Do You Value More: Your Own Happiness or that of your family?

A recent research looks at 49 civilizations’ views on happiness in the individual and the family.

Does the need for happiness outweigh all other considerations? Everywhere, people place a higher priority on family satisfaction than on personal happiness. And when we realise that someone is family for life, we care about them the most.

We make the most significant choices in life to maximize our enjoyment. We select a career or marry someone because we think they will make us happy.

Daily decisions aim to increase joy, like enjoying coffee at a café, dining with friends, or watching “Ted Lasso.”

Behavioral scientists call the desire for happiness “the ultimate dependent variable” due to its strong, pervasive influence. There is nothing more significant in a psychological sense.

But is it actually the case? Does the need for happiness outweigh all other considerations? Or is the happiness of one’s family a more significant type of happiness?

Studies of Personal and Family Happiness That Cross National Borders

A global team of academics revealed a shocking finding two years ago. In Canada, Colombia, Japan, and Poland, many college students preferred family happiness over their own, according to Krys et al. The discovery was surprising as all four nations, including individualistic Canada, showed a preference for family happiness.

Researchers led by Kuba Krys found that everyone values family happiness more than personal pleasure.

Krys and his associates carried out a second investigation to examine the generalizability of their findings. Researchers polled more than 12,000 people from 49 nations across six continents. The majority of participants (83%) were college students, with an average age of 25.

The participants responded to a series of inquiries meant to gauge their opinions on

• the significance of one’s own happiness

• the significance of happy families

Their replies provide convincing proof that people value family happiness more than personal happiness globally (Krys et al., 2023).

In 48 of the 49 nations under investigation, both men and women agreed that their families’ happiness and well-being came before their own. Despite the little change, it was statistically significant. Furthermore, the importance of family happiness was observed in both highly individualistic nations like Australia and the United States as well as in collectivistic societies like Nigeria and Taiwan.

Relational Mobility’s Function

Following a careful analysis of their data, Krys’s team discovered one factor—relational mobility—that could accurately predict how much respondents preferred family satisfaction over personal pleasure.

Relational mobility (RM) refers to how easily people in a community can establish or break interpersonal ties. People have very few friends in low RM civilizations, such as those in East Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, yet these bonds are strong and difficult to break. Relationships can form and end swiftly in high RM civilizations, such as those in North America, Western Europe, and Latin America, for instance. People are more likely to make new families, leave behind existing families, and make new acquaintances (Thomson et al., 2018).

The relevance of family satisfaction was shown to have a relatively substantial inverse connection (r = -0.44) with relational mobility. According to their research, people in countries with low RM placed a higher priority on family than they did on personal satisfaction. It makes sense that way. We value family most when we are certain that they will always be a part of our lives and won’t be easily replaced or abandoned.

The results of this extensive cross-national study may lead behavioural scientists to reevaluate their earlier assertion that personal happiness is the ultimate dependent variable, despite the usual limitations—non representative samples and the potential for socially desirable responses, both of which Krys and his colleagues acknowledge. It seems that family happiness is much more important.