Tomasz Frackowiak1
Anna Oleszkiewicz1,2
Marina Butovskaya3,4
Agata Groyecka1
Maciej Karwowski1
Marta Kowal1
Piotr Sorokowski1*- 1Institute of Psychology, University of Wrocław, Wrocław, Poland
- 2Smell and Taste Clinic, Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Carl Gustav Carus Medical School, TU Dresden, Dresden, Germany
- 3Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
- 4Center for Social Anthropology, Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow, Russia
Life satisfaction and happiness were broadly studied in Western populations, whereas evidence from traditional societies remains surprisingly scarce. We collected data on the happiness from 145 Hadza, and compared it with data obtained from 156 Poles, representing Westernized society. Participants were asked to answer four simple questions from Subjective Happiness Scale (Lyubomirsky and Lepper, 1999). Results indicate that Hadza report a higher level of happiness with their lives than do Polish people. Our findings also show that sex was not related to happiness in both populations, while age was a negative predictor of happiness, but only among Poles. Therefore, we hypothesize that positive perception of aging in societies may increase their actual happiness.
Introduction
Life satisfaction and happiness in developed, Western countries are continuously monitored by means of complex socio-economical indices. Numerous studies have been conducted on large scale samples (Eurofound, 2017), or even on samples representative for the humanity (Gallup Organization, 2016). Existing research has also focused on happiness and well-being of people from developing countries from Africa, Asia or South America (Chindarkar et al., 2018; Goodman et al., 2018; Markussen et al., 2018; Tran et al., 2018; Deng et al., 2019). However, according to our knowledge, data on the happiness in indigenous, traditional societies is remarkably scarce.
Are traditional societies happy? Gallup World Poll (see Diener et al., 2018) study including samples from 166 countries has shown that the level of happiness and life satisfaction are functions of social and material quality of life. Other studies found that objective measurements, such as infrastructure facilities, can significantly raise the subjective well-being and happiness of the people (Devoto et al., 2012; Mahasuweerachai and Pangjai, 2018). Knowing that material resources are an important predictor of happiness and life satisfaction, one could expect that traditional life in tough conditions should decrease happiness.
However, at least three studies suggested that traditional societies have relatively high levels of well-being. Evidence from the field studies suggests that Inuit, Maasai or Amish report generally high levels of happiness and life satisfaction (Biswas-Diener et al., 2005), with the most traditional Massai group showing the highest levels of general life satisfaction. Also, Himba – remote herding people of north-west Namibia inhabiting rural areas – had significantly higher levels of life satisfaction compared to the urban Himba living in towns; moreover, both Himba populations had significantly higher life satisfaction than the sample of United Kingdom adults (Martin and Cooper, 2017). Additionally, studies among Tsimane Amerindian from Amazonia suggest that, for a society in the early stages of integration to the market economy, consumption of market goods is not associated with frequency of smiles (Masferrer-Dodas et al., 2012). Altogether, these results suggest that modernization of traditional societies does not have a direct, straightforward impact on people’s happiness (see also Godoy et al., 2009, 2010), and one could also argue that modernization may even be associated with certain disadvantages.
The studies on how the quality of life and happiness of traditional people change in the course of life and between the generations are very scarce. Particularly, evidence on the perception of elderly people’s happiness is missing. Perception of aging is a socio-biological, multidimensional process varying between modern (Giles et al., 2003; Löckenhoff et al., 2009), and traditional cultures (Sorokowski et al., 2017b). Usually the concept of an old person brings together positive and negative attributions, with the latter contributing more to the general, automatic stereotype of ageism (Barrow and Smith, 1979; Perdue and Gurtman, 1990; Cuddy et al., 2005; Hooyman and Kiyak, 2008). Entering an old age and related decrease in psychophysical functions (Doty et al., 1984; Geffen et al., 1990; Fahle and Daum, 1997; Rantanen et al., 1999), and economic situation (Walker, 1980, 1981; Barrientos et al., 2003; Gasparini et al., 2009) diminishes the position of old people in the social exchange processes. In the modern economy experience, knowledge, wisdom, and care that old people can offer to the younger generations can be replaced or bought (e.g., information can be sought on the Internet, care services can be bought). On the contrary, in traditional societies old people might carry and transmit traditional knowledge, wisdom or experience (e.g., MacDonald, 2007). Their high competence may elicit more favorable attitudes, based on respect and esteem (Simmons, 1946; Werner, 1981; Branco and Williamson, 1982; Palmore and Maeda, 1985; Ishii-Kuntz, 1997; Eyetsemitan, 2002; Sorokowski et al., 2017b). Since positive perception of aging in societies may increase their actual quality of life and longevity (Levy et al., 2002, 2014; Ingrand et al., 2018), we can predict that happiness will increase as a function of age in traditional societies, which, in turn, would not be observed in Western societies.
To date, the level of happiness among hunter-gatherer societies has never been measured. Lifestyle in traditional societies vary significantly and this may have implications for the burden associated with taking care of older adults, who experience health problems and functional limitations. For instance, in sedentary and agricultural communities, it might be easier to care for older adults than in nomadic societies who constantly move. Moreover, in sedentary and agricultural communities, elderly people may present a higher socio-economic status and power (Sorokowski et al., 2017b) due to the higher amount of accumulated goods over the lifetime, and thus, present a higher level of happiness than hunter-gatherers, who are known to be egalitarian and do not accumulate goods (Woodburn, 1982; Marlowe, 2010; Butovskaya, 2013; Blurton Jones, 2016). Therefore, high levels of happiness and life satisfaction in elderly Hadza should not be attributed to their cumulative material status, but rather to their respectable role in the group. Furthermore, it has been previously shown that there are less social comparisons in egalitarian societies (Woodburn, 1982), as the distribution of goods is rather fair among the members of the group (Marlowe, 2004, 2009; Apicella et al., 2012; Henrich, 2012). Thus, individuals from Hadza society may not perceive huge discrepancies between them and others, in terms of acquired wealth. On the contrary, individuals from Western societies may always find numerous people who present a higher standard of living, which can lead to, for instance, envy (Guignard, 2018), and decreased happiness (Clark et al., 2006; Ball and Chernova, 2008).
Exploring the levels of happiness among hunter-gatherers may have another, practical implication. By investigating members of hunter-gatherer societies, leading the most traditional way of living and social organization, to some extent, we can address the question if global modernization and industrialization made us happier as compared to our ancestors? To this end, we collected data on the happiness of members of the Hadza society (Tanzania) (Marlowe, 2002, 2010; Butovskaya, 2013; Blurton Jones, 2016; Woodburn, 2017a, b), representing one of the last traditional hunting and gathering way of living (Henrich, 2012), and compared them with Polish sample representing modern society.
Study 1
Prior to the main, second study, we have conducted the first, pilot study, aim of which was to ensure a task comprehension among Hadza, and gather potential qualitative information regarding the applied methods. Although the first study is not an exact pilot as we have used an extended scale in the second study), in accordance with open science practices, we report its findings.
Materials and Methods
Participants
Power analysis revealed that in order to obtain 95% of power within linear regression with an alpha level set to 5% and expected small-to-medium effect size of f = 0.1 (Löckenhoff et al., 2009; Chan et al., 2012), at least 191 participants were needed. Ninety-six Hadza (47 females, Mage = 37.8; SD = 15.1; Md = 36.5, Min = 17; Max = 75) were recruited for the study, and 124 Polish participants constituted as a comparison sample (66 females, Mage = 36; SD = 13.4; Md = 35, Min = 18; Max = 76 matched in terms of sex, χ2(1) = 0.39, p = 0.53, and age, t(218) = 0.93, p = 0.35). We deliberately overshoot the projected sample size because of expected missing data. Data from three Hadza was discarded due to the low comprehension of the task.
Because of their uniqueness, Hadza society has been extensively studied and then described in the literature. The Hadza are traditional hunter-gatherers (Marlowe, 2010; Blurton Jones, 2016). Their population has shrunk to approximately 1200 people (Blurton Jones et al., 1992; Blurton Jones, 2016). Part of the Hadza society continue the semi-nomadic way of life, establishing temporary camps, and changing locations every 1–3 months in savannah-woodland around Lake Eyasi in Northern Tanzania. According to Marlowe (2010), despite the Hadza have had contacts with non-foragers for many decades or even for centuries, they have change little. Hadza are considered to be egalitarian, with no clear hierarchy (Woodburn, 1982; Marlowe, 2010; Butovskaya, 2013; Blurton Jones, 2016). For the purpose of this study, we visited the Hadza camps and recruited our sample close to the camps they inhabit. The study was performed in the same place as some of our previous psychological and anthropological research on the Hadza (i.e., Butovskaya et al., 2017; Sorokowski et al., 2017a; Groyecka et al., 2019). Due to low literacy rates, participants gave their informed oral consent prior to the study inclusion. Polish participants were recruited in a provincial town in South-West Poland during educational courses at the local University. After agreeing to take part in the study, Polish participants provided a written informed consent.
Procedure
The data were collected in August 2017. Data from residents and visitors of seven Hadza camps, located in rural north Tanzania around Lake Eyasi were collected, using a snowball sampling procedure. Participants responded orally to interviewers’ questions during individual sessions. They were assured they are free to resign at any time without consequences. Participants were asked in Swahili to indicate how they felt during the previous week using a 3-point Likert-type scale, where: (1) indicates that they were sad, (2) sometimes happy and sometimes sad, and (3) happy. The questions were simplified as compared to the original scale to provide a better understanding of the happiness term. The same procedure was applied in Poland.
Statistical Analyses
Analyses were performed with IBM SPSS v.25 and R packages with the level of significance set to 5%. To examine the factors underlying the quality of life we regressed sex (dummy coded: 0 = male; 1 = female), age (centered around mean), group (contrast coded: −1 = Hadza; 1 = Poland), and an interaction factor Age x Group on the happiness. Given the ordinal scale we have used, for multivariate analyses we recoded the answers into a dichotomous variable, by collapsing answers 0 and 1 into 0, and answer 2 into 1. Thus, in this new variable 1 described participants who felt happy. We applied logistic regression to explain the variability in this scale.
Results
Regression coefficients of the model testing happiness are presented in Table 1. The only significant predictor was group wherein Hadza presented higher happiness (M = 2.91) than Polish subjects (M = 2.18). Sex and age were not significant predictors. The difference between societies was responsible for 35.7% of the variance in the level of happiness (Nagelkerke R2).
Table 1. Regression coefficients for the model predicting happiness from group, sex, age, and age × group interaction.
Apart from a lack of significant interaction effects, in an attempt to explore possible curvilinear links, we exploratorily plotted the relationships between countries looking for possible more complex links. As illustrated in Figure 1A, while in the case of Hadza there were no clear links between age and the likelihood of being happy, among Poles the relationship appeared to be curvilinear. Indeed, when we tested if the curvilinear links observed in Poland were significant, it became apparent that although at first there was no link between age and the likelihood of being happy (β = 0.13, p = 0.22), then, the decrease was significant (β = −0.22, p = 0.034).
Figure 1. The relationship between happiness and age across Hadza and Poles in Study 1 (A) and Study 2 (B).
Short Discussion
Findings from the first study provide evidence that Hadza exhibit higher levels of happiness than Poles. The research task of assessing own’s happiness on a single-item scale turned out to be engaging, and easily comprehended by the Hadza participants. Thus, we decided to further explore the happiness construct in both societies, by using a more sophisticated and established measurement – Subjective Happiness Scale (Lyubomirsky and Lepper, 1999), and not the one-item scale that had not been previously used. Moreover, given the exploratory character of the finding that in Hadza there were no links between age and happiness, while among Poles the relationship appeared to be curvilinear, we attempted to replicate it in Study 2.
Study 2
Materials and Methods
Participants
Study 2 had the same design, therefore we used the same benchmarks as indicated in the power analysis for Study 1. One-hundred forty-five Hadza (65 females, Mage = 35,4; SD = 12,5; Md = 34; Min = 16; Max = 69) were recruited for the study and 156 Polish participants constituted a comparison sample (82 females, Mage = 39,4; SD = 15; Md = 37; Min = 18; Max = 78 matched in terms of sex, χ2(1) = 1.8, p = 0.18, but a little older, t(299) = 2.49, p = 0.01), but the effect size of this difference was negligible, Cohen’s d = 0.29.
Procedure
This study was conducted in June 2018. For the purpose of this study, we visited nine Hadza camps, located in rural, north Tanzania around Lake Eyasi. Participants were recruited using a snowball sampling procedure. Due to low literacy rates, participants gave their informed oral consent prior to the study inclusion. Polish participants were recruited in a provincial town in South-West Poland, and provided written informed consent.
Participants responded orally to interviewers’ questions in individual sessions. They were assured they are free to resign at any time without consequences. Participants were asked to answer four simple question from Subjective Happiness Scale (Lyubomirsky and Lepper, 1999), translated into Swahili by the collaborating interpreter. Because of a good comprehension of a Likert-type scale employed in Study 1, we decided to use an original 7-point Likert-type scale from the original version. The final score represents mean of the four scale items. The same procedure was applied in Poland.
Statistical Analyses
We started our analyses by testing the cross-cultural equivalence of the happiness scale. To this end, in a multi-group factor analysis in R (package lavaan, see Rosseel, 2012) we compared the models assuming the same one-factor structure across societies (configural invariance), with a model with factor loadings constrained to be equal (metric invariance) and intercepts to be the same in both groups (scalar invariance). When evaluating the model fit, we relied on the usually applied criteria (Hu and Bentler, 1999), in which a comparative fit index (CFI) and Tucker Lewis Index (TLI) above 0.90 indicate adequate fit, whereas a root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) below 0.08 and a standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) below 0.06 indicates no misfit. However, given that it is well established that RMSEA tends to be biased in studies conducted on small samples (Chen et al., 2008), we relied on CFI/TLI and SRMR instead. When evaluating measurement equivalence, we compared the configural invariance model with metric invariance model, and then metric invariance model with scalar invariance model. As these models were characterized by a growing complexity (each subsequent model was nested within the previous one), while assessing models’ superiority we relied on cut-off criteria recommended for testing measurement invariance (Cheung and Rensvold, 2002; Chen, 2007). More specifically, a change of CFI (ΔCFI) of less than 0.01 (ΔCFI < 0.01), a change of RMSEA of less than 0.015 (ΔRMSEA < 0.015), and a change of SRMR of less than 0.01 (ΔSRMR < 0.01) would indicate that two compared models do not differ in terms of model fit.
Then, using Hayes (2017) process macro (model 1), we tested two models. Model 1 tested if country (society) moderates the link between age and happiness when sex is controlled for. Model 2 tested the same question. Following the unexpected finding from Study 1, we aimed to test possible curvilinear links between age and happiness in Poland, so we examined if the possible links might be curvilinear rather than linear.
Results
The overall model fit the data well (CFI = 0.981, TLI = 0.944, SRMR = 0.033, RMSEA = 0.135, 95% CI:0.072,0.21), although, as predicted, the RMSEA indicated a misfit, probably caused by a relatively small sample size. Thus, we relied on changes in CFI and TLI (ΔCFI and ΔTLI), as well as changes in SRMR (ΔSRMR) in evaluating measurement invariance.
The configural variance model fit was acceptable (CFI = 0.977, TLI = 0.931, SRMR = 0.035), similarly as the metric invariance model: CFI = 0.963, TLI = 0.937, SRMR = 0.057, while the scalar invariance model was below usually recommended cut-offs: CFI = 0.91, TLI = 0.89, SRMR = 0.10. However, the difference in model fit indices between models indicated that – using proposed criteria – neither metric, nor scalar invariance could be established. Thus, based on recommendations indicating that partial invariance may allow for reasonable comparisons (see e.g., Byrne et al., 1989), we have also estimated models with partial metric and partial scalar invariance (see the R script in the Supplementary Material). As illustrated in Table 2, allowing the loading of item 3 to vary between countries and the intercept of item 2 to be freely estimated significantly improved the model fit, thus indicating that both partial metric and partial scalar invariance are established.
Table 2. Measurement invariance of the Subjective Happiness Scale.
Having established partial metric and scalar invariance, we proceeded with a moderated regression to examine, if the society moderates the link between age and happiness. Given the pattern discovered in the first study, we tested two models. Model 1 examined linear effects, while Model 2 tested for a curvilinear relationship between age and happiness. As illustrated in Table 3, both models explained a large portion of happiness variability – 39% in the case of Model 1 and 41% in the case of model 2. Both models have shown a large difference between societies in terms of happiness (Model 1: B = −1.28, Model 2: B = −1.26 – an equivalent of Cohen’s d = 1.25), significant, negative effect of age, as well as the expected moderation Age x Society. Indeed, when compared across countries, there was no relationship between Age and happiness among Hadza (r = −0.08, p = 0.34), while a robust negative correlation was found among Poles (r = −0.44, p < 0.001) – and this difference was statistically significant (Fisher’s z = 3.37, p < 0.001).
Table 3. Two regression models explaining cross-country differences in subjective happiness.
Model 2, testing a more complex relationship, indicated that when controlling for possibly curvilinear effects of age, there was no statistically significant relationship between age and happiness up to a certain point (about 40 years of age), but after then the happiness tended to decline, while this decline was observed only among Polish participants (see Figure 1B), thus replicating the pattern observed in Study 1.
To assess if the result of higher happiness in Hadza were limited only to comparison with Poles, we further assessed the significance of difference in happiness between other countries, for which means were available in the literature. A summary of levels of happiness in twelve other populations (that used, similarly as in the present study, Subjective Happiness Scale) provide evidence that Hadza may present significantly higher subjective happiness (see Table 4). Nevertheless, what is worth stressing is that the overview analysis includes studies conducted over the period of almost 20 years (1999–2018), and even though all the samples derive from industrialized populations, the levels of happiness are known to change from one year to another (Sachs et al., 2018), what contaminates the results and does not allow for drawing general conclusions.
Table 4. Comparison between level of happiness in Hadza (M = 5.83, SD = 0.76) and scores from 12 other populations by the means of one-sample t-test.
Discussion
The current investigation aimed to explore happiness of Hadza hunter-gatherers and Poles. Results of both studies showed that Hadza reported a higher level of happiness with their lives compared with Polish people. In both studies, sex was not related to participants’ happiness. Exploratory analysis from the first study provided evidence for a curvilinear link between age and happiness among Poles (but not among Hadza). We have then confirmed this hypothesis in the second study, using a validated measurement – Subjective Happiness Scale. Age was a negative predictor of happiness in Poland, whereas no such relationship was observed in Hadza. Therefore, we hypothesize that positive perception of aging in societies may increase their actual happiness (Levy et al., 2002, 2014; Ingrand et al., 2018).
Albeit simpler and more nature-dependent life, highly egalitarian social structure, and a high degree of cooperation Hadza are known for Marlowe (2004, 2009), Apicella et al. (2012), Henrich (2012), can be named among possible reasons to explain the current findings in differences in happiness. Such social organization in Hadza might explain why the level of subjective happiness is independent from age, as opposed to Polish society, wherein subjective happiness declines with age. Perhaps Hadza of old age find their place in the social organization, and their contribution to the society remains high despite not being as fit as in younger age. The best illustration are Hadza grandmothers, investing actively in grandchildren, and providing better chances for their survival (Hawkes et al., 1997; Crittenden and Marlowe, 2008, 2013). Nevertheless, what is worth highlighting is that also numerous other factors can account for the observed differences between Hadza and members of the Western countries, for instance, differences in pollution, access to firearms, or living in communities of millions instead of 20–30 people (Welsch, 2006; Lankford, 2016; Okulicz-Kozaryn and Mazelis, 2018). Moreover, our results are contradictory to findings of previous studies, which suggested that the relationship between age and happiness in more developed, Western societies is U-shaped, with older people showing greater happiness than middle-aged (Blanchflower and Oswald, 2008; Wolpert, 2010). On the other hand, Frijters and Beatton (2012) provided evidence that the widely reported U-shape is just an artifact of the bias of coefficients of variables, which peak in middle-age (e.g., income, marriage, and employment).
Our results are intriguing in the light of previous findings on the material resources being a necessary condition for raising the level of happiness in the population (Devoto et al., 2012; Mahasuweerachai and Pangjai, 2018). Hadza present very remote and mobile way of living. Individuals change camps every few months and the whole population resides where natural resources (e.g., game, plants) allow their subsistence (Woodburn, 2017a, b). The lack of accumulated goods further eases mobility. We speculate that the relatively high level of Hadza happiness is rooted in their social organization and culture directed toward the community. In fact, happiness is related with communal, interpersonally-oriented traits and high positive affect (Furr, 2005). Moreover, many studies highlight the role of social support and social ties in developing and maintaining high levels of happiness and well-being (Chan and Lee, 2006; Aknin et al., 2011). It is, thus, not surprising that positive psychologists, psychotherapists, and even World Bank recommend fostering quality social ties, as they have a significant and positive effect on happiness (World Development Report, 2003; Lakey, 2013; Compton and Hoffman, 2019). Although evidence for the relationship between the social support, communion and happiness comes from the modern societies (Hermans, 1992; Helgeson, 1994), we speculate that communal behaviors are present and promoted among Hadza to a larger extent, as they manifests in hunting, sharing food and motherhood challenges (Hawkes et al., 1989, 2001; Marlowe, 2009; Apicella et al., 2012; Henrich, 2012), which can translate into a high level of happiness.
In the present research, we have used two measures of happiness – in the first study, we assessed happiness by referring to an affective aspect, whereas in the second study, we used Subjective Happiness Scale, which relates both to the affective and cognitive components (Lyubomirsky and Lepper, 1999). This may be important, as there are various definitions of happiness, including ones based entirely on emotions, and others based purely on thinking (Veenhoven, 2009). Findings of the present study suggest that both cognitively and affectively perceived happiness is higher among Hadza in comparison with more industrialized societies.
It would be interesting to test whether hunter-gatherer societies have higher happiness than pastoralists and agriculturalists. Agriculture opens the possibility for social stratification and exploitation. That is why some authors suggested that from the viewpoint of individual happiness, the “agricultural revolution” was the worst mistake in the history of the human race (see Harari, 2014). Such hypothesis could be explored in Hadza, whose territories are surrounded by Datoga pastoralists, and Iraqw agro-pastoralists. Moreover, as happiness can be affected by numerous factors (e.g., standard of living, or relationships), future studies should focus on exploring possible moderators of happiness in more traditional populations.
The readers may wonder whether the Hadza fully comprehended the given task (i.e., rating their happiness level). The authors have years of experience in conducting such studies, especially among the Hadza population, thus, with fairly high certainty, we can ensure that our participants understood the scales used in the present study. When the Hadza do not understand the question they are being asked, not only their facial expressions and non-verbal behavior change, but they also admit they do not comprehend the given task. Usually, when we have concerns about the question comprehension, we randomly ask the same questions twice. As we had no doubts that the Hadza understood the task of the present study, we did not perform such checking techniques. Nevertheless, this can be regarded as a potential limitation of the present study (and in general, many other studies conducted among the traditional, illiterate populations).
Another possible limitation of the present findings is that, due to the small samples, recruiting techniques, and lack of extensive information regarding participants from both populations, final samples do not necessarily represent well the whole societies they derive from (i.e., Polish and Hadza). Similarly, we chose Hadza and Poles as representatives of traditional and modern societies, having no certainty that Poles are indeed typical for all non-Western countries and Hadza do not necessarily represent all hunter-gatherer cultures. Nevertheless, Poles do present a modern, industrialized way of living and as members of European Union are strongly bonded with and influenced by other cultures of the West. Yet, one needs to bear these in mind when interpreting the results of the present study.
We would also like to note the fact that some of our statistical decisions may be considered suboptimal. In the first study we merged two categories of answers, namely “sad” and “sometimes happy and sometimes sad” into one category. We acknowledge that this decision might be considered problematic, but because we were interested in “happiness,” it made sense to dichotomize our participants into those who considered themselves “happy” vs. the rest. In the second study, we did not test for invariance in each group (i.e., Poles and Hadza) separately. Instead, we tested configural, metric and scalar invariance in multi-group CFA: a solution that resulted in higher statistical power of our analyses.
Data Availability Statement
All datasets generated for this study are fully available without restriction in Supplementary Material.
Ethics Statement
This study was carried out in accordance with project NIR No. 01201370995 “Cross-cultural and interdisciplinary researches. Biosocial and cross-cultural analysis of models of tolerance and basic values of culture in modern society,” and approved by Commission for Science and Technology of Tanzania and by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the University of Wrocław (Wrocław, Poland) with written informed consent from all subjects. All participants gave informed consent in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Hadza participants are illiterate – gave their informed oral consent prior to the study procedure. Polish participants provided a written informed consent. Both consent procedures were approved by the Commission for Science and Technology of Tanzania and by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the University of Wrocław (Wrocław, Poland).
Author Contributions
TF and PS contributed to the conception and design of the study. PS, TF, MB, and AG collected the data. MKa, TF, AO, and PS performed the statistical analysis. TF, AO, AG, MKo, MKa, PS, and MB wrote the first draft of the manuscript. PS and MKo contributed to manuscript revision.
Funding
This study was supported by the Polish National Science Centre (SONATA BIS grant 2014/14/E/HS6/00368 to PS). AO was supported by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education (#626/STYP/12/2017). MB was supported by the Russian Science Foundation (Grant 18-18-00075).
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Acknowledgments
We thank our local collaborator Prof. Audax Mabulla for their help and hospitality during our stay in Tanzania, our field assistants Momoya Merus, Iren and Anjelica Momoya, and all participants who participated in this study.
Supplementary Material
The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01173/full#supplementary-material
References
Aknin, L. B., Sandstrom, G. M., Dunn, E. W., and Norton, M. I. (2011). It’s the recipient that counts: spending money on strong social ties leads to greater happiness than spending on weak social ties. PLoS One 6:e17018. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0017018
Apicella, C. L., Marlowe, F. W., Fowler, J. H., and Christakis, N. A. (2012). Social networks and cooperation in hunter-gatherers. Nature 481, 497–501. doi: 10.1038/nature10736
Babinčák, P. (2018). Subjective happiness in Slovakia: reliability and validity of measuring happiness through the subjective happiness scale. Eur. J. Ment. Health 13, 111–132. doi: 10.5708/EJMH.13.2018.2.1
Ball, R., and Chernova, K. (2008). Absolute income, relative income, and happiness. Soc. Indic. Res. 88, 497–529. doi: 10.1007/s11205-007-9217-0
Barrientos, A., Gorman, M., and Heslop, A. (2003). Old age poverty in developing countries: contributions and dependence in later life. World Dev. 31, 555–570. doi: 10.1016/S0305-750X(02)00211-5
Barrow, G., and Smith, P. (1979). Aging, Ageism, and Society. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Company.
Biswas-Diener, R., Vittersø, J., and Diener, E. (2005). Most people are pretty happy, but there is cultural variation: the Inughuit, The Amish, and The Maasai. J. Happiness Stud. 6, 205–226. doi: 10.1007/s10902-005-5683-8
Blanchflower, D. G., and Oswald, A. J. (2008). Is well-being U-shaped over the life cycle? Soc. Sci. Med. 66, 1733–1749. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2008.01.030
Blurton Jones, N. (2016). Demography and Evolutionary Ecology of Hadza Hunter-Gatherers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Blurton Jones, N. G., Smith, L. C., O’Connell, J. F., Hawkes, K., and Kamuzora, C. L. (1992). Demography of the Hadza, an increasing and high density population of savanna foragers. Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 89, 159–181. doi: 10.1002/ajpa.1330890204
Branco, K., and Williamson, J. (1982). “Stereotyping and the life cycle: views of aging and the aged,” in In the Eye of the Beholder: Contemporary Issues in Stereotyping, ed. A. Miller (New York, NY: Praeger), 364–410.
Butovskaya, M., Sorokowska, A., Karwowski, M., Sabiniewicz, A., Fedenok, J., Dronova, D., et al. (2017). Waist-to-hip ratio, body-mass index, age and number of children in seven traditional societies. Sci. Rep. 7:1622. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-01916-9
Butovskaya, M. L. (2013). “Aggression and conflict resolution among the nomadic Hadza of Tanzania as compared with their pastoralist neighbors,” in War, Peace, and Human Nature: The Convergence of Evolutionary and Cultural Views, ed. D. P. Fry (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 278–296.
Byrne, B. M., Shavelson, R. J., and Muthén, B. (1989). Testing for the equivalence of factor covariance and mean structures: the issue of partial measurement invariance. Psychol. Bull. 105, 456–466. doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.105.3.456
Chan, W., Mccrae, R. R., De Fruyt, F., Jussim, L., Löckenhoff, C. E., De Bolle, M., et al. (2012). Stereotypes of age differences in personality traits: universal and accurate? J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 103, 1050–1066. doi: 10.1037/a0029712
Chan, Y. K., and Lee, R. P. (2006). Network size, social support and happiness in later life: a comparative study of Beijing and Hong Kong. J. Happiness Stud. 7, 87–112. doi: 10.1007/s10902-005-1915-1
Chen, F. F. (2007). Sensitivity of goodness of fit indexes to lack of measurement invariance. Struc. Eq. Mod. Multidiscip. J. 14, 464–504. doi: 10.1080/10705510701301834
Chen, F., Curran, P. J., Bollen, K. A., Kirby, J., and Paxton, P. (2008). An empirical evaluation of the use of fixed cutoff points in RMSEA test statistic in structural equation models. Sociol. Methods Res. 36, 462–494. doi: 10.1177/0049124108314720
Cheung, G. W., and Rensvold, R. B. (2002). Evaluating goodness-of-fit indexes for testing measurement invariance. Struc. Eq. Mod. Multidiscip. J. 9, 233–255. doi: 10.1207/S15328007SEM0902_5
Chindarkar, N., Chen, Y. J., and Gurung, Y. (2018). Subjective well-being effects of coping cost: evidence from household water supply in Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. J. Happiness Stud. 20, 2581–2608. doi: 10.1007/s10902-018-0060-6
Clark, A. E., Frijters, P., and Shields, M. A. (2006). Income and Happiness: Evidence, Explanations and Economic Implications. Paris: Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques.
Compton, W. C., and Hoffman, E. (2019). Positive Psychology: The Science of Happiness and Flourishing. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
Crittenden, A. N., and Marlowe, F. W. (2008). Allomaternal care among the Hadza of Tanzania. Hum. Nat. 19, 249–262. doi: 10.1007/s12110-008-9043-3
Crittenden, A. N., and Marlowe, F. W. (2013). “Cooperative child care among the Hadza: situating multiple attachment in evolutionary context,” in Attachment Reconsidered: Cultural Perspectives on a Western Theory, eds N. Quinn and J. M. Mageo (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan), 67–83.
Cuddy, A. J. C., Norton, M. I., and Fiske, S. T. (2005). This old stereotype: the pervasiveness and persistence of the elderly stereotype. J. Soc. Issues 61, 267–285. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-4560.2005.00405.x
Deng, J., Li, T., Wang, J., and Zhang, R. (2019). Optimistically accepting suffering boosts happiness: associations between Buddhism patience, selflessness, and subjective authentic-durable happiness. J. Happiness Stud. 21, 223–240. doi: 10.1007/s10902-019-00083-0
Devoto, F., Duflo, E. P., Dupas, P., Pariente, W., and Pons, V. (2012). Happiness on tap: piped water adoption in urban Morocco. Am. Econ. J. Econ. Policy 4, 68–99. doi: 10.1257/pol.4.4.68
Diener, E., Diener, C., Choi, H., and Oishi, S. (2018). Revisiting “most people are happy” – and discovering when they are not. Perspect. Psychol. Sci. 13, 166–170. doi: 10.1177/1745691618765111
Doğan, T., and Totan, T. (2013). Psychometric properties of Turkish version of the subjective happiness scale. J. Happiness Well Being 1, 23–31.
Doty, R., Shaman, P., Applebaum, S., Giberson, R., Siksorski, L., and Rosenberg, L. (1984). Smell identification ability: changes with age. Science 226, 1441–1443. doi: 10.1126/science.6505700
Eurofound (2017). European Quality of Life Survey 2016: Quality of Life, Quality of Public Services, and Quality of Society. Available online at: https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/surveys/european-quality-of-life-surveys/european-quality-of-life-survey-2016 (accessed December 10, 2017).
Extremera, N., and Fernández-Berrocal, P. (2014). The subjective happiness scale: translation and preliminary psychometric evaluation of a Spanish version. Soc. Indic. Res. 119, 473–481. doi: 10.1007/s11205-013-0497-2
Eyetsemitan, F. E. (2002). Suggestions regarding cross-cultural environment as context for aging and human development in non-western cultures. Psychol. Rep. 90, 823–833. doi: 10.2466/pr0.2002.90.3.823
Fahle, M., and Daum, I. (1997). Visual learning and memory as functions of age. Neuropsychologia 35, 1583–1589. doi: 10.1016/S0028-3932(97)00069-9
Frijters, P., and Beatton, T. (2012). The mystery of the U-shaped relationship between happiness and age. J. Econom. Behav. Org. 82, 525–542. doi: 10.1016/j.jebo.2012.03.008
Gasparini, L., Alejo, J., Haimovich, F., Olivieri, S., and Tornarolli, L. (2009). Poverty among older people in Latin America and the Caribbean. J. Int. Dev. 22, 176–207. doi: 10.1002/jid.1539
Geffen, G., Moar, K. J., O’hanlon, A. P., Clark, C. R., and Geffen, L. B. (1990). Performance measures of 16– to 86-year-old males and females on the auditory verbal learning test. Clin. Neuropsychol. 4, 45–63. doi: 10.1080/13854049008401496
Giles, H., Noels, K. A., Williams, A., Ota, H., Lim, T.-S., Ng, S. H., et al. (2003). Intergenerational communication across cultures: young people’s perceptions of conversations with family elders, non-family elders and same-age peers. J. Cross Cult. Gerontol. 18, 1–32. doi: 10.1023/A:1024854211638
Godoy, R., Reyes-García, V., Gravlee, C. C., Huanca, T., Leonard, W. R., McDade, T. W., et al. (2009). Moving beyond a snapshot to understand changes in the well-being of native Amazonians: panel evidence (2002–2006) from Bolivia. Curr. Anthropol. 50, 563–573. doi: 10.1086/599983
Godoy, R., Zeinalova, E., Reyes-García, V., Huanca, T., Kosiewicz, H., Leonard, W. R., et al. (2010). Does civilization cause discontentment among indigenous Amazonians? Test of empirical data from the Tsimane’ of Bolivia. J. Econ. Psychol. 31, 587–598. doi: 10.1016/j.joep.2010.04.001
Goodman, M. L., Gibson, D. C., Keiser, P. H., Gitari, S., and Raimer-Goodman, L. (2018). Family, belonging and meaning in life among semi-rural Kenyans. J. Happiness Stud. 20, 1627–1645. doi: 10.1007/s10902-018-0017-9
Groyecka, A., Witzel, C., Butovskaya, M., and Sorokowski, P. (2019). Similarities in color preferences between women and men: the case of Hadza, the hunter-gatherers from Tanzania. Perception 48, 428–436. doi: 10.1177/0301006619840937
Guignard, F. (2018). Envy in Western Society: Today and Tomorrow. In Envy and Gratitude Revisited. Abingdon: Routledge, 109–123.
Hawkes, K., O’Connell, J. F., and Blurton Jones, N. G. (1989). “Hardworking Hadza grandmothers,” in Comparative Socioecology: The Behavioral Ecology of Humans and Other Mammals, eds V. Standen and R. A. Foley (London: Basil Blackwell), 341–366.
Hawkes, K., O’Connell, J. F., and Blurton Jones, N. G. (1997). Hadza women’s time allocation, offspring provisioning, and the evolution of long postmenopausal life spans. Curr. Anthropol. 38, 551–577. doi: 10.1086/204646
Hawkes, K., O’Connell, J. F., and Blurton Jones, N. G. (2001). Hadza meat sharing. Evol. Hum. Behav. 22, 113–142. doi: 10.1016/S1090-5138(00)00066-0
Hayes, A. F. (2017). Introduction to Mediation, Moderation, and Conditional Process Analysis: A Regression-Based Approach. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Helgeson, V. S. (1994). Relation of agency and communion to well-being: evidence and potential explanations. Psychol. Bull. 116, 412–428. doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.116.3.412
Henrich, J. (2012). Social science: hunter-gatherer cooperation. Nature 481, 449–450. doi: 10.1038/481449a
Hermans, H. J. (1992). Unhappy self-esteem: a meaningful exception to the rule. J. Psychol. 126, 555–570. doi: 10.1080/00223980.1992.10543388
Hooyman, N. R., and Kiyak, H. A. (2008). Social Gerontology: A Multidisciplinary Perspective. Boston, MA: Pearson.
Hu, L.-T., and Bentler, P. M. (1999). Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Struc. Eq. Mod. 6, 1–55. doi: 10.1080/10705519909540118
Iani, L., Lauriola, M., Layous, K., and Sirigatti, S. (2014). Happiness in Italy: translation, factorial structure and norming of the subjective happiness scale in a large community sample. Soc. Indic. Res. 118, 953–967. doi: 10.1007/s11205-013-0468-7
Ingrand, I., Paccalin, M., Liuu, E., Gil, R., and Ingrand, P. (2018). Positive perception of aging is a key predictor of quality-of-life in aging people. PLoS One 13:e0204044. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0204044
Ishii-Kuntz, M. (1997). 15-intergenerational relationships among Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Americans. Fam. Relat. 46, 23–32. doi: 10.2307/585603
Lakey, B. (2013). “Perceived social support and happiness: the role of personality and relational processes,” in Oxford Handbook of Happiness, eds S. A. David, I. Boiniwell, and S. C. Ayers (Oxford: Oxford Press), 847–859.
Lankford, A. (2016). Public mass shooters and firearms: a cross-national study of 171 countries. Violence Vict. 31, 187–199. doi: 10.1891/0886-6708.VV-D-15-00093
Levy, B. R., Pilver, C., Chung, P. H., and Slade, M. D. (2014). Subliminal strengthening: improving older individuals’ physical function over time with an implicit-age-stereotype intervention. Psychol. Sci. 25, 2127–2135. doi: 10.1177/0956797614551970
Levy, B. R., Slade, M. D., Kunkel, S. R., and Kasl, S. V. (2002). Longevity increased by positive self-perceptions of aging. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 83, 261–270. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.83.2.261
Löckenhoff, C. E., De Fruyt, F., Terracciano, A., McCrae, R. R., De Bolle, M., Costa, P. T., et al. (2009). Perceptions of aging across 26 cultures and their culture-level associates. Psychol. Aging 24, 941–954. doi: 10.1037/a0016901
Lyubomirsky, S., and Lepper, H. S. (1999). A measure of subjective happiness: preliminary reliability and construct validation. Soc. Indic. Res. 46, 137–155. doi: 10.1023/A:1006824100041
MacDonald, K. (2007). Cross-cultural comparison of learning in human hunting. Hum. Nat. 18, 386–402. doi: 10.1007/s12110-007-9019-8
Mahasuweerachai, P., and Pangjai, S. (2018). Does piped water improve happiness? A case from Asian rural communities. J. Happiness Stud. 19, 1329–1346. doi: 10.1007/s10902-017-9875-9
Markussen, T., Fibæk, M., Tarp, F., and Tuan, N. D. A. (2018). The happy farmer: self-employment and subjective well-being in rural Vietnam. J. Happiness Stud. 19, 1613–1636. doi: 10.1007/s10902-017-9858-x
Marlowe, F. (2002). “Why the Hadza are still hunter-gatherers,” in Ethnicity, Hunter-Gatherers, and the “Other”: Association or Assimilation in Africa, ed. S. Kent (Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press), 247–275.
Marlowe, F. (2004). “Dictators and ultimatums in an egalitarian society of hunter-gatherers: the Hadza of Tanzania,” in Foundations of Human Sociality: Economic Experiments and Ethnographic Evidence from Fifteen Small-Scale Societies, eds J. Henrich, R. Boyd, S. Bowles, C. Camerer, E. Fehr, and H. Gintis (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 168–193.
Marlowe, F. (2010). The Hadza: Hunter-Gatherers of Tanzania. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.
Martin, R. W., and Cooper, A. J. (2017). Subjective well-being in a remote culture: the Himba. Pers. Individ. Differ. 115, 19–22. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2016.10.021
Masferrer-Dodas, E., Rico-Garcia, L., Huanca, T., and Reyes-García, V. (2012). Consumption of market goods and wellbeing in small-scale societies: an empirical test among the Tsimane’ in the Bolivian Amazon. Ecol. Econ. 84, 213–220. doi: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2011.08.009
Nan, H., Ni, M. Y., Lee, P. H., Tam, W. W., Lam, T. H., Leung, G. M., et al. (2014). Psychometric evaluation of the Chinese version of the Subjective Happiness Scale: evidence from the Hong Kong FAMILY Cohort. Int. J. Behav. Med. 21, 646–652. doi: 10.1007/s12529-014-9389-3
Okulicz-Kozaryn, A., and Mazelis, J. M. (2018). Urbanism and happiness: a test of Wirth’s theory of urban life. Urban Stud. 55, 349–364. doi: 10.1177/0042098016645470
Palmore, E., and Maeda, D. (1985). The Honorable Elders Revisited. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Perdue, C. W., and Gurtman, M. B. (1990). Evidence for the automaticity of ageism. J. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 26, 199–216. doi: 10.1016/0022-1031(90)90035-K
Quezada, L., Landero, R., and González, M. T. (2016). A validity and reliability study of the subjective happiness scale in Mexico. J. Happiness Well Being 4, 90–100. doi: 10.1186/1477-7525-11-66
Rantanen, T., Guralnik, J. M., Foley, D., Masaki, K., Leveille, S., Curb, J. D., et al. (1999). Midlife hand grip strength as a predictor of old age disability. JAMA 281, 558–560. doi: 10.1001/jama.281.6.558
Rosseel, Y. (2012). Lavaan: an R package for structural equation modeling and more. Version 0.5–12 (BETA). J. Stat. Softw. 48, 1–36. doi: 10.18637/jss.v048.i02
Sachs, J. D., Layard, R., and Helliwell, J. (2018). World Happiness Report 2018. New York, NY: Sustainable Development Solutions Network.
Simmons, L. W. (1946). Attitudes toward aging and the aged: primitive societies. J. Gerontol. 1, 72–95. doi: 10.1093/geronj/1.1_Part_1.72
Sorokowski, P., Sorokowska, A., Butovskaya, M., Karwowski, M., Groyecka, A., Wojciszke, B., et al. (2017a). Love influences reproductive success in humans. Front. Psychol. 8:1922. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01922
Sorokowski, P., Sorokowska, A., Frackowiak, T., and Löckenhoff, C. E. (2017b). Aging perceptions in Tsimane’ Amazonian forager–farmers compared with two industrialized societies. J. Gerontol. Ser. B Psychol. Sci. Soc. Sci. 72, 561–570.
Swami, V. (2008). Translation and validation of the Malay subjective happiness scale. Soc. Indic. Res. 88, 347–353. doi: 10.1007/s11205-007-9195-2
Swami, V., Stieger, S., Voracek, M., Dressler, S. G., Eisma, L., and Furnham, A. (2009). Psychometric evaluation of the Tagalog and German Subjective Happiness Scales and a cross-cultural comparison. Soc. Indic. Res. 93, 393–406. doi: 10.1007/s11205-008-9331-7
Tran, T. Q., Nguyen, C. V., and Van Vu, H. (2018). Does economic inequality affect the quality of life of older people in rural Vietnam? J. Happiness Stud. 19, 781–799. doi: 10.1186/1471-2458-10-549
Veenhoven, R. (2009). “How do we assess how happy we are? Tenets, implications and tenability of three theories,” in Happiness, Economics and Politics, eds A. K. Dutt and B. Radcliff (Worcester: Edward Elgar), 45–69.
Vera-Villarroel, P., Celis-Atenas, K., and Cordova-Rubio, N. (2011). Evaluación de la Felicidad: análisis psicométrico de la escala de felicidad subjetiva en población chilena. Ter. Psicol. 29, 127–133. doi: 10.4067/S0718-48082011000100013
Walker, A. (1980). The social creation of poverty and dependency in old age. J. Soc. Policy 9, 49–75. doi: 10.1017/S0047279400009545
Walker, A. (1981). Towards a political economy of old age. Ageing Soc. 1, 73–94. doi: 10.1017/S0144686X81000056
Welsch, H. (2006). Environment and happiness: valuation of air pollution using life satisfaction data. Ecol. Econ. 58, 801–813. doi: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2005.09.006
Werner, D. (1981). Gerontocracy among the mekranoti of central Brazil. Anthropol. Q. 54, 15–27. doi: 10.2307/3317482
Wolpert, D. H. (2010). Why income comparison is rational. Games Econ. Behav. 69, 458–474. doi: 10.1016/j.geb.2009.12.001
Woodburn, J. (2017a). “An introduction to Hadza ecology,” in Man the Hunter, eds R. B. Lee and I. DeVore (New York, NY: Routledge), 49–55.
Woodburn, J. (2017b). “Stability and flexibility in Hadza residential groupings,” in Man in Adaptation. The Institutional Framework, ed. Y. A. Cohen (New York, NY: Routledge), 31–37.
Keywords: positive psychology, happiness, subjective happiness scale, life satisfaction, Hadza, modernization
Citation: Frackowiak T, Oleszkiewicz A, Butovskaya M, Groyecka A, Karwowski M, Kowal M and Sorokowski P (2020) Subjective Happiness Among Polish and Hadza People. Front. Psychol. 11:1173. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01173
Received: 07 December 2019; Accepted: 06 May 2020;
Published: 09 June 2020.
Edited by:
Vivian Afi Abui Dzokoto, Virginia Commonwealth University, United StatesReviewed by:
Ondrej Mitas, Breda University of Applied Sciences, NetherlandsAntoni Gomila, University of the Balearic Islands, Spain
Ljiljana Kaliterna-Lipovcan, Institut Društvenih Znanosti Ivo Pilar, Croatia
Copyright © 2020 Frackowiak, Oleszkiewicz, Butovskaya, Groyecka, Karwowski, Kowal and Sorokowski. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Piotr Sorokowski, sorokowskipiotr@yahoo.co.uk