Happy just because. A cross-cultural study on subjective wellbeing in three Indigenous societies.

ABSTRACT: While cross-cultural research on subjective well-being and its multiple drivers is growing, the study of happiness among Indigenous peoples continues to be under-represented in the literature. In this work, we measure life satisfaction through open-ended questionnaires to explore levels and drivers of subjective well-being among 474 adults in three Indigenous societies across the tropics: the Tsimane' in Bolivian lowland Amazonia, the Baka in southeastern Cameroon, and the Punan in Indonesian Borneo. We found that life satisfaction levels in the three studied societies are slightly above neutral, suggesting that most people in the sample consider themselves as moderately happy. We also found that respondents provided explanations mostly when their satisfaction with life was negative, as if

SUBMITTER: Reyes-Garcia V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8118246 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature