Culture and Subjective Well-Being by Edward Diener

Culture and Subjective Well-Being by Edward Diener

The question of what constitutes the good life has been pondered for millennia. Yet only in the last decades has the study of well-being become a scientific endeavor. This book is based on the idea that we can empirically study quality of life and make cross-society comparisons of subjective well-being (SWB).A potential problem in studying SWB across societies is that of cultural relativism: if societies have different values, the members of those societies will use different criteria in evaluating the success of their society. By examining, however, such aspects of SWB as whether people believe they are living correctly, whether they enjoy their lives, and whether others important to them believe they are living well, SWB can represent the degree to which people in a society are achieving the values they hold dear.

The contributors analyze SWB in relation to money, age, gender, democracy, and other factors. Among the interesting findings is that although wealthy nations are on average happier than poor ones, people do not get happier as a wealthy nation grows wealthier.

Diener, Edward: - Ed Diener, Alumni Professor of Psychology at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, is past president of the International Society of Quality of Life Studies and of the Society of Personality and Social Psychology. He is editor of the Journal of Happiness Studies.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780262041829
ISBN 10	0262041820
Title	Culture and Subjective Well-Being
Author	Edward Diener
Series	Well Being And Quality Of Life
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	MIT Press Ltd
Year published	2000-09-15
Number of pages	366
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.