Perceiving societal pressure to be happy is linked to poor well-being, especially in happy nations

Dejonckheere E 1 , Rhee JJ 2 , Baguma PK 3 , Barry O 4 , Becker M 5 , Bilewicz M 6 Show all authors , Castelain T 7 , Costantini G 8 , Dimdins G 9 , Espinosa A 10 , Finchilescu G 11 , Friese M 12 , Gastardo-Conaco MC 13 , Gómez A 14 , González R 15 , Goto N 16 , Halama P 17 , Hurtado-Parrado C 18 , Jiga-Boy GM 19 , Karl JA 20 , Novak L 21 , Ausmees L 22 , Loughnan S 23 , Mastor KA 24 , McLatchie N 25 , Onyishi IE 26 , Rizwan M 27 , Schaller M 28 , Serafimovska E 29 , Suh EM 30 , Swann WB 31 , Tong EMW 32 , Torres A 33 , Turner RN 34 , Vinogradov A 35 , Wang Z 36 , Yeung VW 37 , Amiot CE 38 , Boonyasiriwat W 39 , Peker M 40 , Van Lange PAM 41 , Vauclair CM 42 , Kuppens P 43 , Bastian B 2

Affiliations 

  • 1 Department of Medical and Clinical Psychology, Tilburg University, Warandelaan 2, 5037, AB Tilburg, The Netherlands. E.H.Dejonckheere@tilburguniversity.edu
  • 2 Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
  • 3 School of Psychology, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda
  • 4 Department of Psychology, University Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar, Senegal
  • 5 CLLE, Université de Toulouse, CNRS, Toulouse, France
  • 6 Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw, Warszawa, Poland
  • 7 Instituto de Investigaciones Psicológicas, Universidad de Costa Rica, San Pedro Montes de Oca, Costa Rica
  • 8 Department of Psychology, University of Milan-Bicocca, Milan, Italy
  • 9 Department of Psychology, University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia
  • 10 Department of Psychology, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima, Peru
  • 11 Department of Psychology, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
  • 12 Department of Psychology, Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany
  • 13 Department of Psychology, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Philippines
  • 14 Department of Social and Organizational Psychology, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Madrid, Spain
  • 15 Escuela de Psicología, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile
  • 16 Department of Psychology, Kyoto Notre Dame University, Kyoto, Japan
  • 17 Center of Social and Psychological Sciences, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia
  • 18 Department of Psychology, Konrad Lorenz University and Troy University, Bogotá, Colombia
  • 19 School of Psychology, Swansea University, Swansea, UK
  • 20 School of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand
  • 21 Department of Psychology, University of Illinois, Chicago, USA
  • 22 Institute of Psychology, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia
  • 23 Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
  • 24 School of Liberal Studies, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Malaysia
  • 25 Psychology Department, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
  • 26 Department of Psychology, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria
  • 27 Department of Psychology, University of Haripur, Haripur, KPK, Pakistan
  • 28 Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
  • 29 Institute for Sociological, Political and Juridical Research, University of Ss Cyril and Methodius, Skopje, North Macedonia
  • 30 Department of Psychology, Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea
  • 31 Department of Psychology, University of Texas, Austin, USA
  • 32 Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
  • 33 Department of Psychology, Federal University of Paraíba, Paraíba, Brazil
  • 34 School of Psychology, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, UK
  • 35 Department of Psychology, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Kyiv, Ukraine
  • 36 School of Social Development and Public Policy, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
  • 37 Department of Applied Psychology, Lingnan University, Tuen Mun, Hong Kong
  • 38 Department of Psychology, Université du Québec À Montréal, Montreal, Canada
  • 39 Faculty of Psychology, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand
  • 40 Department of Psychology, MEF University, Istanbul, Turkey
  • 41 Department of Experimental and Applied Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  • 42 Centre for Psychological Research and Social Intervention, Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), CIS-IUL, Lisboa, Portugal
  • 43 Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, KU Leuven, Tiensestraat 102, Leuven, Belgium
Sci Rep, 2022 02 17;12(1):1514.
PMID: 35177625 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-04262-z

Abstract

Happiness is a valuable experience, and societies want their citizens to be happy. Although this societal commitment seems laudable, overly emphasizing positivity (versus negativity) may create an unattainable emotion norm that ironically compromises individual well-being. In this multi-national study (40 countries; 7443 participants), we investigate how societal pressure to be happy and not sad predicts emotional, cognitive and clinical indicators of well-being around the world, and examine how these relations differ as a function of countries' national happiness levels (collected from the World Happiness Report). Although detrimental well-being associations manifest for an average country, the strength of these relations varies across countries. People's felt societal pressure to be happy and not sad is particularly linked to poor well-being in countries with a higher World Happiness Index. Although the cross-sectional nature of our work prohibits causal conclusions, our findings highlight the correlational link between social emotion valuation and individual well-being, and suggest that high national happiness levels may have downsides for some.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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