Psychological science tends to treat subjective well-being and happiness synonymously. We start from the assumption that subjective well-being is more than being happy to ask the fundamental question: What is the ideal level of happiness? From a cross-cultural perspective, we propose that the idealization of attaining maximum levels of happiness may be especially characteristic of Western, educated, industrial, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) societies but less so for others. Searching for an explanation for why “happiness maximization” might have emerged in these societies, we turn to studies linking cultures to their eco-environmental habitat. We discuss the premise that WEIRD cultures emerged in an exceptionally benign ecological habitat (i.e., faced relatively light existential pressures compared with other regions). We review the influence of the Gulf Stream on the Northwestern European climate as a source of these comparatively benign geographical conditions. We propose that the ecological conditions in which WEIRD societies emerged afforded them a basis to endorse happiness as a value and to idealize attaining its maximum level. To provide a nomological network for happiness maximization, we also studied some of its potential side effects, namely alcohol and drug consumption and abuse and the prevalence of mania. To evaluate our hypothesis, we reanalyze data from two large-scale studies on ideal levels of personal life satisfaction—the most common operationalization of happiness in psychology—involving respondents from 61 countries. We conclude that societies whose members seek to maximize happiness tend to be characterized as WEIRD, and generalizing this across societies can prove problematic if adopted at the ideological and policy level.

中文翻译：

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幸福最大化是一种奇怪的生活方式


心理科学倾向于将主观幸福感和幸福视为同义词。我们从主观幸福感不仅仅是幸福的假设出发，提出了一个基本问题：理想的幸福水平是多少？从跨文化的角度来看，我们认为，获得最高幸福水平的理想化可能是西方、受过教育、工业、富裕和民主（怪异）社会的特有特征，但对于其他社会来说则不然。为了寻找为什么“幸福最大化”可能在这些社会中出现的解释，我们转向将文化与其生态环境栖息地联系起来的研究。我们讨论的前提是怪异文化出现在异常良性的生态栖息地（即与其他地区相比，面临相对较轻的生存压力）。我们回顾了墨西哥湾流对欧洲西北部气候的影响，将其视为这些相对良好的地理条件的来源。我们认为，怪异社会出现的生态条件为他们提供了认可幸福作为一种价值并理想化达到其最高水平的基础。为了提供幸福最大化的法则网络，我们还研究了它的一些潜在副作用，即酒精和毒品的消费和滥用以及躁狂症的流行。为了评估我们的假设，我们重新分析了两项关于个人生活满意度理想水平（心理学中幸福的最常见操作化）的大规模研究的数据，涉及来自 61 个国家的受访者。我们的结论是，其成员追求幸福最大化的社会往往被认为是“怪异”的，如果在意识形态和政策层面上采用这一点，那么在整个社会中推广这一点可能会出现问题。