Close Relationships and Happiness across Cultures

219 Pages·2018·2.91 MB·English

by  Melikşah Demir

Cross-Cultural Advancements in Positive Psychology 13
Series Editor: Antonella Delle Fave
Melikşah Demir · Nebi Sümer Editors
Close
Relationships
and Happiness
across Cultures
Cross-Cultural Advancements in Positive
Psychology
Volume 13
Series editor
Antonella Delle Fave, Università degli studi di Milano, Italy
Editorial board
Martin E.P. Seligman, Positive Psychology Center, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Quality of Life Research Center, Claremont Graduate
University, USA
Barbara L. Fredrickson, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
Alan Waterman, The College of New Jersey, USA
Robert A. Emmons, University of California, Davis, USA
The aim of the Cross Cultural Advancements in Positive Psychology book series is
to spread a universal and culture-fair perspective on good life promotion. The series
will advance a deeper understanding of the cross-cultural differences in well-being
conceptualization. A deeper understanding can affect psychological theories,
interventions and social policies in various domains, from health to education, from
work to leisure. Books in the series will investigate such issues as enhanced mobility
of people across nations, ethnic conflicts and the challenges faced by traditional
communities due to the pervasive spreading of modernization trends. New
instruments and models will be proposed to identify the crucial components of well-
being in the process of acculturation. This series will also explore dimensions and
components of happiness that are currently overlooked because happiness research
is grounded in the Western tradition, and these dimensions do not belong to the
Western cultural frame of mind and values.
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/8420
Melikşah Demir • Nebi Sümer
Editors
Close Relationships and
Happiness across Cultures
Editors
Melikşah Demir Nebi Sümer
Department of Psychological Sciences Department of Psychology
Northern Arizona University Middle East Technical University
Flagstaff, AZ, USA Ankara, Turkey
ISSN 2210-5417 ISSN 2210-5425 (electronic)
Cross-Cultural Advancements in Positive Psychology
ISBN 978-3-319-89661-8 ISBN 978-3-319-89663-2 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89663-2
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018949642
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Preface
Relationships matter. Individuals maintain multiple close relationships and believe
that these interpersonal bonds make meaningful contributions to their lives. The
recently publicized results of Harvard University’s 80-year study on adult develop-
ment demonstrate that close relationships are an asset to physical and mental health
throughout an individual’s lifetime (Waldinger, 2017; http://robertwaldinger.com).
Specifically, the study provides evidence that regardless of economic conditions or
other hardships, those with close and stable partners, family members, and friends
on whom they can depend live longer and are happier. Recent empirical work and
meta-analyses have also demonstrated that having supportive and responsive com-
panions is the main source of physical and mental health in all cultures (Holt-
Lunstad, Smith & Layton, 2010; Loving & Slatcher, 2013, Simpson & Campbell,
2013; Slatcher & Selcuk, 2017). Yet, the pattern, intensity, and frequency of rela-
tionships vary across cultures.
In recent decades, many scholars from diverse disciplines have shifted their
attention to analyzing the dynamics of happiness without a specific emphasis on
close relationships. This endeavor has evolved into a well-established interdisciplin-
ary science (Veenhoven, 2009). Numerous comparative studies and surveys have
ranked the happiness of nations by documenting socio-demographic, economic, and
political factors that promote or erode happiness. Despite not being linearly linked
to national wealth, happiness is shown to be a powerful economic and political
indicator. Several Latin American countries, for instance, are ranked among the
happiest in many surveys. One example of this can be found in the World Happiness
Report, which is the most common ranking of happiness since 2012 and lists Costa
Rica as the 12th happiest country between 2014 and 2016 (the World Happiness
Report, 2017). Despite not being as economically well off as other countries with
lower rankings, such as the United States, the country has maintained its high rank
for three consecutive years. In interpreting these results, many have posited that
indicators like GDP and purchasing power parity might not be accurate reflections
of a country’s quality of life. Rather, it is speculated that social relationships and
familial bonds are a primary source of happiness.
v
vi Preface
In the broader field of psychology, the study of close relationships has been a
harbinger of the newly formed field of relationship science (Berscheid, 1999),
which in time has become a multidisciplinary pursuit. The study of relationships is
now in the ripening stage (Reis, 2007), and thus its core principles are being identi-
fied (Finkel, Simpson, & Easwick, 2017). A well-established finding in the exten-
sive literature is that close relationships are robust markers of individual happiness.
However, as is the case for psychological research in general, what we know about
close relationships and their role in well-being is limited primarily to studies con-
ducted in North America and Europe. A growing number of scholars have recently
begun to examine the cultural aspects of the link between close relationships and
happiness by proposing novel and/or idiosyncratic conceptualizations. Also, a sub-
stantial portion of these empirical investigations focuses exclusively on romantic
relationships, thus creating a need to focus on other close relationships that people
maintain. In an attempt to address these issues, we compiled some of these scattered
but influential studies and approaches in a comprehensive book. In searching the
relational sources of happiness across cultures, we invited well-known scholars
from different cultures to bring their unique perspectives and report the most salient
aspect of various close relationships relating to happiness in their cultural context.
This volume brings together experts from five continents (31 contributors from
10 countries) and presents reviews and empirical studies of multiple close relation-
ships and their associations with mental well-being and happiness. Collectively, the
chapters in this volume focus on parent-child relationships, marital relationships,
friendships, and relationships with relatives such as grandparents. In addition to
reviews of the current literature, the empirical studies included in this volume relied
on multiple methods (e.g., longitudinal, dyadic) and investigated various aspects of
relationships (e.g., satisfaction, overall quality, forgiveness) when investigating the
close relationship-happiness association in different cultures.
There are twelve chapters in this volume. The first six of them provide up-to-date
reviews of the literature, each of which focuses on different types of relationships.
In Chap. 1, Selcuk, Karagobek, and Gunaydin provide a review of perceived respon-
siveness, a core organizing principle of relationship science, and its association with
happiness. The authors also include several potential avenues for future research. In
Chap. 2, Hitokoto and Uchida present a review of interdependent happiness, which
is relationship-oriented happiness in interdependent cultural contexts. Their review
highlights cultural differences within this new construct and emphasizes the utility
of interdependent happiness in understanding culturally diverse types of happiness.
In Chap. 3, Ramsey, Moran, Pubal, and Gentzler review the literature on parent-
child relationships and happiness across cultures. They focus on parenting practices
and how they are associated with happiness across the lifespan in individualistic and
collectivistic cultures. In Chap. 4, Fok and Cheng present a review of the Asian lit-
erature on intimate relationships and happiness. The authors conclude that the asso-
ciation between relationship quality and happiness in Asian cultures is similar to
that which exists in Western cultures. In Chap. 5, Garcia, Pereira, and
Bucher-M aluschke provide a comprehensive review of studies on the association of
close relationships with happiness in South America. The authors suggest that it is
Preface vii
necessary to comprehend the unique nature of Latin America in order to understand
the association between close relationships and happiness. Finally, in Chap. 6,
Taubman- Ben- Ari, Shlomo, and Findler review the literature on the well-being of
grandparents. They highlight how grandparenting and transition to grandparent-
hood make a difference in the happiness of people across cultures.
The latter six chapters are empirical studies that focus on different aspects of
various types of close relationships and investigate their role in the mental well-
being and happiness of emerging, young, and middle-aged adults (N = 8186) in
seven countries (Angola, Germany, Greece, Rwanda, Taiwan, Turkey, and the
United States of America). In Chap. 7, Demir, Vento, Boyd, and Hanks investigate
the significance of relationships with primary kin, collateral kin, and voluntary
bonds to the happiness of single and dating emerging adults in the United States.
The authors report that relationships with mothers and same-sex friends are consis-
tent predictors of happiness in both groups. In Chap. 8, Landberg and Recksiedler
longitudinally investigate the impact of recession on the social networks and happi-
ness of German emerging adults. They report that worries about the economy, espe-
cially during the recession, were associated with having fewer close friends, which
in turn predicted lower levels of happiness. In Chap. 9, Yan and Chen examine the
roles of two types of filial piety, reciprocal and authoritarian, in the life satisfaction
of emerging adults in Taiwan. The authors report that self-esteem mediated the
associations of both types of filial piety with happiness. In Chap. 10, Sümer and
Yetkili examine the role of attachment anxiety and avoidance in predicting life sat-
isfaction from a cultural perspective. Across two studies, the authors report that
attachment avoidance rather than attachment anxiety negatively predicts happiness
among married couples in Turkey. The study also states that, in contrast to Turkey,
attachment anxiety is a major contributor of unhappiness in the United States. This
distinction signifies a critical cultural difference. In Chap. 11, Mukashema, Bugay,
and Mullet investigate how idiosyncratic ways of reconciliation and forgiveness in
interpersonal relationships in Rwanda and Angola can be the source of long-lasting
peace and happiness after a catastrophic genocide experience. The authors demon-
strate that culturally relevant reconciliation sentiments and unconditional forgiving-
ness are the strongest sources of well-being and happiness. Finally, in Chap. 12,
Kafetsios examine how partners’ independent and interdependent self-construals
relate to well-being in dyadic interactions in Greece. He demonstrates that spouses’
life satisfaction is positively associated with their own interdependent self-construal
but is negatively related to partners’ independent self-construal, implying that rela-
tionship context is deeply influenced by culturally shaped self-contruals in the col-
lectivist Greek cultural context.
This preface would not be complete without acknowledging the gratitude and
appreciation we have for the relationships we have maintained throughout the final-
ization of this volume. The authors are grateful for the unwavering support of Esther
Otten and Hendrikje Tuerlings, who made this book possible. We also extend our
thanks to all of our contributors. Their professionalism, collegiality, and
responsiveness to our comments made this journey a memorable one. Finally, the
first editor (M.D.) dedicates this book to his family (Sahar Razavi and Evren Razavi
viii Preface
Demir) for being his everyday reminders of why relationships matter; to Edward
Snowden, for whom relationships and the privacy in which they occur are vital; and
to Rose Sydeman, for whom friendships always mattered. The second editor (N.S.)
dedicates this book to his loved ones (Canan Sümer and Çınar Efe Sümer).
We are proud of the chapters in this volume. They represent not only top-notch
reviews of the field but also present novel findings on multiple relationship types in
different cultures. We believe the contents of this book are a valuable resource for
those interested in learning more about how and why relationships matter for indi-
vidual happiness across cultures.
Flagstaff, AZ, USA Melikşah Demir
Ankara, Turkey Nebi Sümer
Contents
1 Responsiveness as a Key Predictor of Happiness:
Mechanisms and Unanswered Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Emre Selcuk, Ayse Busra Karagobek, and Gul Gunaydin
2 Interdependent Happiness: Progress and Implications . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Hidefumi Hitokoto and Yukiko Uchida
3 Parent-Child Relationships and Happiness Across Cultures . . . . . . . 41
Meagan A. Ramsey, Karena M. Moran, Angela G. Pubal,
and Amy L. Gentzler
4 Intimate Relationships and Happiness in Asia: A Critical Review . . 55
Hung-Kit Fok and Sheung-Tak Cheng
5 Close Relationships and Happiness in South America . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Agnaldo Garcia, Fábio Nogueira Pereira,
and Julia S.N.F. Bucher-Maluschke
6 The Transition to Grandparenthood: A Chance to Promote
Well-Being and Personal Growth in Later Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Orit Taubman – Ben-Ari, Shirley Ben Shlomo, and Liora Findler
7 My Relationships Are My Estate: Relationships with Kin
and Voluntary Bonds as Predictors of Happiness
Among Emerging Adults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Melikşah Demir, IsaBella Vento, Rielly Boyd, and Erin Hanks
8 Number of Close Friends and Their Links to Life Satisfaction
Over the Great Recession in Germany . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Monique Landberg and Claudia Recksiedler
9 The Relationships between Filial Piety, Self- Esteem,
and Life Satisfaction Among Emerging Adults in Taiwan . . . . . . . . . 151
Jinjin Yan and Wei-Wen Chen
ix