Abstract :
How do contemporary publics understand happiness? What makes them
experience it? Do conceptions and sources of their happiness vary across culturally
different societies? This paper addresses these questions, utilizing the 2008 round of
the AsiaBarometer surveys conducted in six countries scattered over four different
continents. Analyses of these surveys, conducted in Japan, China, and India from the
East; and the United States, Russia, and Australia from the West, reveal a number of
interesting cross-cultural differences and similarities in the way the people of the East
and West understand and experience happiness. Specifically, the former are much less
multidimensional than the latter in their conceptions of happiness. Yet, they are alike
in that their sense of relative achievement or deprivation is the most pervasive and
powerful influence on happiness.
