The purpose of this paper is to discuss how culture influences life satisfaction. This essay also aims to delimit the relationship between life satisfaction and cultural values, including family, work, religion, love, and respect. There is a shortage in research delineating the empirical role of culture. However, over the years, some scientists have attempted to deduce how critical elements of culture influence the perspective of people practicing those beliefs. Renowned Dutch Social Psychologist, Gerard Hendrik Hofstede, invented an experimental technique to construe the aspects of culture which impact people’s way of socializing in a specific cultural setting through social and educational processes, generating particular value sets. These work values are the elements that shape people’s anticipations, objectives, principles and eventually their conduct.

Impact of Culture on Life Satisfaction

Linking the theories of culture and life satisfaction necessitates a qualitative analysis of the two concepts. According to Zingales (2008), researcher/analyst attempting to ascertain the existence of this relationship must show a direct impact of culture on beliefs and preferences. Additionally, they must prove that these expectations and likings have a significant effect on the financial results. This paper applies this criterion to identify the cultural aspects which affect economic outcomes. To begin, some socio-psychological scientists reiterate that there exist certain socio-demographic forces which determines an individual’s degree of satisfaction. For instance, generally, women exhibit higher levels of happiness in life compared to men in both developed and less developed societies. However, this finding is not constant within conformist purview. The primary reason for this indifference is that men perform demanding tasks and are often under pressure to achieve, hence experience less happiness in life.

Moreover, studies show a man marrying is an indication that he is satisfied in life (Lange, T. (2010). In less developed countries, a man divorcing his wife show that his exhibit less life satisfaction. Still, such behavior may mirror the customary gender obligations. In both types of countries, the level of educational achievement has less impact on the degree of one’s life satisfaction. This finding is constant for women from both countries.

Conversely, Lange (2010) asserts that educational achievement has a significant impact on the level to which men in developed nations are satisfied. Moreover, an individual’s employment status is a factor which determines the level of one’s happiness in both societies, except for women in less developed countries. This disparity is a result of traditional gender roles. Also, income status determines the level of personal joy and contentment in life.

The Relationship between Life Satisfaction and Cultural Values

Research shows that there is a relationship between life satisfaction and cultural values. The essential cultural values which influence a person’s happiness include family, work, religion, love, and respect. Firstly, the effect of the significance of family is only statistically substantial and affirmative for developed nations. However, this is only true for women rather than men at the conventional level.

Moreover, research indicates that, in both developed and underdeveloped countries, a family is the primary source of happiness once a person becomes financially stable. Surprisingly, material worth does not have a significant influence on an individual’s level of life satisfaction. Besides, work is an essential cultural determinant of pleasure in being in both regions. Work is strong and confident for men and numerically inconsequential for women in both economies. Moreover, studies indicate that religion has a strong and positive relationship with life satisfaction for both men and women in underdeveloped nations. Studies show that religion acts as indemnification against adversarial life happenings or different individual statuses like joblessness, paucity, grief, and relationship issues.

Conversely, the influence of interpersonal trust on life contentment is strong and confident for all observations and across both genders only in advanced economies. Nevertheless, this conclusion is debatable because the findings represent the benefits of residing in a high-trust culture, and this means that the latter relates specifically to the established nations. Furthermore, the notion that levels of optimism are high in some countries while low in others have an indirect impact and may generate increased evaluations of trust and life satisfaction.

Conclusion

This essay attempted to delineate the link between life satisfaction and culture. According to this paper, there are proofs to show that cultural values have a significant impact on the level of life satisfaction. However, proving the relationship between these beliefs and the level of contentment in life is problematic. Therefore, it is essential that the researcher demonstrates the direct impact of culture on expectations and preferences based on surveys and empirical studies. There are some aspects of culture that determine how happy an individual is in life.  For example, the societal gender roles have a strong and positive impact on life expectations and preferences in both developed and less developed countries. Besides, in developed countries, marriage for men is associated with increased life satisfaction. On the contrary, in less developed countries, getting married is influenced by social demands such as pressure from parents or peer influence.

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