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Culture Matters When Designing a Successful Happiness-Increasing Activity: A Comparison of the United States and South Korea

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dc.affiliation.dptoUC3M. Departamento de Economía de la Empresaes
dc.contributor.authorLayous, Kristin
dc.contributor.authorLee, Hyun Jung
dc.contributor.authorChoi, Incheol
dc.contributor.authorLyubomirsky, Sonja
dc.date.accessioned2021-11-19T16:57:09Z
dc.date.available2021-11-19T16:57:09Z
dc.date.issued2013-05-01
dc.description.abstractResearch 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. participantsen
dc.identifier.bibliographicCitationLayous, 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.es
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.1177/0022022113487591
dc.identifier.issn0022-0221
dc.identifier.publicationfirstpage1294es
dc.identifier.publicationissue8es
dc.identifier.publicationlastpage1303es
dc.identifier.publicationtitleJOURNAL OF CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGYes
dc.identifier.publicationvolume44es
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10016/33652
dc.identifier.uxxiAR/0000021934
dc.language.isoenges
dc.publisherSAGEes
dc.rights© The authors: Layous, Lee; Choi and Lyubomirsky.es
dc.rights.accessRightsopen accesses
dc.subject.ecienciaEconomíaes
dc.subject.otherHappinesses
dc.subject.otherSubjective well-beingen
dc.subject.otherPositive activitiesen
dc.subject.otherPositive interventionsen
dc.subject.otherKindnessen
dc.subject.otherGratitudeen
dc.titleCulture Matters When Designing a Successful Happiness-Increasing Activity: A Comparison of the United States and South Koreaes
dc.typeresearch article*
dc.type.hasVersionAM*
dspace.entity.typePublication
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