Two ways to achieve happiness: when the East meets the West

The independent/interdependent self-construals were proposed to be the cult ure-general determinants of happiness, acting through the mediating variabl es of control belief/harmony belief and further through subjective experien ces in social interactions. Data collected from 550 Taiwanese and 196 Briti sh community residents supported the above two ways of achieving happiness, The value of adding intel dependent self-construal and harmony belief to t he study of subjective well-being to reflect an alternative collectivistic cultural perspective was highlighted. In addition, the seemingly contrasting views of self and beliefs about soci al interaction were found to coexist among Taiwanese, This evidence offered valuable support for the coexistence modernity model. (C) 2001 Elsevier Sc ience Ltd. All rights reserved.