Pancultural explanations for life satisfaction: Adding relationship harmony to self-esteem

Virginia S.Y. Kwan, Michael Harris Bond, Theodore M. Singelis

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

642 Scopus citations

Abstract

The first part of the study confirmed an additive effect of the newly proposed construct of relationship harmony to self-esteem in predicting life satisfaction across student samples from the United States and Hong Kong. As predicted from the dynamics of cultural collectivism, the relative importance of relationship harmony to self-esteem was greater in Hong Kong than in the United States. In the second part of the study, the independent and interdependent self-construals (H. R. Markus & S. Kitayama, 1991) and the 5 factors of personality (P. T. Costa & R. R. McCrae, 1992) were advanced to be the culture-general determinants of life satisfaction, acting through the mediating variables of self-esteem and relationship harmony. Both self-construals and the 5 factors of personality were shown to influence life satisfaction through the mediating agency of self-esteem and relationship harmony in equivalent ways across these 2 cultural groups.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1038-1051
Number of pages14
JournalJournal of Personality and Social Psychology
Volume73
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 1997
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Social Psychology
  • Sociology and Political Science

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