Journal of Experimental Psychology: General Culture Shapes Whether the Pursuit of Happiness Predicts Higher or Lower Well-Being

Pursuing happiness can paradoxically impair well-being. Here, the authors propose the potential down-sides to pursuing happiness may be specific to individualistic cultures. In collectivistic (vs. individual-istic) cultures, pursuing happiness may be more successful because happiness is viewed—and thus pursued—in relatively socially engaged ways. In 4 geographical regions that vary in level of collectivism (United States, Germany, Russia, East Asia), we assessed participants' well-being, motivation to pursue happiness, and to what extent they pursued happiness in socially engaged ways. Motivation to pursue happiness predicted lower well-being in the United States, did not predict well-being in Germany, and predicted higher well-being in Russia and in East Asia. These cultural differences in the link between motivation to pursue happiness and well-being were explained by cultural differences in the socially engaged pursuit of happiness. These findings suggest that culture shapes whether the pursuit of happiness is linked with better or worse well-being, perhaps via how people pursue happiness. Do people want to feel happy? In short, yes. Resonating with both laypeople and scientists, the Dalai Lama posited, " the very purpose of our existence is to seek happiness " 1 indicates that pursuing happiness can at times impair well-being Thus, these key questions remain: when is the pursuit of happiness likely to be associated with more or—paradoxically— less actual happiness and well-being? And what might make it so? We propose that the downsides to pursuing happiness may be specific to individualistic cultures like the United States—where this research has primarily been conducted—and that these down-sides may be due to how individuals in the United States tend to pursue happiness. People in other cultures may experience greater well-being the more they pursue happiness because they may pursue happiness in more (vs. less) socially engaged ways (e.g., being more vs. less likely to seek happiness through spending time with family and friends or helping others). Because social connection is one of the most robust predictors of well-being (Helliwell & Putnam, 2004), the pursuit of happiness may yield higher well-being in cultures that promote a socially engaged pursuit of happiness. We tested this hypothesis in four geographic regions that differ in their emphasis on social engagement (Varnum, Gross-Despite the ubiquity of pursuing happiness (Diener et al., 1998), recent research suggests a surprising paradoxical effect: people who are more motivated to pursue happiness can be less likely to experience positive outcomes (see Ford & Mauss, 2014, for a …