Uchida et al., 2008) are more likely to show higher levels of happiness and psychological well-being. The Meaning of Happiness Across Cultures In addition to predictors of happiness, the meaning of happiness appears to vary across cultures. Such differences in meaning include differences in the expected benefits and negative consequences of happiness, the degree to which happiness is contemporaneous with other emotions, and differential needs for agency and inter-relationality to achieve happiness. Uchida and Ogihara (2012) conducted a systematic review of happiness in Eastern vs. Western societies, and identified how people define and pursue well-being/happiness differently across cultures. As the cultural psychological perspective (Markus & Kitayama, 1991) has suggested, culture contains meaning systems, and people in each cultural context learn what is valuable and adaptive, and what is undesirable and maladaptive. Within European-American cultures, positivity and negativity are viewed as contradictory. In contrast, they are seen as more complementary in Asian cultures (Schimmack, Oishi, & Diener, 2002). The experience of pleasant (positive) and unpleasant (negative) emotions was negatively correlated in the United States, whereas they were positively correlated in China, Korea and Japan (Bagozzi, Wong, & Yi, 1999; Kitayama et al., 2006; Schimmack et al.,

6 130 Y. Uchida and S. Oishi 2002). Japanese individuals experience mixed (positive and negative) emotions more often as happy situations than do Americans (Miyamoto, Uchida, & Ellsworth, 2010) and such dialectical emotional experiences positively predict physical health among Japanese (Miyamoto & Ryff, 2011). Curhan et al. (2014) further suggested that negative affect decreased physical health more strongly for Americans than for Japanese people. These dualistic vs. dialectical thinking styles are rooted in the ancient philosophies of each cultural context. Thus, it is not surprising that the optimal level of happiness differs across cultures (e.g., the ideal level of happiness in Japan is around 75% satisfaction out of 100% showing that the Japanese pursue a moderate level of happiness; Cabinet Office, Government of Japan, 2012). In a free-association task, many Americans spontaneously described happiness as a relatively enduring positive state to be pursued personally, whereas many Japanese spontaneously defined it as an interpersonal condition that is also fraught with potential negative consequences (Uchida & Kitayama, 2009). Specifically, over 98% of American descriptions of happiness, but only 67% of Japanese descriptions, were rated as positive. When the obtained meaning categories in each culture were clustered and examined, three types of descriptions were commonly observed: general hedonic states (e.g., joy, excitement, and positive attitude), personal achievement (e.g., getting a good grade, getting a job), and interpersonal harmony (e.g., getting along with others, having a party for a friend). However, in addition to these cultural similarities, two other clusters of negative features of happiness were unique to Japanese responses: transcendental reappraisal (e.g., letting people avoid reality, ephemerality, difficulty in identification) and social disruption (e.g., the envy and jealousy of others, failing to pay enough attention to one s surroundings). In cultures that seek harmonious happiness between the current generation and future generations, Hitokoto and Uchida (2015) proposed the concept and index of interdependent happiness. A nine-item Interdependent Happiness Scale (IHS) measures how individuals feel happiness by seeking relationship harmony (e.g., I make my significant other happy ), quiescence (e.g., although it is quite average, I live a stable life ) and having an ordinary life (e.g., I believe my life is just as happy as that of others around me ). This concept of interdependent happiness tries to capture the seeking of collective well-being. Though the cross-cultural studies presented here provided initial and important evidence on cross-cultural differences in happiness, we should be careful in our interpretations of those findings. With the exception of longitudinal large sample studies of the general population, such as the Midlife in Japan-Midlife in the United States (MIDJA-MIDUS) study, most cross-cultural studies have been conducted on university students, who are not representative of the wider culture. The Happiness of the Collective: Indices for Nations and Communities As summarized above, empirical research on happiness has focused primarily on individual happiness and cultural variations in individual happiness. Yet, the question of societal happiness has been of great interest to philosophers, political theorists, and sociologists alike for centuries. For instance, in The Republic (presumably written around 380 BC), Plato famously advocated a society governed by a philosopher king, saying that, Unless communities have philosophers as kings... there can be no end to political troubles... there is no other way for an individual or a community to achieve happiness (Waterfield, 1993, p. 193). Likewise, in The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle argued that the happiness of citizens is maximized when the rulers are eudaimonic (virtuous) people who can think of what is the best for ordinary citizens (Thomson, 1953). Around the same time in China, Confucius proposed that a good society is a harmonious society governed by virtues such as (Jin; benevolence) and (Toku; moral goodness). According to

7 The happiness of individuals and the collective 131 Confucius, harmony is achieved through order and hierarchy, and the psychological basis for order and hierarchy is the natural love that people have toward their families; as a son respects his father, so should citizens respect their king. Fast-forward two centuries, and we find order and harmony emphasized in Thomas Hobbes worldview as well. However, according to Hobbes (1651), order and harmony can be achieved formally by a social contract between individuals and society wherein individuals relinquish some of their natural rights for the protection of their lives. Various ideas about what the ideal society, ranging from ideas about kingdoms to communism to democracy, have been proposed over the last 2500 years (see Oishi, 2012 for review). Philosophers and political theorists have still not reached a consensus regarding the ideal society, in part because the existing debates are not always based on data or concrete outcome measures. What is a Happy Society? With the advancement of subjective well-being research in the 1980s and 1990s, several researchers started to use the mean level of self-reported life satisfaction and happiness as a criterion to evaluate various social factors that might contribute to the creation of an ideal society (Diener et al., 1995; Inglehart, Foa, Peterson, & Welzel, 2008; Veenhoven, 1995). Such factors in the wider social environment include both the level and distribution patterns of wealth, educational levels, religiosity, and networks of social support. At the level of the nation, the happiest nations tend to be economically successful (high per capita GDP); have a climate that is either not harsh or that is harsh, but is buffered economically (Fischer & Van de Vliert, 2011); politically liberal (have more freedom); and culturally individualistic (Diener et al., 1995; Fisher & Boer, 2011). The correlation between the wealth of nations and their mean life satisfaction is around.80 in the Gallup World Polls that sampled over 130 nations, including many African nations (Deaton, 2008; Diener, Kahneman, Tov, & Arora, 2010; Oishi & Schimmack, 2010; the correlation tends to be around with the World Values Surveys that include few African nations). Thus, the wealth of a nation is an important predictor of collective happiness. Because per capita GDP is highly correlated with political freedom and cultural individualism, it is unclear at this point whether it is the economy, or the various amenities that come with it, that is driving this correlation. It should also be noted that beyond the economy, freedom, and individualism, the mean national level of happiness and life satisfaction is correlated with other factors, such as religiosity (Inglehart et al., 2008) and social support (Oishi & Schimmack, 2010). That is, given two nations of equivalent wealth, the nation with more religiosity and social support tends to be happier than the other. Some research also found that nations with progressive taxation are happier than nations with less progressive taxation (Oishi, Schimmack, & Diener, 2012). This link between progressive taxation and nation level happiness was explained by citizens satisfaction with public and common goods (e.g., health care, public transportation, education). Up to this point, however, most research has relied on cross-sectional data, which makes it difficult to be confident about the causal mechanisms involved. In particular, as Easterlin (1974) found, Americans have not become happier with economic growth. Thus, although cross-sectionally wealthy nations tend to be happier than less wealthy nations, there is little evidence that increasing national wealth increases citizens happiness (which is considered a paradox). Several reviews of this literature present mixed results, showing that some nations seem to enjoy an increase in happiness with economic growth, while other nations seem to show the Easterlin Paradox (i.e., economic growth does not entail an increase in happiness, see Diener & Oishi, 2000; Stevenson & Wolfers, 2008). Recent research has resolved the Easterlin Paradox in the U.S. by examining growing income inequality (Oishi et al., 2011). Although national wealth increased over time in the U.S., this increase in wealth went to a small number of elites. This means that,

8 132 Y. Uchida and S. Oishi although the U.S. as a nation has become richer over time, the average American has not. Indeed, the analysis of the General Social Surveys data from 1972 to 2008 showed that income inequality was inversely associated with the mean level of happiness among Americans (Oishi et al., 2011). Furthermore, this inverse correlation was accounted for by lower levels of perceived fairness and trust in years of great income inequality. Extending this finding, Oishi and Kesebir (2015) found that nations that showed the Easterlin Paradox (e.g., Argentina, Portugal) experienced growing income inequality, whereas the nations that did not show the Easterlin Paradox (e.g., France, Italy) did not experience growing income inequality during economic growth. Thus, the key to a happy nation might be economic growth that is accompanied by relatively equal redistribution of national wealth among citizens. In addition to analyses of happy nations, there has been some research on happy states, cities, and counties in the U.S. For instance, happy U.S. states were wealthy and highly educated (Rentfrow, Mellander, & Florida, 2009). Similarly, happy cities and counties were wealthy and highly educated (Florida, Mellander, & Rentfrow, 2013; Lawless & Lucas, 2011). The novel aspect of these findings is the effect of education. At the level of the individual, more educated people are not significantly happier than less educated people. Nevertheless, people who live in a city or a county where most people are highly educated are happier than those who live in a city or a county where most people are not. This suggests some kind of emergent property (i.e., the collective is greater than a simple sum of individuals). It is critical to our future to elucidate why cities, counties, and states with more educated citizens are happier places to live. To our knowledge, there has been no research on the impact of changes in the level of education on citizens well-being over time. Just as the effect of wealth is different when examined cross-sectionally and longitudinally, the effect of education might be quite different when examined longitudinally than when it is examined cross-sectionally. Compared to the plethora of research on happy persons, empirical research on happy societies is still rare. It is important to explore the effect of social indicators (e.g., crime rate, unemployment) over time in the future. Finally, group and organization researchers have explored collective emotions (Barsade & Gibson, 2012 for review). For instance, sales teams with happy leaders had higher sales performances than teams with less happy leaders (George, 1995). Similarly, happy groups (i.e., whose individual members had high average levels of happiness) also performed better in terms of sales (George, 1995). We are not aware of any research that directly explores the ingredients of happy groups, however. Just as team chemistry enhances team performance (e.g., the San Antonio Spurs), some kinds of group chemistry (dynamics) might enhance group-level happiness. To this end, laboratory experiments that explore the origin of happy groups will be highly valuable. Future Directions for Happiness Research Cross-Temporal Analysis: Historical Changes in the Meaning of Happiness The majority of cultural psychological research on happiness has focused on relatively stable cultural differences (Diener & Diener, 1995; Uchida & Kitayama, 2009; Uchida et al., 2008). Recent research however has shown that there are important regional as well as temporal variations within a given culture (Plaut, Markus, & Lachman, 2002; Plaut, Markus, Treadway, & Fu, 2012). For instance, an understanding of happiness as the consequence of good luck and fortune prevailed in the U.S. until around 1920, wherein Americans used happiness to describe lucky occurrences (e.g., a happy coincidence ). Over the last 100 years or so, however, Americans have ceased to use the word happiness as such (Oishi et al., 2013). With urbanization and modernization (e.g., mass production of the automobile) in the early 1900s, in the U.S. happiness became

9 The happiness of individuals and the collective 133 thought of as something that one can achieve through effort (see Sonja Lyubomirsky s, 2007 popular book entitled The how of happiness: A new approach to getting the life you want, emphasis added by authors). The Globalization Effect Likewise, cultural change has also affected how people seek and feel happiness, sometimes resulting in conflicts between traditional and modern understandings of success, appropriate behavior, and social worthiness that have been imported in via globalization. Globalization, defined here as pressures that promote a shift toward de-regulation and flexibility of the world-wide labor market (Toivonen, Norasakkunkit, & Uchida, 2011), is one of the factors used to explain cultural change (Chiu, Gries, Torelli, & Cheng, 2011; Norasakkunkit & Uchida, 2011). During its period of rapid economic growth, Japan experienced dramatic lifestyle changes, such as increases in rates of divorce and living alone (Hamamura, 2012). Many Japanese left rural areas for big cities to seek wealth, uniqueness, and personal choice. Along with such changes, many Japanese started to seek individualism as a cultural ideal. At the institutional level, individualism started to gain prominence in the early 2000s as many Japanese companies began doing away with the lifetime system of employment and the agebased salary system, employing in their stead performance-based salary and staff retention systems. Around the same time, Japanese schools also started to emphasize uniqueness. In general, modernization theorists believe that free choice has positive psychological effects because increases in autonomy and freedom are associated with increases in subjective well-being (Fisher & Boer, 2011; Inglehart et al., 2008). However, rapid shifts towards autonomy and freedom have had negative consequences for the Japanese. For example, individualism in Japan is more likely to be interpreted as the opposite of harmoniousness with others and has connotations of egoism or social isolation (Ogihara, Uchida, & Kusumi, 2014). As a consequence, Japanese who seek individualistic goals (i.e., personal achievement) are less happy than those who do not, in part because individualism reduces the quality of close relationships among Japanese people. Such negative effects of individualism have not been found in the U.S. (Ogihara & Uchida, 2014). Measuring Happiness in the Nation, the Community and the Organization with a Multilevel Analysis From the macro-level perspective, happiness is not only a personal goal, but also a societal one. Thus, it is important to consider macro-level factors (e.g., social capital in the community) that affect the collective s happiness (vs. personal factors that affect the individual) as well as to differentiate which factors are important at different levels of the collective (e.g., nation, neighborhood, work groups). For example, national-level poverty and unemployment rates affect individuals psychological wellbeing (Luhmann, Murdoch, & Hawkley, 2015). Recently, several researchers explored macro-micro interactions using a multilevel random coefficient model (see Uchida, Ogihara, & Fukushima, 2015). A multilevel analysis showed a matching effect between individuals and the nation or community. For example, using data obtained from more than 7,000 individuals in 28 nations, Fulmer et al. (2010) showed that the correlation between personality and well-being at the individual level is higher when the personality matches the characteristics of their respective nation (see also Oishi, 2000 for similar findings). For communities and organizations, social capital is important for ensuring the well-being of its members, particularly for elders (Poulin & Haase, 2015). Social capital in the community strengthens the connection between personal well-being and the judgment of other people s well-being in the community. A series of studies with multilevel analyses in Japan found that general trust contributed to well-being only at the individual level (Fukushima, Yoshikawa, Saizen, & Kobayashi, 2012), whereas social capital within the community (trust for people in the neighborhood) contributed to well-being at both the individual and community levels.

10 134 Y. Uchida and S. Oishi These results suggest that individual well-being is constructed in part through the ability to determine who is trustworthy (Yamagishi & Yamagishi, 1994), whereas macro-level wellbeing is constructed through shared experiences of social capital among the community. In future studies, it will be important to elucidate what kind of social capital (e.g., bridging vs. bonding) makes people happy in each cultural condition. For example, general trust was associated with happiness across 25 European Nations. However, the subtypes of social capital (e.g., informal channels, such as meeting colleagues) were differentially associated with happiness across Europe (Rodríguez-Pose & von Berlepsch, 2014). From the multi-level perspective, it is possible to consider the type of social capital that serves different psychological functions at different levels of analysis. People live in multi-layered cultures nested within each other, from national culture as a larger macro-level culture, to state/prefecture as mid-level culture, to neighborhood/ community or organization and family as a micro-level culture. So far, cultural psychology has focused on national comparisons, such as U.S. vs. Japan. However, it is important to analyze which level of culture exerts the strongest influence. This is important especially when we think about community-level happiness. For example, research in Korea found that the household level is a more important factor in explaining individual happiness than the neighborhood-level context (Han, 2015). Additionally, companies also seek to create happiness for their employees and customers. There are many organizational factors that could affect the happiness of employees, ranging from the organizational culture, to pay and promotion scales, to the number of paid holidays, to staff turn-over rates. These organization-level effects might be further moderated by the business sector (e.g., finance vs. entertainment), region, and nation in which they reside (Klein & Kozlowski, 2000). Happiness and Public Policies Over the last decade, subjective well-being has become a major concern for public policymakers all over the world as they attempt to measure happiness with the goal of increasing it, and to create ranks of national happiness in order to contextualize domestic levels. For example, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released the Better Life Index and reported crossnational differences (via rankings) in 11 aspects of life that are supposed to contribute to citizens well-being. Additionally, several countries, such as the U.K., France, Germany, and Bhutan, have attempted to measure the subjective well-being and happiness of their citizens. Such use of citizens self-reports of wellbeing for policy-making has been called into question because self-reports are not always accurate. For a long time, economic indicators, such as GDP, have been the main indices of the health of nations. However, recent evidence suggests that self-reported well-being (e.g., life satisfaction, happiness) is an adequate reflection of the objective financial/societal conditions of the nation, as well as individuals objective living conditions (such as unemployment and divorce) (Oishi & Diener, 2014a), thus opening up the possibility of using selfreported well-being for evaluating and creating public policies. Bhutan is famous for its Gross National Happiness (GNH) index and has promoted its use for policy-making. The GNH is unique, not only in its assessment criteria, but also its consequences, as the Bhutanese government makes important policy decisions with the goal of increasing the GNH. The mission of the Bhutanese government (the GNH commission) is to increase the GNH through decreasing the insufficiencies of not-yet-happy people (Ura, Alkire, Zangmo, & Wangdi, 2012, p. 1). In Japan, the government cabinet office commissioned large-scale happiness studies from 2010 to The committee proposed creating a Happiness Index that includes both subjective and objective measurements of well-being. There was a lot of discussion regarding such issues as: (a) whether or not to make a single index of well-being and establish it as a goal for a nation; and (b) how to integrate subjective (psychological) measurements and

11 The happiness of individuals and the collective 135 an objective well-being index (i.e., economic conditions). For some members, objective measurements seem trustworthy while subjective measures seem unreliable. Thanks to multiple psychological studies showing the reliability of subjective measurements, however, the committee concluded that multidimensional indicators should be developed (to show multiple aspects of well-being) with both subjective and objective measures to identify which aspects of society need improvement. In addition, the committee decided to identify what factors constitute Japanese well-being by considering both cross-national comparisons and withincultural differences (such as examining inequality within Japanese society). The committee was concerned that end users might focus on the cross-cultural or inter-prefectural level ranking, although the commission wanted to focus on the policy-related use (i.e., to improve the societal conditions by understanding what makes people happy and unhappy). Moreover, the commission would like to promote a new concept of well-being that is not solely comprised of seeking individual happiness in the present, but one that also includes seeking a collective level of happiness to achieve a sustainable society. The national government commission has closed, but municipal local governments, such as the Arakawa district in Tokyo and Kyotango city in Kyoto prefecture, are also developing their own well-being indices for policy-making. When a national government seeks to use a happiness index, the purpose is to increase its score and its happiness ranking in the world. However, we should be cautious in our interpretations of the rankings, as mean happiness scores can be skewed by response biases and/or the reference group effects. For example, the mean score of happiness in Japan is lower than other industrialized nations (Diener & Diener, 1995; Diener et al., 1995; Veenhoven, 2010). But, as noted above, happiness in Japan sometimes has negative connotations, such as making others jealous and reducing motivations for self-improvement (Uchida & Kitayama, 2009). Furthermore, for many Japanese people, optimal happiness is not a state of complete happiness ; rather, many prefer a moderate level of happiness (Cabinet Office, Government of Japan, 2012). Thus, this low happiness score in Japan might be partly due to its being a balance-oriented concept. In addition, it should be noted that happiness rankings change dramatically depending on the specific measures used. For instance, when the index is based on Cantril s ladder scale, Scandinavian nations (e.g., Norway) typically top the list and score substantially higher than Central and South American nations (e.g., Costa Rica, Venezuela). However, when the index is based on the frequency of positive emotions, Central and South American nations typically top the list, sometimes ahead of wealthy European nations. Finally, when the index is based on having a meaning or purpose in life, economically impoverished nations, such as Mozambique and Togo, top the list, while wealthy European and Asian nations are at the bottom (Oishi & Diener, 2014b). Thus, it is important to identify the factors that predict and improve citizens happiness for each nation using longitudinal data, rather than being overly concerned about happiness rankings per se. Conclusion and Future Perspectives The aims of the present article were to review the validity of the measures of individual and collective happiness and to explicate the role of culture in understanding the long-term happiness and life satisfaction of individuals. As research on individuals long-term happiness and life satisfaction accumulates with valid and reliable measures, empirical studies have also begun to examine the long-term happiness and life satisfaction of groups. In addition, we discussed the possibility and importance of studying the happiness of collectives. Happiness researchers have not validated any collectivelevel measures of happiness beyond the aggregate measure of subjective well-being. In the future, the valid measure of macro or collectivelevel measures, such as an integrating index of subjective and objective measures, should be devised.

12 136 Y. Uchida and S. Oishi We then discussed future directions for happiness research, proposing several methodological and theoretical areas, such as crosstemporal analyses and multi-level analysis, to identify the units of culture that affect happiness. Finally, we proposed possibilities for how nations and communities can utilize happiness research especially for public policy-making. Most research on happiness is concerned with the factors or conditions that lead to happiness and how to create policies that protect individual rights to seek personal happiness. However, we must also look at how factors that facilitate personal happiness interact with, and sometimes interfere with, collective happiness. For example, while a safe environment and a certain level of economic welfare are important to both personal and collective happiness, seeking personal happiness in a comfortable life can also lead to social dilemmas, such as the tragedy of commons (see Horike, 2013 for sustainability- and happiness-related arguments). For instance, for some individuals the pursuit of personal happiness might include taking long showers. During a drought, however, if everyone sought to increase their happiness with long showers, the community at large would surely suffer. Situations like this place the pursuit of personal happiness in diametric opposition to collective happiness. Conversely, a shared tragedy can sometimes unite a community or nation, thus elevating personal happiness. In Japan, for example, after the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011, many people in non-afflicted areas re-evaluated their everyday lives and thus experienced an increase in happiness (Uchida, Takahashi, & Kawahara, 2014), suggesting that the evaluation of ordinary life conditions is sometimes difficult, and that in times of peace, people might equate happiness with pleasantness. If the pursuit of personal happiness can indeed produce the tragedy of commons, it is important to discern which types of this pursuit are damaging and which are benign to public happiness. In order to advance our understanding of sustainable happiness (the type of personal happiness that does not erode collective happiness), collaborative work with other social/ natural scientists, such as economists, environmental scientists, and political scientists, is indispensable. Bhutan s initiative report (New Development Paradigm Initiative, 2014), for example, was constructed thanks to collaborative networks of psychologists, ecologists, economists, and political scientists. The initiative report declared that, Now more than ever, the need for a different development approach is highlighted in ecological, social, and economic crises: ecosystem degradation, potentially catastrophic climate change, excessive consumption of the affluent and extreme poverty on the other end, and growing inequalities both between and within nations. Underlying all these crises is the lack of a holistic view that would focus on causes instead of symptoms, and the inadequacy of the architecture of global governance to address these problems... To properly assess well-being outcomes, a more integrated measurement system that balances the ecological, social, economic and cultural dimensions of development is needed (New Development Paradigm Initiative, 2014, p. V11). As the science of well-being and happiness matures, it is critical to consider the wellbeing of both individuals and the collective. To this end, the macro-micro perspective promoted here will be useful. References Anderson, C., Kraus, M. W., Galinsky, A. D., & Keltner, D. (2012). The local-ladder effect: Social status and subjective well-being. Psychological Science, 23, Bagozzi, R. P., Wong, N., & Yi, Y. (1999). The role of culture and gender in the relationship between positive and negative affect. Cognition and Emotion, 13, Barsade, S. G., & Gibson, D. E. (2012). Group affect: Its influence on individual and group outcomes. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 21, Bolger, N., & Amarel, D. (2007). Effects of social support visibility on adjustment to stress: Experimental evidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92, Bolger, N., Foster, M., Vinokur, A. D., & Ng, R. (1996). Close relationships and adjustment to a