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Happiness Components and their Attainment in Old Age: A Cross-Cultural Comparison Between Italy and Cuba

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Abstract

This study investigates the subjective representation of the components of happiness and their attainment in older adults from two countries with different economic well-being and cultural orientations: Italy and Cuba. Two hundred and nine Italians and 186 Cubans completed a questionnaire. Respondents were asked to write down at least five components that made them feel happy. A measure of overall happiness was also obtained by asking the subjects to rate to what extent they had attained each component in their life and calculating their mean. The results showed that there was agreement amongst the participants over their choice of components used to represent happiness; however, there were cross-cultural differences regarding the frequency of citation and importance of these components. The fact of living in Italy or Cuba was not a predictor of overall happiness, despite the difference in national income. This is in line with previous research highlighting how subjective well-being does not depend wholly on economic well-being.

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Notes

  1. In their previous studies, Galati et al. (2006a, b) measured the extent to which happiness components were attained by participants by means of 11-point scales (0 = not at all, 10 = totally). Given the age of the subjects participating in the present study and with the aim of fostering a good understanding of this part of the questionnaire, we decided to change the scale format by using a shorter five-point scale and providing appropriate labels for each point constituting the scale.

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Acknowledgments

We thank three anonymous reviewers for their precious comments on an earlier version of this article. We also thank Silvia Testa for her help in performing the correspondence analysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Turin, Turin, Italy

    Igor Sotgiu, Dario Galati & Elena Rognoni

  2. University of Havana, Havana, Cuba

    Mayra Manzano

  3. Dipartimento di Psicologia, Università di Torino, Via Verdi 10, 10124, Turin, Italy

    Dario Galati

Authors
  1. Igor Sotgiu
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  2. Dario Galati
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  3. Mayra Manzano
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  4. Elena Rognoni
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dario Galati.

Appendix: The Questionnaire

Appendix: The Questionnaire

1.1 Section 1

What are the things do you need to be happy? Please, think of at least five things that, in your opinion, are important to be happy, and list them in order of importance from the most to the least important. For each thing, please also indicate, in the specific column, to what extent you have attained it at the current stage of your life, by choosing one of the following alternatives: 0 = not at all, 1 = a little, 2 = moderately, 3 = quite a lot, 4 = totally.

1.2 Section 2

Please, think about the current stage of your life. You consider yourself as a person:

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Sotgiu, I., Galati, D., Manzano, M. et al. Happiness Components and their Attainment in Old Age: A Cross-Cultural Comparison Between Italy and Cuba. J Happiness Stud 12, 353–371 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-010-9198-6

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