Happiness and Life Satisfaction in Malaysia

Abstract

For more than three decades, research has sought to identify and explain the correlates of wellbeing and life satisfaction for individuals, groups, and nations. Many demographic characteristics such as age, health, education, and marital status, have been linked in varying degrees to life satisfaction measures in large economically developed countries; however, there has been a lack of research in smaller nations and non-Western cultures. Therefore, the objectives of this chapter are to identify and examine measures of happiness and life satisfaction within Malaysia, as well as to identify robust predictors of these measures. As such, our analysis is intended as a preliminary discussion to contribute to the growing literature investigating wellbeing measures in Malaysia and non-Western societies. In reviewing the past research conducted on happiness in Malaysia, this chapter will attempt to answer three questions: (a) What is the factor structure (defined as 46 R.T Howell et al. the pattern of relations specific items have with the constructs or facets of wellbeing) of happiness and life satisfaction in Malaysia? (b) How happy and satisfied are Malaysians? (c) What are the indicators of Malaysian happiness and life satisfaction? Articles that recruited Malaysia participants will be compared to our research team's large database of Americans consisting of an aggregation of 30 smaller data sets collected by the authors. These 30 data sets included 10,320 American adults (54{%} females; mean age = 28.41, SD = 11.57; 43.3{%} European American) who were students at various universities (e.g., San Francisco State University, Old Dominion University, Irvine Valley College), volunteers recruited from popular websites (e.g., Mturk, Craigslist, Facebook), and older adults recruited by students in different experiments. Also, the Malaysian sample from the World Values Survey will be used to examine the impact of demographic variables (age, education, household size, income) and perceived health on happiness and life satisfaction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved). (chapter)