Family first: Evidence of consistency and variation in the value of family versus personal happiness across 49 different cultures

People care about their own well-being, but also about the well-being of their families. It is currently however unknown how much people tend to value their own and their family’s well-being. A recent study documented that people value family happiness over personal happiness across four cultures. In this study, we sought to replicate this finding across a larger sample size (N = 12,819) and a greater number of countries (N = 49), We found that the strength of the idealization of family over personal happiness preference was small (average Cohen’s ds = .20 with country levels varying from -.02 to almost .48), but ubiquitous, i.e., direction presented in 98% of the studied countries, 73-75% with statistical significance and .40 and .30). Importantly, we did not find strong support for traditional theories in cross-cultural psychology that associate collectivism with greater prioritization of the family versus the individual; country level individualism-collectivism was not associated with variation in the idealization of family versus individual happiness. Our findings indicate that no matter how much various populists abuse the argument of “protecting family life” to disrupt emancipation, family happiness seems to be a pan-culturally phenomenon. Family well-being is a key ingredient of social fabric across the world, and should be acknowledged by psychology and well-being researchers, and by progressive movements too

Societal emotional environments and cross-cultural differences in life satisfaction: A forty-nine country study.

In this paper, we introduce the concept of ‘societal emotional environment’: the emotional climate of a society (operationalized as the degree to which positive and negative emotions are expressed in a society). Using data collected from 12,888 participants across 49 countries, we show how societal emotional environments vary across countries and cultural clusters, and we consider the potential importance of these differences for well-being. Multilevel analyses supported a ‘double-edged sword’ model of negative emotion expression, where expression of negative emotions predicted higher life satisfaction for the expresser but lower life satisfaction for society. In contrast, partial support was found for higher societal life satisfaction in positive societal emotional environments. Our study highlights the potential utility and importance of distinguishing between positive and negative emotion expression, and adopting both individual and societal perspectives in well-being research. Individual pathways to happiness may not necessarily promote the happiness of others

Happiness Maximization Is a WEIRD Way of Living

Psychological science tends to treat subjective wellbeing and happiness synonymously. We start from the assumption that subjective wellbeing is more than being happy to ask the fundamental question: what is the ideal level of happiness? From a cross-cultural perspective, we propose that the idealization of attaining maximum levels of happiness may be especially characteristic of WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, Democratic) societies, but less so for others. Searching for an explanation for why “happiness maximization” might have emerged in these societies, we turn to studies linking cultures to their eco-environmental habitat. We discuss the premise that WEIRD cultures emerged in an exceptionally benign ecological habitat, i.e., compared to other regions, they faced relatively light existential pressures. We review the influence of the Gulfstream on the North-Western European climate as a source of these comparatively benign geographical conditions. We propose that the ecological conditions in which WEIRD societies emerged afforded them a basis to endorse happiness as a value and to idealise attaining its maximum level. To provide a nomological network for “happiness maximization”, we also studied its several potential side-effects: alcohol and drug consumption and abuse, and the prevalence of mania. To evaluate our hypothesis, we re-analyse data from two large-scale studies on ideal levels of personal life satisfaction—the most common operationalization of happiness in psychology—involving respondents from 61 countries. We conclude that societies whose members seek to maximize happiness tend to be characterized as a WEIRD, and generalizing this across societies can prove problematic if adopted at the ideological and policy level

Introduction to a culturally sensitive measure of well-being: Combining life satisfaction and interdependent happiness across 49 different cultures

How can one conclude that well-being is higher in country A than country B, when wellbeing is being measured according to the way people in country A think about wellbeing? We address this issue by proposing a new culturally sensitive method to comparing societal levels of well-being. We support our reasoning with data on life satisfaction and interdependent happiness focusing on individual and family, collected mostly from students, across forty-nine countries. We demonstrate that the relative idealization of the two types of wellbeing varies across cultural contexts and are associated with culturally different models of selfhood. Furthermore, we show that rankings of societal well-being based on life satisfaction tend to underestimate the contribution from interdependent happiness. We introduce a new culturally sensitive method for calculating societal well-being, and examine its construct validity by testing for associations with the experience of emotions and with individualism-collectivism. This new culturally sensitive approach represents a slight, yet important improvement in measuring well-being

Personal life satisfaction as a measure of societal happiness is an individualistic presumption: Evidence from fifty countries

Numerous studies document that societal happiness is correlated with individualism, but the nature of this phenomenon remains understudied. In the current paper, we address this gap and test the reasoning that individualism correlates with societal happiness because the most common measure of societal happiness (i.e., country-level aggregates of personal life satisfaction) is individualism-themed. With the data collected from 13,009 participants across fifty countries, we compare associations of four types of happiness (out of which three are more collectivism-themed than personal life satisfaction) with two different measures of individualism. We replicated previous findings by demonstrating that societal happiness measured as country-level aggregate of personal life satisfaction is correlated with individualism. Importantly though, we also found that the country-level aggregates of the collectivism-themed measures of happiness do not tend to be significantly correlated with individualism. Implications for happiness studies and for policy makers are signaled

Organizational justice research:A review, synthesis, and research agenda

We conducted a general, semi-systematic literature review on organizational justice. Based on this review, we first explored the various ways in which organizational justice was conceptualized. Second, we explained the importance of organizational justice by reviewing and synthesizing theoretical frameworks in organizational justice research and studies that analyzed the effects of justice on employee outcomes. Subsequently, we shifted the focus from the individual to the team level by reviewing and synthesizing justice climate and peer justice research. To expand prior research and stimulate future research, we presented several avenues for future research, such as the cultural sensitivity of justice, justice in diverse work environments, justice and conflict, and the changing nature of work and justice. We also created a theoretical foundation for the integration of organizational justice with research on workplace conflict, diversity and dissimilarity, cultural values, relationships with coworkers, and the changing nature of work.</p

Fairness in Work Teams : The Integration of Organizational Justice with Workplace Conflict, Workplace Dissimilarity, and National Cultural Values

Les recherches sur la justice organisationnelle ont prouvé que l’équité était un concept majeur pour appréhender l’expérience de travail des salariés. Pourtant, les chercheurs en ce domaine ont focalisé leur attention sur la relation verticale entre salariés et managers ou entre les salariés et les organisations auxquelles ils appartiennent, au détriment des rapports entre individus de même niveau hiérarchique. Cette thèse a pour but de présenter le concept de justice dans les équipes de travail en analysant la perception des salariés quant au traitement qui leur ait réservé, à titre individuel, sur leur lieu de travail. Afin de démontrer la pertinence théorique et pratique de la perception individuelle de l’équité dans les équipes de travail, le thème de la justice organisationnelle sera confronté au thème du conflit, au concept de diversité et aux valeurs socio-culturelles des salariés. Les problématiques de recherche se concentrent sur les conséquences de la perception de l´équité entre collègues, sur les relations entre les concepts d'injustice et de conflit, de dissemblance et de satisfaction et sur le rôle modérateur des valeurs socio-culturelles sur la perception de l'équité et du comportement de citoyenneté organisationnelle. Ces questions de recherche sont testées d´une part à travers une étude longitudinale portant sur 256 salariés de firmes allemandes et, d´autre part, à travers deux questionnaires portant sur 448 salariés répartis dans des équipes de travail multinationales en France. Ces données sont analysées grâce à une modélisation en équation structurelle sur Mplus et par la méthode de modération et médiation sur le logiciel macro SPSS de Hayes. Le résultat de la première enquête met en évidence un phénomène de réciprocité entre les différents types d'injustices et les catégories diverses de conflits sur le lieu de travail, cette corrélation se renforçant à mesure que le temps passe. La dissemblance des valeurs entre salariés d'une même équipe a un impact négatif sur la satisfaction globale du groupe. L'injustice distributive et procédurale est un vecteur de ce phénomène. Dans le même temps, la différence de classe d'âge entre salariés d'une même équipe a un effet positif sur la satisfaction du groupe. Dans ce cas, c'est la communication entre les membres du groupe qui sert de conducteur. Enfin, la seconde étude démontre que les effets du concept d'équité sur le comportement de citoyenneté organisationnelle ont plus d'impact sur les sujets à tendance individualiste, soumis à une forte hiérarchie et réceptif à l'incertitude.Organizational justice research has shown that fairness is a key part of the employee’s work experience. However, justice scholars focused their considerations on the vertical relationship between employees and managers or organizations, neglecting horizontal relationships between peers. This dissertation advances justice research in teams by discussing and testing the individual peer justice perspective, which deals with the individuals’ perceptions of how fairly they are treated by teammates. To demonstrate the theoretical and practical relevance of the individual peer justice perspective, the organizational justice literature is integrated with the literatures of workplace conflict, workplace dissimilarity, and national cultural values. The research questions center around the predictors and outcomes of individual peer justice, the injustice-conflict interrelationship, the mechanisms of the dissimilarity-team satisfaction relationship, and the moderating role of cultural values on the relationship between justice perceptions and organizational citizenship behavior. The related hypotheses are tested through a longitudinal survey study with 256 employees from a variety of organizations in Germany and through a two-wave survey study with 448 multinational self-managed team members in France. The data is analyzed through structural equation modelling using Mplus and through moderation and mediation analyses using the SPSS macro of Hayes. The results of the first study indicate a reciprocal relationship between injustice dimensions and conflict types in the workplace, whereby this relationship becomes stronger over time. Distributive and procedural injustice further mediate the negative impact of perceived value dissimilarity (relative to teammates) on team satisfaction. The positive effects of perceived age dissimilarity (relative to teammates) on team satisfaction are mediated by information elaboration. Finally, the second study demonstrates that peer justice effects on organizational citizenship behavior are stronger for team members who score high in individualism, high in power distance, and low in uncertainty avoidance

Fairness in Work Teams : The Integration of Organizational Justice with Workplace Conflict, Workplace Dissimilarity, and National Cultural Values

Les recherches sur la justice organisationnelle ont prouvé que l’équité était un concept majeur pour appréhender l’expérience de travail des salariés. Pourtant, les chercheurs en ce domaine ont focalisé leur attention sur la relation verticale entre salariés et managers ou entre les salariés et les organisations auxquelles ils appartiennent, au détriment des rapports entre individus de même niveau hiérarchique. Cette thèse a pour but de présenter le concept de justice dans les équipes de travail en analysant la perception des salariés quant au traitement qui leur ait réservé, à titre individuel, sur leur lieu de travail. Afin de démontrer la pertinence théorique et pratique de la perception individuelle de l’équité dans les équipes de travail, le thème de la justice organisationnelle sera confronté au thème du conflit, au concept de diversité et aux valeurs socio-culturelles des salariés. Les problématiques de recherche se concentrent sur les conséquences de la perception de l´équité entre collègues, sur les relations entre les concepts d'injustice et de conflit, de dissemblance et de satisfaction et sur le rôle modérateur des valeurs socio-culturelles sur la perception de l'équité et du comportement de citoyenneté organisationnelle. Ces questions de recherche sont testées d´une part à travers une étude longitudinale portant sur 256 salariés de firmes allemandes et, d´autre part, à travers deux questionnaires portant sur 448 salariés répartis dans des équipes de travail multinationales en France. Ces données sont analysées grâce à une modélisation en équation structurelle sur Mplus et par la méthode de modération et médiation sur le logiciel macro SPSS de Hayes. Le résultat de la première enquête met en évidence un phénomène de réciprocité entre les différents types d'injustices et les catégories diverses de conflits sur le lieu de travail, cette corrélation se renforçant à mesure que le temps passe. La dissemblance des valeurs entre salariés d'une même équipe a un impact négatif sur la satisfaction globale du groupe. L'injustice distributive et procédurale est un vecteur de ce phénomène. Dans le même temps, la différence de classe d'âge entre salariés d'une même équipe a un effet positif sur la satisfaction du groupe. Dans ce cas, c'est la communication entre les membres du groupe qui sert de conducteur. Enfin, la seconde étude démontre que les effets du concept d'équité sur le comportement de citoyenneté organisationnelle ont plus d'impact sur les sujets à tendance individualiste, soumis à une forte hiérarchie et réceptif à l'incertitude.Organizational justice research has shown that fairness is a key part of the employee’s work experience. However, justice scholars focused their considerations on the vertical relationship between employees and managers or organizations, neglecting horizontal relationships between peers. This dissertation advances justice research in teams by discussing and testing the individual peer justice perspective, which deals with the individuals’ perceptions of how fairly they are treated by teammates. To demonstrate the theoretical and practical relevance of the individual peer justice perspective, the organizational justice literature is integrated with the literatures of workplace conflict, workplace dissimilarity, and national cultural values. The research questions center around the predictors and outcomes of individual peer justice, the injustice-conflict interrelationship, the mechanisms of the dissimilarity-team satisfaction relationship, and the moderating role of cultural values on the relationship between justice perceptions and organizational citizenship behavior. The related hypotheses are tested through a longitudinal survey study with 256 employees from a variety of organizations in Germany and through a two-wave survey study with 448 multinational self-managed team members in France. The data is analyzed through structural equation modelling using Mplus and through moderation and mediation analyses using the SPSS macro of Hayes. The results of the first study indicate a reciprocal relationship between injustice dimensions and conflict types in the workplace, whereby this relationship becomes stronger over time. Distributive and procedural injustice further mediate the negative impact of perceived value dissimilarity (relative to teammates) on team satisfaction. The positive effects of perceived age dissimilarity (relative to teammates) on team satisfaction are mediated by information elaboration. Finally, the second study demonstrates that peer justice effects on organizational citizenship behavior are stronger for team members who score high in individualism, high in power distance, and low in uncertainty avoidance