SOC SCI H1E Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Gender Equality, Positive Psychology, Egalitarianism
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Easterlin - within a society, the richest tend to be the happiest, across societies, there are no significant happiness differences - supports comparison views of happiness. Veenhoven - various happiness is relative theses have been overstated, argues that it is less clearly relative (in wealthy societies, the top and bottom are closer in happiness, wealthy nations are happier, etc) Schyns - argues that wealthy nations are happier (linearly), culture (meaning freedom) also correlates with happiness, but only in wealthier nations. Look at richer data and find cultural differences where egalitarianism mattered most: cultures with less power differences and higher gender egalitarianism were found to have higher correlations to happiness. Kitayama - different cultures have different models of happiness and wellness (implying that cross cultural comparisons based on surveys may miss important phenomena) A hallmark of science is replicability, but this is not happening here. The problem might be operationalizing well-being, this is really a hard thing to do.
