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

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

The role of teacher self-efficacy in students' achievement

The master thesis is about the role of teacher self-efficacy in students’ achievement in developing post-Soviet country such as Georgia. The research reviews evaluation strategies of teachers, different practices and theory. Nature of low achievement is discussed related to socio-economic status, importance of parenting, good teaching, SEN skills, and social environment and health issues. Another large topic is a part of teacher self-efficacy in the evaluation process of teachers’ effectiveness. The quantitative research was held in Tbilisi schools. Respondents were teachers of the classes from 6 to 10th grades. The mean of their self-efficacy was not different with the mean of their colleagues, despite correlation between self-efficacy and students’ achievement could not be confirmed. Only the one factor – efficacy in student engagement was correlated with students’ low achievement. Difference was not significant among the number of low achiever students in central and suburban schools but in private schools there were less low achiever students than in public schools which was mainly explained by the difference of socio-economic status of the families. The length of experience and holding professional certificates did not have influence on their self-efficacy. Class size did not matter with the number of low achiever students in the classroom. Georgian Social-economic and historical context and Educational politics was discussed in the context of the variables listed above. The researchers were advised to inquire low achievement and its factors since 2020-22 when the Government of Georgia will provide scientific data about teachers and students in Georgian schools

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