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The "Efficiency" Effect of Conceptual Referents on the Generation of Happiness: A Cross-National Analysis

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Abstract

This paper analyses how different definitions of happiness affect the individual assessment of subjective wellbeing. Bearing in mind the production theory, we study the impact of definitions of happiness on how efficiently a set of determinants are used and converted into happiness. From a theoretical point of view, we discuss the role of the Conceptual Referent Theory within the affective-cognitive process of personal evaluation of happiness. We use data from the Understanding High Happiness in Latin America survey (2018), which includes a sample of people from Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico and the USA, to investigate how happiness conceptual referents influence personal assessment using Stochastic Frontier Analysis. This method permits to assess the impact of different definitions of happiness on how a set of standard drivers like income and social relations are used and converted into perceived happiness. To this end, conceptual referents for happiness are treated as (in)efficiency factors. This study shows that the concept of happiness shapes how individuals value the same inputs. “Stoicism”, “virtue” and “enjoyment” emerge as the most efficient referents. Also, we observe that cross-country differences in the level of perceived happiness are associated with differences in the prevalence of conceptual referents. In the USA, where less efficient definitions prevail, people report lower levels of happiness.

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Fig. 1

Source: Own elaboration based on Veenhoven (2009)

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Notes

  1. This approach has an interesting parallel with Fredrickson's Broaden and Build Theory (2004). Happiness is not the result of pure calculus, but it is inferred from the continuity of daily experiences, that is, it is a heuristic of personal experiences (Schwartz and Strack 1991). While positive experiences broaden personal capabilities and exploratory behaviour, negative emotions are related to attitudes of survival. Happy people are those who feel good most of the time. Thus, the frequency of positive affective states, rather than the intensity, is the critical determinant (Diener et al. 1991). However, positive emotions are transient and subdue individuals to the hedonic treadmill. The achievement of life satisfaction depends on a combination of positive emotions and the generation of stable resources. In this sense, what Frederickson et al. (2008) links with meditation but in a more ample view could be assimilated with any form on reflection on own experiences plays a prominent role, that is, the ability to build a complete sense of life itself.

  2. We have checked the association between relative income and educational levels. There is a statistically significant difference between levels, as determined by one-way ANOVA [F(4, 3806) = 39.08, p = 0.000]. A Tukey post-hoc test revealed that relative income was statistically significantly higher in the group with university education compared to every other group ( p < 0.000 in any comparison between groups). However, there were no statistically significant differences between the first four groups. These results suggest that the high correlation is mainly driven by people with improved education, who, in our sample, constitute a higher proportion of US residents compared to Latin America. The uneven cross-country distribution of university education, which mirrors the distribution of happiness, may explain, at least in part, the results of Model 1. Given the aim of this paper, we have opted to avoid this issue by excluding education from our preferred specification of the production function.

  3. It should be noted, however, that our results are robust for the estimation of production functions and technical efficiency by countries, or group of countries. By applying the same methodology, the estimation of technical efficiency for Latin American countries and the USA separately shows that the relative efficiency of conceptual referents remains unchanged. That is, both for Latin America and the USA, it is possible to identify the first group of most efficient definitions of happiness (stoicism, enjoyment and virtue), utopism at the lower end, and the rest of referents fall in the middle of this ranking. Therefore, though this paper studies efficiency at the individual level, and it does not allow for analysing heterogeneity, these estimations show that the efficiency of conceptual referents appears to be stable across countries. Results of this robustness check are available upon request.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge Mariano Rojas for the opportunity to analyse data from the "Understanding High Happiness in Latin America: Human Relations and Spirituality in a Life Well Lived", a project funded by the John Templeton Foundation and Saint Louis University. We thank the editor and the reviewers for their careful reading of our manuscript and their many insightful comments.

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  1. Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics and Business Campus de Elviña, Universidade da Coruña, 15071, A Coruña, Spain

    Atilano Pena-López, Paolo Rungo & Beatriz López-Bermúdez

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  1. Atilano Pena-López
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Correspondence to Atilano Pena-López.

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This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed directly by any of the authors. It makes use of general population survey data from the study “Understanding High Happiness in Latin America: Human Relations and Spirituality in a Life Well Lived,” granted as part of the “Happiness and Well-Being: Integrating Research Across the Disciplines” project, based at Saint Louis University and financed by the John Templeton Foundation.

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The compliance with ethical standards is presumed by the rules of participation in the above-mentioned project, and guaranteed by the project PI.

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This project has received the financial support of the Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad, Spain (Project CSO2017-86178-R).

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Appendices

Appendix

Social relations: Principal Component Analysis

The Understanding Happiness in Latin America survey (2018) includes a large battery of questions about social relations and social life. Since social relations are a major driver of happiness (see, for example, Helliwell 2003; Pichler 2006; Lelker 2006), we have used these questions to obtain four proxies of individual social networks. In particular, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) has been applied as a dimensionality reduction technique to 14 different questions, which are presented in Table 7. These questions are aimed at obtaining information about the frequency of interactions with different social ties as well as participation in civic and religious organizations. Using oblique rotation, and by applying the standard “eigenvalue > criteria” (see Fig. 6), four factors have been retained. These factors are coherent with theoretical considerations. They include questions respectively related to work relations (variable RELATIONS-WORK), social interactions with friends and neighbours (RELATIONS-FRIENDS), family ties (RELATION-FAMILY), and to participation in associations (RELATIONS-ASSOCIATIONS). These factors account for about 57% of the total variance. Table 7 presents the pattern matrix. Social relations variables included as inputs in the production function are the estimated normalised individual factor scores.

Table 7 Principal component analysis: pattern matrix
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Fig. 6
figure 6

Principal component analysis: number of components and eigenvalues

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Pena-López, A., Rungo, P. & López-Bermúdez, B. The "Efficiency" Effect of Conceptual Referents on the Generation of Happiness: A Cross-National Analysis. J Happiness Stud 22, 2457–2483 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-020-00328-3

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