“Happiness maximization,” when people idealize attaining maximum levels of happiness, is not universal.

Possible explanations stem from benign ecological and geographic habitats of WEIRD cultures.

For many cultures, there’s more to a good life than pursuing happiness, including harmony and spirituality.

It’s difficult to find a universal recipe for human flourishing, as much depends on context in which we live.

Have you ever considered why we want to be happy?

Is it because happiness feels so good?

Because science keeps revealing its wealth of benefits?

Or perhaps because we are convinced that happiness is the paramount variable in a good life; the sine qua non of making the most of the time we’ve been given; the fairy godmother whose presence, we presume, will cast a veil of satisfaction over everything else?

The pursuit of happiness has become such a prevalent undertaking for our species that we are inclined to do just about anything to experience it, to optimize it, to keep it.

We take this insatiable thirst for being happy for granted, assuming that everyone else shares the same longing. But thanks to the ever-complex interplay of biology and environment, this may not be the case. For instance, our cultural backgrounds play a powerful role in shaping our emotional lives. This includes our ideal affect—the desired emotional states that we strive for in our day-to-day lives, whether consciously or unconsciously.

A recent large-scale study involving data from 61 countries suggests that happiness maximization—when people idealize attaining the highest level of happiness—is not universal. Instead, it is a more prevalent attribute of individuals from WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic) cultures. According to the study, for the vast percentage of participants from Germany (86 percent) and Iceland (84 percent), an ideal level of happiness is being at least “very........

© Psychology Today