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

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

Towards Cultural Sensitivity in Societal Development

People across cultures differ in behaviours, thoughts and preferences. Cultural sensitivity – i.e., acknowledgment of these cultural differences – in development science is a postulate known since at least the 1960s, but has remained understudied. The goal of the current paper is to address this gap and to investigate folk theories of societal development, and in particular to identify both universal and culturally specific lay beliefs on what constitutes good societal development. In this study we collected data on preferences in social developmental from 2,684 participants across nine countries from five continents. We measured preferences towards twenty-eight different development aims, and separately for preferences towards three aims constituting Human Development Index. We used a comprehensive analysis approach, consisting of multidimensional scaling, analysis of variance, and pairwise comparisons to characterize universal and country specific preference patterns. Our results demonstrate that what people understand as modernization remains substantially universal across countries, but specific pathways of development and preferences towards these pathways tend to be different between countries. We also distinguished three facets of modernization: basics for modernization (e.g., trust, safety, economic development), welfare aims (e.g., poverty eradication, education), and inclusive aims (e.g., openness, gender equality, human rights). Importantly, in all studied countries, we found that each of the three types of modernization is much more preferred than conventional aims (e.g., military, demographic, religion). Cultural sensitivity may be reflected in how development is conceptualised and measured, and in this paper we propose a method of implementing our findings into development indexe

Targeting peroxiredoxin 1 impairs growth of breast cancer cells and potently sensitises these cells to prooxidant agents

BackgroundOur previous work has shown peroxiredoxin-1 (PRDX1), one of major antioxidant enzymes, to be a biomarker in human breast cancer. Hereby, we further investigate the role of PRDX1, compared to its close homolog PRDX2, in mammary malignant cells.MethodsCRISPR/Cas9- or RNAi-based methods were used for genetic targeting PRDX1/2. Cell growth was assessed by crystal violet, EdU incorporation or colony formation assays. In vivo growth was assessed by a xenotransplantation model. Adenanthin was used to inhibit the thioredoxin-dependent antioxidant defense system. The prooxidant agents used were hydrogen peroxide, glucose oxidase and sodium L-ascorbate. A PY1 probe or HyPer-3 biosensor were used to detect hydrogen peroxide content in samples.ResultsPRDX1 downregulation significantly impaired the growth rate of MCF-7 and ZR-75-1 breast cancer cells. Likewise, xenotransplanted PRDX1-deficient MCF-7 cells presented a retarded tumour growth. Furthermore, genetic targeting of PRDX1 or adenanthin, but not PRDX2, potently sensitised all six cancer cell lines studied, but not the non-cancerous cells, to glucose oxidase and ascorbate.ConclusionsOur study pinpoints the dominant role for PRDX1 in management of exogeneous oxidative stress by breast cancer cells and substantiates further exploration of PRDX1 as a target in this disease, especially when combined with prooxidant agents

Self-construals predict personal life satisfaction with different strengths across societal contexts differing in national wealth and religious heritage

We explore to what extent previously observed pan-cultural association between dimensions of self-construal and personal life satisfaction (PLS) may be moderated by three national-contextual variables: national wealth, economic inequality, and religious heritage. The results showed that Self-reliance (vs. dependence on others) predicted PLS positively in poorer countries but negatively in richer countries. Connectedness to others (vs. self-containment) predicted PLS more strongly in Protestant-heritage countries. Self-expression (vs. harmony) predicted PLS more weakly (and non-significantly) in Muslim-heritage countries. In contrast, previously reported associations of self-direction (vs. reception-to-influence), consistency (vs. variability), and decontextualized (vs. contextualized) self-understanding with personal life satisfaction were not significantly moderated by these aspects of societal context. These results show the importance of considering the impact of national religious and economic context

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

Unpackaging the link between economic inequality and self-construal

Past research has shown that economic inequality shapes individuals’ self-construals. However, it has been unclear which dimensions of self-construal are associated with and affected by economic inequality. A correlational (Study 1: N = 264) and an experimental study (Study 2: N = 532) provided converging evidence linking perceived economic inequality with two forms of independent (vs. interdependent) self-construal: Difference from Others and Self-Reliance. In Study 3 (N = 12,634) societal differences in objective economic inequality across 48 nations predicted feelings of Difference from Others, but not Self-Reliance. Importantly, we found no significant associations of economic inequality with the other six dimensions of self-construal. Our findings help extend previous results linking economic inequality to forms of “social distance.