A cross-cultural experimental approach to the contribution of health, religion and personal relations in well-being judgments

Peter Theuns, Barbara Baran, Greet Hellenbosch, Valerie Möller, Habib Tiliouine

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    Abstract

    A major problem in cross-cultural research on quality of life concerns the fundamental incomparability of subjective wellbeing judgments across cultural groups. This incomparability results from an identification problem: cultural groups most likely differ in both objective achievements in different life domains, as well as in the appraisal thereof. Even if the same life domains contribute to well-being, similar levels of satisfaction in these life domains can have greatly different contents and objective fullfillment across cultural groups. For example, owning a motorbike may yield a similar level of subjective satisfaction with standard of living in the one cultural context, as would a car in some other.
    Information Integration Theory (Anderson, 1981) provides a framework that allows to better understand the composition of the concept of satisfaction with life as a whole across culturally different groups. In three web-based experiments, using Percentile Stimulus Metrics, it was studied how students in Algeria, Belgium, Poland and South Africa integrate information on various life domains into a judgment of satisfaction with life as a whole. It was found that different integration models coexist in the four studied groups, and that the prevalence of these strategies differs across groups.
    It is concluded that cross cultural differences in well-being judgments occur as different distributions of the same integration strategies across cultures.
    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationUnknown
    Publication statusPublished - 2 Nov 2012
    EventUnknown -
    Duration: 2 Nov 2012 → …

    Conference

    ConferenceUnknown
    Period2/11/12 → …

    Keywords

    • Quality of Life
    • Functional Measurement
    • Cross-cultural comparison

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