Publication: Culture Matters When Designing a Successful Happiness-Increasing Activity: A Comparison of the United States and South Korea
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2013-05-01
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SAGE
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Abstract
Research shows that performing positive activities, such as expressing gratitude and doing
acts of kindness, boosts happiness. But do specific positive activities work equally well across
cultures? Our study examined the role of culture–activity fit by testing two positive activities
across two cultures. Participants from the United States (n = 250) and South Korea (n = 270)
were randomly assigned to express gratitude, perform kind acts, or engage in a neutral activity
for the first half of a 6-week positive activity intervention. Multilevel growth modeling analyses
revealed that the effect of practicing gratitude or kindness was moderated by culture: U.S.
participants increased in well-being (WB) from both activities, γ11 = 0.19, SE = 0.06, t(511) =
3.04, p = .0006; γ12= 0.11, SE = 0.06, t(511) = 1.73, p = .03 (compared with the control group),
but South Korean participants benefited significantly less from practicing gratitude than did
U.S. participants, γ13 = −0.24, SE = 0.07, t(511) = −3.36, p = .002. South Korean participants,
however, showed similar increases in WB as did U.S. participants when performing kind acts,
γ14 = −0.06, SE = 0.07, t(511) = −0.82, ns. Finally, although greater self-reported effort yielded
significantly larger increases in WB for U.S. participants, the effect of effort was not as strong for
South Korean participants. We posit that, due to their dialectical philosophical tradition, South
Koreans might have been more prone to feel mixed emotions (e.g., indebtedness and gratitude)
while engaging in the gratitude letter activity than did U.S. participants
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Happiness, Subjective well-being, Positive activities, Positive interventions, Kindness, Gratitude
Bibliographic citation
Layous, K., Lee, H., Choi, I., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2013). Culture Matters When Designing a Successful Happiness-Increasing Activity: A Comparison of the United States and South Korea. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 44(8), 1294–1303.