Translating Happiness by Lomas Tim;

Author:Lomas, Tim;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Wellbeing; Happiness; Positive psychology; Language; Cross-cultural; Untranslatable; Lexicography
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 2018-04-17T04:00:00+00:00

Prosociality

Intimate bonds with select others are essential to well-being. But as we saw in the Finnish study, so are relations with others in general. Indeed, Nordic countries on the whole offer clues about the importance of these broader social relations. As we have seen, these places are consistently ranked among the happiest nations on earth. They are affluent and politically stable, which certainly helps.107 But comparably wealthy and stable countries such as the United States and United Kingdom do not share the same high levels of overall life satisfaction.108 Many theorists believe this is because Nordic communities tend to enjoy high levels of social capital, which is both attributed to and reflected in their relatively low levels of inequality and their egalitarian social policies.109

To foster the socioeconomic dimensions of well-being, it helps to recognize that well-being itself is inherently a social phenomenon, not exclusively a private psychological state. This can be hard for more individualistic societies to grasp. We might do better by cultivating a sensibility Carolina Izquierdo locates among the Matsigenka of the Peruvian Amazon, who do not consider themselves personally well if their social group is damaged or suffering.110 I submit that untranslatable words might help people develop a less individualistic stance by bringing greater nuance to notions of prosociality. I group these words into five broad themes: socializing and congregating, morals and ethics, compassion and kindness, interaction and communication, and communality.

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