Multiple dimensions of the good life: introducing international and interdisciplinary perspectives

The question we posed for this special issue of The Journal of Positive Psychology, What makes for a good life?, is one that has exercised many of the greatest minds throughout human history. In the mid-1930s, when Abraham Maslow was beginning his academic career, he enjoyed intensive and fruitful professional contacts with prominent anthropologists from Columbia University: Ralph Linton, Ruth Benedict and others. Maslow attended lectures and seminars, discussed research and interdisciplinary perspectives and (he later referred to this as a kind of the transformative experiences) took part in summer anthropological field studies among Northern Blackfoot Indians in Alberta, Canada. What impressed him most and deeply influenced his way of thinking from then on was the lesson ‘that Indians are first of all people, individuals, human beings, and only secondarily Blackfoot Indians. By comparison with similarities, the differences, though undoubtedly there, seemed superficial’ (quoted in Hoffman, 1988, p. 111).

Every approach to human psychology, inasmuch as it does not reduce humans to organisms and takes specifically human acquisitions seriously, sooner or later faces the problem of universality vs. cultural-specificity of what it strives to study, and has to look critically upon its assumptions which were initially accepted as self-evident axioms. Positive psychology is not immune to this problem. It may reference the US declaration of independence, stating that the pursuit of happiness is the right of the Americans, but is this statement descriptive or prescriptive, an acknowledged truth about human nature or an ideological construction? In addition, is it about the nature of humankind or the nature of Americans? More than a century ago, Nietzsche criticized this idea of British utilitarian philosophy: ‘Humanity does not strive for happiness; only the English do’ (quoted in Belliotti, 2004, p. 56). He was wrong at least in his cross-cultural insight, for example, the data of Park et al. (2009) in this issue reveal that the inhabitants of the United Kingdom strive toward happiness to a lesser degree than most other nations. Nevertheless, the question Nietzsche posed remains relevant and every new generation of researchers has to look for the new ways to answer them.

Another issue that emerges as soon as we start speaking of cultural universality and variability is that of the interdisciplinary character of the problem of happiness. True, empirical psychology of the last 2–3 decades has contributed at least as much to our understanding of happiness as philosophy has during the preceding 2000 years (Diener, Suh, Luсas, & Smith, 1999). However, happiness and the good life at large cannot cease to be an interdisciplinary problem. We may speak not only of the philosophy and psychology of happiness, but also of its sociology, ethnology, anthropology, economics, history, geography, and linguistics, amongst others. Hence, the issue of the good life claims to transcend not only cultural and national borders, but also academic disciplinary borders.

In no way does this special issue claim to propose even tentative answers to the questions above; rather, its aim is to pose questions, to preach to be more considerate about the issue of universality vs. cultural-specificity of the variables with which we are dealing. Five papers that made the body of this issue deal with different variables: experiences, orientations toward happiness, self-conception, ideological constructs and word meanings. As we see from all the papers, the basic assumption of some universal transcultural mechanisms is in no way wrong; in all cases the authors reveal some common basis, invariant enough to provide at least.05% level of significance for their covariations. However, our expertise would be terribly impoverished if we skip over or minimize these differences, just like communist ideology that was based upon very decent values, just forcefully prescribed to everyone by its own very simplified model, in line with the sarcastic slogan by prominent writer Andrei Platonov: ‘With an iron hand to herd the humankind toward happiness,’ irrespective, we may argue, of what humankind itself wanted, or how it wanted to achieve it.

Recognizing this, we emphasize the importance of positive psychology research that is informed by different research methodologies (e.g., Ong & van Dulmen, 2006), located in different cultural contexts (e.g., Biswas-Diener & Diener, 2001), as well as informed by different theoretical and philosophical underpinnings (e.g., Fowers, 2008), such as those of Europe and the East. We salute the publication of positive psychology volumes in Spanish (Vázquez & Hervás, 2008) and Danish (Myszak & Nœrby, 2008), as well as planned volumes in French (Martin-Krumm & Tarquinio, in preparation) and in Arabic (Salama-Mounes & Delle Fave, in preparation). When we traverse these cultural frontiers, we very often find that there is much in positive psychology that has been learned before, and from which positive psychology can learn again, as Linley discovered when delivering an invited keynote at the first positive psychology conference to be organized in India (Linley, 2007; Rao, 2007).

For all of these reasons, we are proud to introduce this special issue on What Makes for a Good Life? International and Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Within it, we include five articles that offer a perspective on something of the vista of the way in which this question can be approached and addressed. In our first article, Anna Wierzbicka does so directly, examining the linguistics of the term ‘good life.’ Wierzbicka identifies that, in many languages, the very question of ‘What makes for a good life?’ can barely be translated, suggesting instead that the question of ‘How can one live well?’ better captures most cultural understandings of this intent, and yet, within Anglo cultures, such a question could often be considered overly moralistic.

Nansook Park and colleagues provide a wide-ranging analysis of orientations to happiness across 27 different nations, ranging from Austria to Singapore, and Norway to New Zealand. They found that across these 27 nations, three clusters emerged. Drawing from Greek mythology and the earlier works of American anthropologist Ruth Benedict and German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, they tentatively labelled these cultures Dionysian (defined by relatively high orientations to pleasure and engagement) and Apollonian (defined by relatively high orientations to engagement and meaning). A third cluster was tentatively labelled Nemesian (defined by relatively low orientation to happiness across all areas), reflecting the Greek goddess Nemesis, amongst whose roles was to ensure moderation in all things, including happiness. Through Park's paper, we are introduced to an intriguing melding of modern social science with ancient mythology, 19th century philosophy, and 20th century anthropology, a truly exciting combination that speaks to the integration that is craved by the question of ‘What makes for a good life?’

Again looking at well-being across differing cultural contexts, Antonella Delle Fave and Marta Bassi explore optimal experience in the lives of cultural immigrants to Italy. They found that all immigrants had optimal experiences to a greater or lesser degree, but that the factors shaping those optimal experiences varied, being primarily productive work, social relations, or hobbies. A variety of factors contributed to the presence of optimal experience, including family relations, cultural affinity with Italy, geographical proximity to Italy, and the nature of work in which one was employed. Work that allowed the development of professional, relational or cultural competence and connections, such as that enjoyed typically by Indians and Eastern Europeans, was associated with higher levels of optimal experience. In contrast, African immigrants, who typically had more unstable employments that restricted their development of these competences and connections, reported lower levels of optimal experience. This study provides important insights and recommendations for the optimal integration of cultural immigrants into a society, in a way that would be more effective in ensuring the well-being and optimal functioning of all of that society's members.

Exploring the impact of self-concept on well-being in China, Russia, and the United States, Martin Lynch and colleagues found that individuals with a lower discrepancy between their actual and ideal self-concept report higher levels of well-being, a finding that is consistent across these three different nations. Further, they established that individuals’ actual self-concept is closer to their ideal self-concept when they have the experience of autonomy supportive partners. Although this finding was weaker for Chinese participants relative to those in Russia and the United States, the direction of findings was still consistent across the three nations. This suggests that being closer to one's ideal self, and having an autonomy-supportive partner, was consistent across cultures, irrespective of whether autonomy may be considered to be valued explicitly in that culture. This finding speaks to a more universal conceptualization of some of the psychological factors that may make for a good life.

Drawing the special issue to a close with a further linguistic analysis, Hilde Nafstad and colleagues (2009) longitudinally compare and contrast language use in the newspaper media of Norway and Ghana, finding that, through the process of globalization and increased consumerism, the use of words signifying individualism increases markedly in both cultures. In Ghana relative to Norway, however, the use of words signifying communal values increases markedly as well, as does the use of the words ‘equality’ and ‘justice,’ whereas in Norway, these usages decline. The authors conclude that these differing patterns and trends of language use reflect the different ways in which the forces of globalization and consumerism interact with existing local cultures, thereby shaping unique socio-linguistic experiences that impact on the well-being of the members of those societies.

Overall, we hope that the articles included in this special issue have provided something of a flavour of what positive psychology can bring to answering the question of ‘What makes for a good life?,’ while also recognizing that no single discipline, let alone a single approach within a discipline, has the exclusive licence or absolute truth on this big question of human existence. Indeed, we extend and repeat the call of the introductory article of this Journal (Linley, Joseph, Harrington, & Wood, 2006), that positive psychology can make its greatest contributions through its integration and dissemination with many other disciplines concerned with the big questions of human existence. It is only through doing so that we might hope to arrive at answers that will stand the test of both time and culture.