Abstract
A survey of the cultural notions related to happiness and the existing empirical evidence indicate that some individuals endorse the belief that happiness, particularly an immoderate degree of it, should be avoided. These beliefs mainly involve the general notion that happiness may lead to bad things happening. Using multigroup confirmatory factor analysis and multilevel modeling, this study investigates the measurement invariance, cross-level isomorphism, predictive validity, and nomological network of the fear of happiness scale across 14 nations. The results show that this scale has good statistical properties at both individual and cultural levels. The findings also indicate that this scale has the potential to add to the knowledge about how people conceive of, and experience, happiness across cultures.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 246-264 |
Number of pages | 19 |
Journal | Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology |
Volume | 45 |
Issue number | 2 |
Early online date | 3 Oct 2013 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Feb 2014 |
Bibliographical note
The contribution of authors other than the corresponding author was equal, and thus the second to last names are ordered alphabetically.The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Ding-Yu Jiang has used the grant sponsored by National Science Council, Taiwan, ROC (NSC 100-2410-H-194-039-MY2.
Keywords
- fear of happiness
- subjective well-being
- happiness
- emotion
- cross-cultural
- religion