Department of Applied Social Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hunghom, Hong Kong.
Department of Marketing, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, New Territories, Hong Kong.
Int J Psychol. 2021 Feb;56(1):75-84. doi: 10.1002/ijop.12696. Epub 2020 Jun 28.
Previous research has found cross-national variations in the association between search for meaning in life (SMIL) and well-being (i.e. SMIL-WB link). This study extended and tested a "self-improvement hypothesis" that accounts for such cross-national variations based on an international database-the sixth wave of World Values Survey. SMIL represents a self-improvement effort which is more demanded in contexts with stronger external constraints. Thus, we expected a stronger positive SMIL-WB link in such contexts. A series of multilevel analyses was used to verify this hypothesis. The results showed that the SMIL-WB link varied across different societies, with well-being indexed by happiness, life satisfaction and subjective health. Moreover, external constraints from cultural, social-institutional, economic and ecological contexts (collectivism, peace threats, economic scarcity and environmental threats) moderated the SMIL-WB links. We thus call for advancing SMIL theory by considering person-context interaction.
先前的研究发现，生活意义寻求（SMIL）与幸福感之间的关联在跨国层面存在差异（即 SMIL-WB 关联）。本研究基于一个国际数据库——第六波世界价值观调查，扩展并检验了一个“自我提升假说”，以解释这种跨国差异。SMIL 代表一种自我提升的努力，在外部约束较强的环境中需求更大。因此，我们预计在这种情况下，SMIL-WB 关联会更强。我们使用一系列多层次分析来验证这一假设。结果表明，SMIL-WB 关联在不同的社会中存在差异，幸福感由快乐、生活满意度和主观健康来衡量。此外，文化、社会制度、经济和生态背景（集体主义、和平威胁、经济匮乏和环境威胁）的外部约束调节了 SMIL-WB 关联。因此，我们呼吁通过考虑人与环境的相互作用来推进 SMIL 理论。
