PLOS ONE RESEARCH ARTICLE Happy just because. A cross-cultural study on subjective wellbeing in three Indigenous societies Victoria Reyes-Garcı́a ID1,2,3*, Sandrine Gallois4, Aili Pyhälä5,6, Isabel Dı́az-Reviriego7, Álvaro Fernández-Llamazares6,8, Eric Galbraith1,2,9, Sara Miñarro ID2, Lucentezza Napitupulu ID10 1 Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA), Barcelona, Spain, 2 Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain, 3 Departament d’Antropologia Social i Cultural, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain, 4 Faculty of a1111111111 Archaeology, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands, 5 Global Development Studies, University of a1111111111 Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland, 6 Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science (HELSUS), University of Helsinki, a1111111111 Helsinki, Finland, 7 Faculty of Sustainability, Social-Ecological Systems Institute (SESI), Leuphana University a1111111111 of Lüneburg, Lüneburg, Germany, 8 Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Global Change and a1111111111 Conservation (GCC), Organismal and Evolutionary Biology Research Programme, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland, 9 Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, McGill University, Montreal, Canada, 10 Department of Economics, Universitas Indonesia, Depok, Indonesia * victoria.reyes@uab.cat OPEN ACCESS Citation: Reyes-Garcı́a V, Gallois S, Pyhälä A, Dı́az- Abstract Reviriego I, Fernández-Llamazares Á, Galbraith E, et al. (2021) Happy just because. A cross-cultural While cross-cultural research on subjective well-being and its multiple drivers is growing, study on subjective wellbeing in three Indigenous the study of happiness among Indigenous peoples continues to be under-represented in the societies. PLoS ONE 16(5): e0251551. https://doi. org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251551 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 Editor: Margaret Holland, University of Maryland Baltimore County, UNITED STATES societies across the tropics: the Tsimane’ in Bolivian lowland Amazonia, the Baka in south- eastern Cameroon, and the Punan in Indonesian Borneo. We found that life satisfaction lev- Received: July 20, 2020 els in the three studied societies are slightly above neutral, suggesting that most people in Accepted: April 28, 2021 the sample consider themselves as moderately happy. We also found that respondents pro- Published: May 13, 2021 vided explanations mostly when their satisfaction with life was negative, as if moderate hap- Peer Review History: PLOS recognizes the piness was the normal state and explanations were only needed when reporting a different benefits of transparency in the peer review life satisfaction level due to some exceptionally good or bad occurrence. Finally, we also process; therefore, we enable the publication of found that issues related to health and–to a lesser extent–social life were the more promi- all of the content of peer review and author responses alongside final, published articles. The nent explanations for life satisfaction. Our research not only highlights the importance to editorial history of this article is available here: understand, appreciate and respect Indigenous peoples’ own perspectives and insights on https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251551 subjective well-being, but also suggests that the greatest gains in subjective well-being Copyright: © 2021 Reyes-Garcı́a et al. This is an might be achieved by alleviating the factors that tend to make people unhappy. open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting information files. PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251551 May 13, 2021 1 / 16 PLOS ONE Happy just because Funding: This work was funded by the European Introduction Research Council (Grant Number FP7-261971-LEK to VRG). This work contributes to the ICTA-UAB Happiness or subjective well-being, understood as the assemblage of mental and emotional Maria de Maeztu Unit of Excellence (CEX2019- states that emerge from the appraisal of life satisfaction and the balance of positive over nega- 000940-M) of the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación tive emotions [1], has been a long-standing focus of scientific inquiry [2]. Happiness research y Universidades, Spain. The funders had no role in has been conducted in a wide variety of scientific disciplines, including social psychology, ger- study design, data collection and analysis, decision ontology, clinical research, and economics. This research has largely been based on the to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. assumptions that the pursuit of personal happiness is universal [3], one of the most important Competing interests: The authors have declared values guiding individuals’ life [4], and achievable by proactively taking control of one’s life that no competing interests exist. (see [5] for a review). Based on these assumptions, research on happiness has been largely dominated by attempts to measure–and compare–people’s subjective well-being and to find its multiple correlates and drivers. Results suggest that 1) most people report being happy [6,7]; 2) both personal characteristics (e.g., age, marital status, income) and external factors (e.g., work satisfaction, governance, religion) shape happiness [2,8]; and 3) happiness itself is positively associated with desired societal outcomes, including health, productivity, and social life [9– 11]. Yet, a growing body of cross-cultural research on subjective well-being highlights that both the concept of happiness and its drivers largely differ across cultures [12–14]. A critique to standard happiness research is that it has largely relied on a concept arising from modern indi- vidualist cultures that are neither historically nor cross-culturally representative [15]. Thus, far from being universal, the idea that happiness is an important value guiding individuals’ lives appears to be strongly emphasized only in individualistic cultures [16]. Differently, in places where collectivistic values predominate, life is more firmly guided by social relations or by the need to have a purpose in life [17]. Furthermore, aversion to certain expressions of happiness is common in some cultures, and -for some-overtly expressing happiness is considered offen- sive and to attract bad luck [5,18]. Moreover, cross-cultural studies on subjective well-being have also shown that the drivers of happiness not only vary among individuals, but also across social groups. For example, among the several drivers of subjective well-being, income and material wealth have received broad research interest, under the assumption that they have the potential to fulfil universal needs, thus leading to happiness [19–21]. However, research in societies with low levels of monetization suggests the people can display high levels of subjec- tive well-being without income [22] and that income might even have negative effects in terms of subjective well-being [23], thus raising issues on the absolute effect of income in happiness. It seems, then, that happiness research could continue to benefit from insights provided by cross-cultural analysis. Particularly, the study of happiness among Indigenous peoples, a population largely under- represented in this literature, might bring relevant insights for our understanding of happiness. The few prior studies exploring subjective well-being among Indigenous societies have already highlighted that the concept and drivers of subjective well-being vary from one Indigenous society to another [6]. For example, among the Matsigenka in the Peruvian Amazon, the con- cept of well-being is fundamentally linked to health and productivity [24]. In contrast, for con- temporary Inuit of the Arctic, happiness is defined and driven by family relations and participation in the social world [25]. Relations with other people, with nature, and with spiri- tual beings also seem to be central for the subjective well-being of Native Americans [26,27], Aboriginal Australians [28], or Amerindians [29]. For instance, among the Yorta Yorta Nation, Boonwurrung and Bangerang tribes of Victoria (Australia), “caring for country” and management of traditional lands is considered a key determinant of community well-being [30]. Similarly, among numerous Amazonian Indigenous peoples, the concepts of “the good life” or “living well” emphasize the importance of maintaining harmonious interpersonal PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251551 May 13, 2021 2 / 16 PLOS ONE Happy just because relationships, some of which extend to nonhumans and spirits [31–33]. Furthermore, some evidence indicates that changes in social relations or in relations with their local environments might erode substantially the subjective well-being of Indigenous peoples [23,27]. Our work contributes to cross-cultural research on happiness by exploring drivers of sub- jective well-being among 474 adults in three Indigenous societies across the tropics: the Tsi- mane’ in Bolivian lowland Amazonia, the Baka in southeaster Cameroon, and the Punan in Indonesian Borneo. These three groups live in tropical rainforest environments and largely practice subsistence-based livelihood activities, including hunting, fishing, gathering, and agri- culture [34]. All three societies maintain a number of traditional customs, norms, and beliefs related to collective community living and reciprocity, with their social and economic organi- zation still largely based on kinship [34]. However, they are also increasingly dependent on cash to obtain certain commercial goods (i.e., machetes, mobile phones), or services (i.e., school fees and health treatments), for which the sale of forest products and sporadic employ- ment play an increasingly important role in their socioeconomic systems. For each of these societies, we examine responses to questions aiming at measuring subjective well-being levels and variation in responses. We also examine the explanations given by individuals for particu- lar self-reported levels of subjective well-being thus bringing participants’ own perspectives on the drivers of their subjective well-being. Beyond its contributions to cross-cultural research on happiness, this work also contributes to research on Indigenous people’s well-being and its drivers. Most previous research on Indigenous peoples’ well-being has focused on the status of objective and externally defined metrics and indicators (e.g., health, social, or economic indicators) [35], emphasizing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations in attaining these indicators [36–38]. While pointing at critical issues, most of these studies overlook Indigenous peoples’ subjective valuations of life satisfaction, including their own definitions of these indicators and their own culturally-specific explanations for them, for which this body or research potentially provides an incomplete and unbalanced view of Indigenous People’s subjective well-being and its driv- ers [39]. Researchers have argued that, for many Indigenous societies, cultural attachment (e.g., use of Indigenous languages, participation in cultural activities, or spiritual practices) can be an important driver of well-being [40–43]. For example, aboriginal Australians in remote areas appear to be happier than those in non-remote areas, arguably as those in remote areas are more likely to speak their language, participate in hunting or gathering, and less likely to be discriminated against [44]. Similarly, research among Indigenous populations in the Arctic Alaska shows that wage income and job opportunities are negatively associated with their life satisfaction. Non-wage income instead, which allows time to be used for subsistence activities, is positively associated with life satisfaction [42]. Along these lines, legacies of reduced cultural engagement among Indigenous Peoples, as a result of colonialism (e.g., boarding schools, assimilation policies, language erasure), often lead to declines in peoples’ physical and mental well-being, including feelings of shame and insignificance [45]. Together, these findings indi- cate that the conception of well-being for Indigenous populations might largely vary from the concept in Western societies. By bringing Indigenous People’s perspectives on the drivers of subjective well-being, we help to provide a more accurate, complete and balanced overview of Indigenous Peoples’ subjective well-being and its drivers. Case studies The Tsimane’ are a small-scale society of foragers and farmers in the Bolivian Amazon. They number ~ 14,000 people living in ~100 villages of commonly ~20 households per village, con- centrated along rivers and logging roads [46]. Up until the late 1930s, the Tsimane’ lived much PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251551 May 13, 2021 3 / 16 PLOS ONE Happy just because as they did prior to first contact with other sectors of society, maintaining a semi-nomadic and self-sufficient lifestyle. Their interactions with the Bolivian society have steadily increased since the 1940s and the Tsimane’ are now largely settled in permanent villages with school facilities [46]. To this day, the Tsimane’ continue to be mostly self-sufficient, their economy relying on slash-and-burn farming supplemented by hunting, fishing, and gathering. For the Tsimane’, the main sources of income are the sale of crops (i.e., rice, maize and plantain) and the barter of palm thatch [47], although during the study period, 34.2% of the Tsimane’ in the sample had no income from wage, sales, or barter [34]. Some Tsimane’ also obtain income from wage labor in logging camps, cattle ranches, and in the homesteads of farmers. The Baka are an Ubangian speaking group living in the rainforests of the Congo Basin. They are present in four different countries (Gabon, Congo, Central African Republic, and Cameroon), the majority being in Cameroon, with about 40,000 individuals [48]. Traditionally nomadic and living in forest camps, the Baka used to rely on hunting, fishing, gathering and bartering forest products for agricultural products with their Bantu-speaking neighbors [48]. Baka livelihoods, however, have largely changed over the last 50 years and at least the Baka in Cameroon are now mostly settled in villages along logging roads, have adopted agriculture, and have gained a higher access to formal school and health services [48]. Nowadays, Baka livelihoods mix foraging and farming, both in their own plot and in the plots of their neigh- bors. Sedentarization has also resulted in the introduction of the cash economy: merchants, logging and mining companies, and bush meat and non-timber forest products traders, are now present in the area inhabited by the Baka, increasing the availability of market products and Baka integration into the cash economy [49]. The Baka, nonetheless, continue to remain largely self-sufficient [34]. Finally, the Punan are a society of ~10,000 people, living in the mountainous interior of East Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo [50]. Traditional Punan livelihoods were largely based on hunting, gathering of wild and semi domesticated plants, and bartering with the locally set- tled farmers [50]. Similar to the Tsimane’ and the Baka, the Punan started to shift to a more sedentary lifestyle during the mid-1950s, a shift supported by government programs [50]. Although the Punan are no longer nomadic, they continue to engage in long travels and sea- sonal stays in the forest for hunting wild boars and gathering wild edibles and other forest products, a practice known as mufut [50,51]. The Punan mostly collect forest products for household consumption, but they also collect some products for sale, such as eaglewood or gaharu (Aquilaria spp.), head of hornbill, or bezoar stones. Nevertheless, nowadays, wage labor -including wage from work in government projects—provides significant and regular income for many Punan, even in remote villages [52]. Methods Data were collected in the framework of a larger cross-cultural project [34] and in coordina- tion with national research institutions. We worked in two villages in each study site. A team composed of a researcher, a research assistant and a translator collected data in each village over 18 months of fieldwork (2012–2013). The first six months were devoted to learning the local language, building up trust with local people, training research assistants, collecting back- ground information, pilot-testing methods, and developing protocols for systematic data col- lection. During the following 12 months, we collected data on individuals’ subjective well- being and explanations of subjective well-being levels by means of quarterly interviews. Before starting research, we obtained the required national research permits, and the agree- ment from the relevant political organizations. To work in the Tsimane’ territory, we obtained written permission of the Great Tsimane’ Council. To work among the Punan, we obtained PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251551 May 13, 2021 4 / 16 PLOS ONE Happy just because permission from RISTEK (Ministry of State for Research and Technology, Indonesia, SIP NO: 038/SIP/FRP/SM/II/2012). No specific permissions were required to work in the area where the Baka live. Before collecting data, we requested the oral Free Prior and Informed Consent of each person approached, noting that information would be anonymized, participation was strictly voluntary, and people could choose not to participate or withdraw from the study at any point, without any repercussions. According to the national data protection laws of Bolivia, Cameroon, and Indonesia, there are no cross-border transfer restrictions for non-per- sonal data to the EU. We returned the results of our research to the communities in several ways, according to the participant communities’ and local regional organizations’ needs and demands (e.g., local workshops, radio programs, publications in local languages. See http:// icta.uab.cat/etnoecologia/lek/). The research protocol received the approval of the ethics com- mittee of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (CEEAH-04102010). Sample We approached all the households in the studied villages and invited all adults (i.e., people �18 years) to participate in our study. Overall, we collected information from 474 adults: 137 Tsimane’ (70 men, 67 women); 225 Baka (97 men, 128 women); and112 Punan (59 men, 53 women). To assess variation in responses, we repeated the interviews four times, for which we have 1180 data points (406 from Tsimane’, 463 from Baka, and 311 from Punan respondents). Data collection We proxied individual subjective well-being through a single question on overall life satisfac- tion, defined as “people’s explicit and conscious evaluation of their lives, often based on factors that the individual deems relevant” [53]. A self-report on life satisfaction is considered a valid indicator of quality of life and one of the most commonly used methods to assess subjective well-being [2,54,55]. Specifically, we asked: “Taking everything into consideration, would you say your life is: very bad (= 0), not good (= 1), fair (= 2), good (= 3), or very good (= 4)”. We used a five-point scale with specific terms that generally capture life satisfaction levels because, after testing, this framing worked better than the most commonly used 5-item scale [53,56] and than the 10-point scale used in the World Value Survey (www.worldvaouesurvey.org) and Gallup World Poll [57]. To get insights into the processes underlying well-being judgements, immediately after this question, we asked respondents to explain to us the reasons for their response and, when an explanation was provided, we wrote down textual answers. To assess within individual variation in responses, we repeated interviews every three months for a maximum of four times per individual. Since we could not interview all partici- pants every quarter, the sample per individual varies. We collected only one response for 95 respondents, two for 110 respondents, three for 211 respondents, and four for the remaining 58 respondents. Data analysis For most of the analysis, we grouped life satisfaction responses into three categories: negative (grouping ‘very bad’ and ‘not good’), neutral (responses of ‘fair’), and positive (grouping ‘good’ and ‘very good’). We also grouped each individual data point in one of two general categories: explained, or data points for which people provided a textual explanation of their life satisfac- tion level, and unexplained, or data points for which people did not provide an explanation. To code the category explained, we used an inductive approach grouping similar textual explana- tions under the same ‘explanation’ category. Categories were further grouped into six general PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251551 May 13, 2021 5 / 16 PLOS ONE Happy just because overarching ‘reasons’, which include a) general responses, b) health, c) social life, d) self-suffi- ciency, e) income and material possessions, and e) other reasons (Table 1). The grouping was informed by the in-depth ethnographic knowledge of the researchers who had spent 18 months living with these societies. Some responses referred to more than one of our coded explanations. For example, the response “I am sick and do not have enough food” refers to “own physical health” and “basic needs” and was thus coded in both the category "health" and "self-sufficiency". Because some textual answers corresponded to two explanations, the total number of explanations (n = 813) is higher than the number of data points for which infor- mants provided an explanation (n = 692). We start the analysis by describing the average levels of life satisfaction across the three soci- eties. Since we have more than one data point per informant, we calculated 1) the pooled and 2) informants’ averages. We tested if differences across societies were statistically significant using a Kruskal-Wallis equality-of-populations rank test. We also explored variation across subjective well-being responses considering both intra-individual and temporal variation. To analyze intra-individual variation in levels of life satisfaction and their explanations, we used the subsample of respondents for which we have more than one data point. We calculated the percentage of informants who had reported the same life satisfaction level across different measurements versus the percentage of informants who had reported variations in life satisfac- tion levels. Temporal variation was analyzed by calculating averages per society for the differ- ent quarters of data collection. We then compared the distribution of explained and unexplained responses across our three life satisfaction categories (i.e., negative, neutral, and Table 1. Coding of textual explanations of individual life satisfaction levels. Reason Explanation Examples of textual explanations General No specific reason given No explanation given; “I’m just happy”; “I feel good”; “My heart tells me so” There is problem/no “Because I am living well”; “No problems” problem Health General “All the family is in good health”; “No one is sick” Own physical health “Because I am healthy”; “Because I feel healthy” Others’ physical health “Because my family is healthy”; “Because my baby is healthy”; “I (includes death) feels sick” Own emotional health “I worry about . . .”; “I am afraid to die”; “I think too much” Social General “I have no problem with anyone”; “Problem with authorities” Household “Fights with my wife because she is jealous”; “My family is happy”; “I got a new baby” Community “People talk about me”; “There are gossips in the community”; “No one is angry” Socializing “I miss my husband, who is away”; “I want to go visit my father”; “I am with my family”; “My cousin is visiting” Self-sufficiency Basic needs (food) “My family has food”; “There is no meat to eat”; “We have eaten pork” Subsistence activities “I have hunted a lot”; “I have plenty of fruits”; “The fish are about to arrive” Income & Money/material items “I do not have a machete”; “I bought a motor”; “I have lost my material items canoe” Market-related activities “I got a lot of money selling palm thatch”; “I am about to sell wood”; “Too much work”; “I can’t work” Other Miscellaneous “I drink alcohol and I am happy”; “I do not know how to read, and would like to go back to school”; “I feel blessed by God”; “I’m afraid of spirits”; “It is a nice day”; “My house was destroyed by the wind”; “The cold season is over” https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251551.t001 PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251551 May 13, 2021 6 / 16 PLOS ONE Happy just because positive). In our final analysis, we only use the explained data points to explore the distribution of reasons provided by informants across life satisfaction levels. In all analyses, we differenti- ated among responses from the three studied societies. We used Stata 13 for all calculations. Results Life satisfaction levels and their variation Across the three societies, the most common response to our question on life satisfaction level was “good”, which represented 51.2% of Tsimane’, 59.0% of Baka, and 46.6% of Punan responses (Fig 1). Moreover, in the three societies, there were more reports in the extreme pos- itive (i.e., “very good”) than in the extreme negative (i.e., “very bad”) life satisfaction level (9.6% vs 1.2% among the Tsimane’; 15.6% vs. 0.7% among the Baka; and 7.4% vs. 4.2% among the Punan). The average life satisfaction score across reports was 2.54 (SD = 0.97, n = 1180), falling somewhere between “fair” and “good”. The average life satisfaction across informants was very similar, although variation was slightly lower (avg = 2.57, SD = 0.74, n = 474). Individual aver- age life satisfaction scores were highest for the Baka (avg = 2.73, SD = 0.75, n = 225), followed by the Tsimane’ (avg = 2.51, SD = 0.60; n = 137), and lowest for the Punan (avg = 2.31, SD = 0.80, n = 112). Differences in life satisfaction scores across societies were statistically sig- nificant using a Kruskal-Wallis equality-of-populations rank test (Chi square = 27.8, p = .0001, df = 2). To explore variation in life satisfaction levels within individuals, we used the subsample of people who answered our survey more than once (n = 331). We found that life satisfaction scores did not vary much within the responses of an individual (Fig 2). For 49.5% of the sub- sample the score of their life satisfaction did not vary at all across quarters, and for an addi- tional 25.1% life satisfaction only changed by one level. In other words, for 75% of the sub- sample, life satisfaction responses barely changed, if at all, during the study period. Fig 1 shows that, in each society, only about 20% of the responses fall into the category “Fair”, which will not allow for significant changes in happiness levels. Nevertheless, less than 7% of the people in the subsample of people who answered the survey more than once reported changes in life satisfaction levels that varied by three or four levels (i.e., from”very bad” to”good”; or from”- bad” to”very good”; or vice versa), with a slightly higher number of cases reporting an increase rather than a decrease in life satisfaction. The qualitative analysis of responses to high varia- tions shows that these were largely related to specific life events (e.g., widowhood, birth). Over- all, Baka respondents experienced less changes in life satisfaction responses than Tsimane’ and Punan respondents. More than 75% of Baka respondents reported no change or change by only one level in their life satisfaction, and only 4.1% reported changes by three levels. The comparison of the distribution of responses shows important temporal variation in average levels of life satisfaction only among the Baka, for whom the average life satisfaction score was highest in the third quarter of data collection (avg = 2.9), coinciding with the time when Baka go to their forest camps for hunting and collecting honey and other non-timber forest products. In contrast, the average Baka life satisfaction score was almost 1 point lower (average = 2.06) during the first quarter of data collection, or the time for opening agricultural plots, when workload is at its peak and food is scarce. For the Punan and particularly for the Tsimane’, temporal variation was less marked (Fig 3). Unexplained life satisfaction responses Among the reports for which informants provided a life satisfaction evaluation, 488 (41.4%) were left unexplained. In other words, for almost half of the responses, informants did not PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251551 May 13, 2021 7 / 16 PLOS ONE Happy just because Fig 1. Distribution of life satisfaction level responses, percentage by society. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251551.g001 provide any reason for their answer. Reactions to that question varied from smiling or laugh- ing at the enumerator to remaining silent, sometimes giving us an interrogative look, seem- ingly not really understanding the purpose of being asked the question. A handful of informants explicitly mentioned that they had never been asked nor thought about the issue before. Unexplained life satisfaction reports were common among the Baka, who left 240 (51.8%) of their life satisfaction reports unexplained, followed by the Punan, who did not explain 128 (41.2%) of the life satisfaction responses. Unexplained reports were lowest among the Tsimane’, who left 120 (29.6%) of the life satisfaction responses unexplained. Unexplained reports were not equally distributed across life satisfaction categories. In the three societies, the share of unexplained reports was larger for positive and neutral than for neg- ative life satisfaction scores (Fig 4). For example, the Tsimane’ left unexplained 37.3% of the 247 positive and 30.4% of the 79 neutral life satisfaction responses, but only 5% of the 80 nega- tive life satisfaction responses. Similarly, the Baka left unexplained 56.2% of the 345 positive and 48.5% of the 66 neutral, but only 26.9% of the 52 negative life satisfaction responses. Fol- lowing the same pattern, the Punan left unexplained 63.1% of the 168 positive and 33.3% of the 45 neutral, but only 7.4% of the 98 negative life satisfaction responses. Fig 2. Individual variation in life satisfaction score, percentage by society. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251551.g002 PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251551 May 13, 2021 8 / 16 PLOS ONE Happy just because Fig 3. Average life satisfaction score, by quarter of data collection and society. Tsimane’: Quarter 1, n = 90; Q2, n = 86; Q3, n = 69; Q4, n = 41; Baka: Quarter 1, n = 46; Q2, n = 15, Q3, n = 123, Q4, n = 39; Punan: Quarter 1, n = 48; Q2, n = 49; Q3, n = 55; Q4, n = 31. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251551.g003 Reasons explaining life satisfaction responses Overall, respondents provided explanations for 692 (58.6%) of their life satisfaction responses. The distribution of explanations across categories varied from one society to another. The Tsi- mane’ provided 338 explanations for a total of 286 life satisfaction responses. Most of the explanations provided by the Tsimane’ belong to three of the categories used: health (137 explanations, 40.5%), social life (77 explanations, 22.8%), and self-sufficiency (65 explanations, 19.2%). Explanations in the health category were evenly distributed among positive, neutral, and negative life satisfaction levels, whereas explanations in the social life and self-sufficiency categories were most often associated with positive than with neutral or negative life satisfac- tion levels (Fig 5). Baka respondents provided 240 textual explanations for 223 life satisfaction reports. Most of the explanations provided by the Baka (143 explanations, 61%) fell into the category ‘gen- eral’. The second most common reason explaining Baka life satisfaction status was health (48 explanations, 20.0%). Explanations falling into the general category were mostly associated with positive life satisfaction levels, whereas explanations in the health category were evenly distributed among positive, neutral, and negative life satisfaction levels (Fig 5). Fig 4. Distribution of unexplained observations (n = 488), by life satisfaction categories and society. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251551.g004 PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251551 May 13, 2021 9 / 16 PLOS ONE Happy just because Fig 5. Reasons explaining life satisfaction scores, by life satisfaction level and society. Tsimane’ n = 338; Baka n = 240; Punan n = 235. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251551.g005 The Punan provided 235 different explanations for 183 life satisfaction observations. Most explanations provided by the Punan relate to heath (n = 148, 63.0%), the second most com- monly mentioned category being general (n = 54 explanations, 23.0%). For the Punan, health reasons are more frequently associated to negative life satisfaction levels (68.2% of responses in the health category), whereas explanations within the ‘general’ category largely correspond to positive life satisfaction levels (83.3% responses in the general category) (Fig 5). Discussion Three main research findings derive from this work. First, life satisfaction levels in the three studied Indigenous societies are slightly above neutral, suggesting that most people in the sam- ple identify themselves as moderately happy. Second, respondents often did not provide detailed explanations for their stated life satisfaction level, particularly when reporting positive life satisfaction. And finally, the explanations of life satisfaction varied across societies, although health and–to a lesser extent social life–were common among the three societies. Before discussing the significance of these findings, we emphasize that they should be read with caution for two important reasons. First, our proxy for subjective well-being (i.e., life sat- isfaction) might suffer from measurement errors. Life satisfaction is increasingly being used in cross-cultural comparisons [56] because subjective evaluation allows for idiosyncratic reac- tions to different life circumstances [2]. However, as explained above, we used a variation of standard metrics of life satisfaction, which might potentially reduce the comparability of our results with research using other metrics. Second, our results should also be treated carefully because the expression of happiness itself is culturally patterned [58] and any cross-cultural research on subjective well-being faces the risk of exporting (or even imposing) Western con- cepts to non-Western cultures, potentially leading to invalid results [59]. We have deliberately tried to minimize this bias, by recording respondents’ reactions and responses to our questions verbatim, but the bias might still be present. With these caveats in mind, we next discuss the main implications of our work. First, in this work we found that, in the three studied Indigenous societies, life satisfaction levels are slightly above the average of the scale used, with few individuals reporting extreme (positive or negative) life satisfaction levels. The finding is consistent with previous research findings. For example, the average values found in our study are within a ± 1 point (in a 0–10 PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251551 May 13, 2021 10 / 16 PLOS ONE Happy just because scale) of the average values found in the World Values Survey from the same countries in 2012. The Baka average value was higher than Cameroonian values (5.46 v. 4.24), whereas the Tsimane’ and Punan average values were lower than Bolivian (5.02 vs. 6.02) and Indonesian (4.62 vs, 5.37) average values, respectively. Life satisfaction levels reported here are also within the range of results from a major global analysis of industrial societies suggesting that most people are moderately happy [60] and within the range of results from an analysis done with a sample of people living in rural areas of developing countries [61]. Moreover, we found that life satisfaction levels were relatively stable throughout the year, large variations being explained by specific life events (e.g., death, birth). This pattern is also consistent with findings among other Indigenous societies [6] and with global personality research which argues that life satisfaction judgments are relatively stable over time because they are largely predicted by personality traits [62]. Overall, the alignment of our research results with previous research is noteworthy because it suggests that the measure used is relatively adequate to study subjective well-being among Indigenous societies. We note, however, that while our original question referred to overall subjective well-being, many of the explanations provided referred to recent events (e.g., “I got a new baby”). This raises the question on the importance of recent events shaping overall perceptions of well-being and calls for further research. The second and probably most important finding of this work is that respondents often did not provide detailed explanations for their stated life satisfaction level. This was particularly the case when reporting positive life satisfaction level. In other words, participants found it eas- ier to explain the reasons why their evaluations of life satisfaction were negative than to explain the reasons why their evaluations of life satisfaction were positive. We can think of several explanations to this finding. It is possible that, as it has been argued [63], humans react more strongly to negative than to positive stimuli, for which people might have a higher propensity to report negative emotions. It is also possible that the finding reflects a cultural bias in explic- itly and actively expressing happiness, as it has been reported in certain cultures [5]. However, the finding could also be interpreted as suggesting that moderate happiness is, indeed, the nor- mal human state, and most people would only have explanations for their life satisfaction level if they were above or below this state due to some exceptionally good or bad occurrence. Indeed, because moderate happiness facilitates positive social iterations without generating envy and jealousy, it might have been selected as an adaptive trait during our evolutionary his- tory [60]. Research in the cultural evolution of happiness is needed to bring insights on the role of happiness in general, and moderate happiness in particular, in the evolution of our species. The last finding of this work relates to variation in the reasons explaining life satisfaction from one society to another, and the particular role of health–and to a lesser extent social life- in the subjective well-being of the studied societies. Two important related considerations derive from this finding. On the one side, our findings add to a growing body of research sug- gesting that income and material wealth might not always be as important as other consider- ations, here health and social relations, in explaining subjective life satisfaction judgements [64,65]. It should be noted, however that this research has yet to address the degree to which this variation reflects specific situations, rather than cultural preferences. For example, while we found that a commonality in explaining life satisfaction among the three studied societies is the importance of health, we did not explore whether this was simply due to these societies having a low access to healthcare services, as is the case among many Indigenous societies [38], rather than a general cultural valuation of health. On the other side, this finding highlights Indigenous peoples’ distinct perspectives on the drivers of subjective well-being. As men- tioned, relatively little is known about Indigenous peoples own conceptualizations of happi- ness and the culturally-rooted determinants of their subjective well-being (see [42,44] for PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251551 May 13, 2021 11 / 16 PLOS ONE Happy just because some exceptions). In this study, we found that subjective well-being of the three Indigenous societies studies relates to health and social relations, not to income and material possessions, as seems to be the case in many Western societies [66]. Our findings, thus, dovetail with the emerging body of research that shows that Indigenous conceptualizations of well-being largely vary from the concept in industrial societies. The finding has important implications for pol- icy-makers as it suggests that public policies for the well-being of Indigenous populations should address a variety of issues such as treatment of health problems or interactions with cul- ture, communities, and nature. Most importantly, as the drivers of subjective well-being are culture-specific, Indigenous Peoples themselves should be at the center of policy planning in relation to their well-being, lifestyles, ways of making a living, and the future of their lands and waters. In many cases, this entails removing obstacles to their long-relationships with their lands and waters, and supporting Indigenous Peoples’ efforts in sustaining their cultures, and their ways of knowing and being. Conclusion As research on Indigenous conceptualizations of well-being accumulates from different com- munities around the world, we have an opportunity to carry out comparative analyses and identify commonalities on how well-being is understood and nurtured across Indigenous cul- tures. Our work highlights that, although culturally-grounded perspectives of happiness are as diverse as the Indigenous communities they emanate from, there are certain cross-cultural pat- terns worth investigating further. Results on subjective well-being status and drivers in three Indigenous societies suggest that, in the absence of significant emotional stimuli (e.g., death, birth), most people tend to report being moderately happy. Respondents provided explanations mostly when their satis- faction with life was negative. The finding is important because it suggests that the greatest gains in subjective well-being might be achieved by alleviating the factors that make people unhappy, since they are clearly identifiable, and easily reported. Considering that non-Indige- nous perspectives of well-being continue to guide the design and application of development policies in Indigenous lands [39], we call for stronger efforts to understand, appreciate and respect Indigenous determinants of subjective well-being, as perceived and reported by Indige- nous peoples themselves. Supporting information S1 Protocol. Protocol for the questions on “wellbeing”. (DOCX) S1 Data. (XLSX) Acknowledgments We thank R. Duda and M. Guèze for collaboration in data collection. We thank our field teams for assistance during data collection: A. Ambassa, and E. Simpoh in Cameroon; V. Cuata, P. Pache, M. Pache, I. V. Sánchez, and S. Huditz in Bolivia; and S. Hadiwijaya and D. Suan in Indonesia, and X. Li and participants of the 1st LICCI Writing Workshop (FP7- 771056-LICCI) for comments to a previous version of the article. We extend our deepest grati- tude and respect to the Baka, Punan and Tsimane’ societies, and to each of their individuals and villages, who so openly shared their friendship, happiness, and hospitality. PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251551 May 13, 2021 12 / 16 PLOS ONE Happy just because Author Contributions Conceptualization: Victoria Reyes-Garcı́a, Aili Pyhälä. Formal analysis: Victoria Reyes-Garcı́a, Sandrine Gallois, Isabel Dı́az-Reviriego, Álvaro Fer- nández-Llamazares, Eric Galbraith, Sara Miñarro. Funding acquisition: Victoria Reyes-Garcı́a. Investigation: Victoria Reyes-Garcı́a, Sandrine Gallois, Isabel Dı́az-Reviriego, Álvaro Fernán- dez-Llamazares, Lucentezza Napitupulu. Methodology: Victoria Reyes-Garcı́a, Aili Pyhälä. Project administration: Victoria Reyes-Garcı́a. Writing – original draft: Victoria Reyes-Garcı́a. Writing – review & editing: Victoria Reyes-Garcı́a, Sandrine Gallois, Aili Pyhälä, Isabel Dı́az- Reviriego, Álvaro Fernández-Llamazares, Eric Galbraith, Sara Miñarro, Lucentezza Napitupulu. References 1. Diener E, Suh EM, Lucas RE, Smith HL. Subjective well-being: Three decades of progress. Psychologi- cal Bulletin. 1999; 125:276–302. 2. Diener E, Lucas RE, Oishi S. Advances and open questions in the science of subjective well-being. Col- labra: Psychology. 2018; 4(1):15. 3. Seligman ME, Csikszentmihalyi M. Positive psychology. An introduction. Am Psychol. 2000; 55(1):5– 14. https://doi.org/10.1037//0003-066x.55.1.5 PMID: 11392865 4. McMahon DM. Happiness: A history. Atlantinc. 2006. 5. Joshanloo M, Weijers D. Aversion to Happiness Across Cultures: A Review of Where and Why People are Averse to Happiness. J Happiness Stud. 2014; 15(3):717–35. 6. Biswas-Diener R, Vittersø J, Diener E. Most people are pretty happy, but there is cultural variation: The inughuit, the amish, and the maasai. J Happiness Stud. 2005; 6(3):205–26. 7. Diener E, Diener C, Choi H, Oishi S. Revisiting “Most People Are Happy”—And Discovering When They Are Not. Perspect Psychol Sci. 2018; 13(2):166–70. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691618765111 PMID: 29592656 8. Suh EM, Choi H. Predictors of subjective well-being across cultures. In: Diener EF, Oishi S, Tay L, edi- tors. Handbook of well-being. Salt Lake City, UT: DEF Publishers; 2018. 9. Tenney ER, Poole JM, Diener E. Does positivity enhance work performance?: Why, when, and what we don’t know. Research in Organizational Behavior. 2016; 36:27–46. 10. De Neve JE, Diener EF, Tay L, Xuereb C. The Objective Benefits of Subjective Well-Being. In: Helliwell JF, Layard R, Sachs J, editors. World Happiness Report 2013. New York: UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network; 2013. 11. Pressman SD, Jenkins BN, Moskowitz JT. Positive Affect and Health: What Do We Know and Where Next Should We Go? Annu Rev Psychol. 2019; 70(1):627–50. 12. Uchida Y, Oishi S. The Happiness of Individuals and the Collective. Jpn Psychol Res. 2016; 58(1):125– 41. http://doi.wiley.com/10.1111/jpr.12103. 13. Oishi S, Gilbert EA. Current and future directions in culture and happiness research. Current Opinion in Psychology. 2016; 8:54–8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2015.10.005 PMID: 29506804 14. Veenhoven R. How universal is happiness? In: Diener EF, Kahneman D, Helliwell J, editors. Interna- tional differences in Wellbeing. New York: Oxford University Press; 2008. https://doi.org/10.1086/ 589573 PMID: 18564933 15. Pérez-Álvarez M. The Science of happiness: As felicitous as it is fallacious. J Theor Philos Psychol. 2016; 36(1):1–19. 16. Frawley A. Happiness Research: A Review of Critiques. Sociol Compass. 2015; 9(1):62–77. http://doi. wiley.com/10.1111/soc4.12236. PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251551 May 13, 2021 13 / 16 PLOS ONE Happy just because 17. Suh EM, Oishi S. Subjective Well-Being Across Cultures. Psychol Cult. 2002; 10(1):8–9. https://doi.org/ 10.9707/2307-0919.1076. 18. Gruber J, Mauss IB, Tamir M. A Dark Side of Happiness? How, When, and Why Happiness Is Not Always Good. Perspect Psychol Sci. 2011; 6(3):222–33. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/ 26168514 PMID: 26168514 19. Diener E, Biswas-Diener R. Will money increase subjective well-being? A literature review and guide to needed research. Soc Indic Res. 2002; 57(2):119–69. 20. Stevenson B, Wolfers J. Subjective well-being and income: Is there any evidence of satiation? In: Amer- ican Economic Review. 2013. p. 598–604. 21. Veenhoven R. Is Happiness Relative? Social Indicators Research. 1991; 24: 1–34. https://www.jstor. org/stable/27520861. 22. Miñarro S, Reyes-Garcı́a V, Aswani S, Selim S, Barrington-Leigh CP, Galbraith ED. Happy without money: Minimally monetized societies can exhibit high subjective wellbeing. PLoS One. 2021; 16(1 January). 23. Minkin D, Reyes-Garcı́a V. Income and Wellbeing in a Society on the Verge to Market Integration: The Case of the Tsimane’ in the Bolivian Amazon. J Happiness Stud. 2017; 18(4). https://doi.org/10.1007/ s10902-016-9756-7 PMID: 28781575 24. Izquierdo C. When “health” is not enough: Societal, individual and biomedical assessments of well- being among the Matsigenka of the Peruvian Amazon. Soc Sci Med. 2005; 61(4 SPEC. ISS.):767–83. 25. Kral MJ, Idlout L. It’s All in the Family: Wellbeing Among Inuit in Arctic Canada. In: Selin H, Davey G, editors. Happiness across cultures: Views of happiness and quality of life in non-Western cultures. Dor- drecht: Springer Nature; 2012. p. 387–98. 26. Willeto AAA. Happiness in Navajos (Diné Ba’ Hózhó). In Springer, Dordrecht; 2012. p. 377–86. https:// link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-007-2700-7_25. 27. Burnette CE, Clark CB, Rodning CB. “Living off the land”: How subsistence promotes well-being and resilience among indigenous peoples of the Southeastern United States. Soc Serv Rev. 2018; 92 (3):369–400. https://doi.org/10.1086/699287 PMID: 30853722 28. Heil D. Happiness in an Aboriginal Australian Community: What It Means ‘To Be Well’ and ‘To Enjoy Life’ in Central-Western New South Wales, Australia. In Springer, Dordrecht; 2012; p. 195–207. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-007-2700-7_14. 29. Reyes-Garcı́a VTAPS. Happiness in the Amazon: Folk Explanations of Happiness in a Hunter-Horticul- turalist Society in the Bolivian Amazon. In: Selin H, Davey G, editors. Happiness Across Cultures, Sci- ence Across Cultures: Science, The History of Non-Western. Dordrecht: Springer; 2012. p. 209–25. 30. Kingsley J, Townsend M, Phillips R, Aldous D. “If the land is healthy. . . it makes the people healthy”: The relationship between caring for Country and health for the Yorta Yorta Nation, Boonwurrung and Bangerang Tribes. Heal Place. 2009; 15(1):291–9. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18703375/. 31. Overing JA, Passes A. The anthropology of Love and Anger: The Aesthetics of Conviviality in Native Amazonia. Routledge; 2000. 32. Walker H. Joy within tranquility: Amazonian Urarina styles of happiness. HAU J Ethnogr Theory. 2015; 5(3):177–96. 33. Fernández-Llamazares Á, Virtanen PK. Game masters and Amazonian Indigenous views on sustain- ability. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. 2020; 43: 21–7. 34. Reyes-Garcı́a V, Guèze M, Dı́az-Reviriego I, Duda R, Fernández-Llamazares Á, Gallois S, et al. The adaptive nature of culture. A cross-cultural analysis of the returns of local environmental knowledge in three indigenous societies. Curr Anthropol. 2016; 57(6):761–84. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/ 28104924 PMID: 28104924 35. Fleming C, Manning M. Routledge Handbook of Indigenous Wellbeing. Routledge International Hand- books; 2019. https://www.amazon.com/Routledge-Indigenous-Wellbeing-International-Handbooks/dp/ 1138909173. 36. Tomyn AJ, Cummins RA, Norrish JM. The Subjective Wellbeing of ‘At-Risk’ Indigenous and Non-Indige- nous Australian Adolescents. J Happiness Stud. 2015; 16(4):813–37. https://link.springer.com/article/ 10.1007/s10902-014-9535-2. 37. Wang J-H. Happiness and Social Exclusion of Indigenous Peoples in Taiwan—A Social Sustainability Perspective. PLoS One. 2015; 10(2):e0118305. https://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0118305 PMID: 25695773 38. Anderson I, Robson B, Connolly M, Al-Yaman F, Bjertness E, King A, et al. Indigenous and tribal peo- ples’ health: a population study. Lancet. 2016; 388(10040):131–57. https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/ retrieve/pii/S0140673616003457 PMID: 27108232 PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251551 May 13, 2021 14 / 16 PLOS ONE Happy just because 39. Manning M, Ambrey CL, Fleming CM. A Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Wellbeing in Australia. J Hap- piness Stud. 2016; 17(6):2503–25. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10902-015-9704-y. 40. Durie M, Milroy H, Hunter E. Mental Health and the Indigenous Peoples of Australia and New Zealand. In: Kirmayer LJ, editor. Healing traditions: The mental health of Aboriginal peoples in Canada. Vancou- ver: UBC Press; 2009. p. 36–55. https://research-repository.uwa.edu.au/en/publications/mental- health-and-the-indigenous-peoples-of-australia-and-new-zea. 41. Hossain B, Lamb L. Cultural Attachment and Wellbeing Among Canada’s Indigenous People: A Rural Urban Divide. J Happiness Stud. 2020; 21(4):1303–24. 42. Wu F. Modern Economic Growth, Culture, and Subjective Well-Being: Evidence from Arctic Alaska. J Happiness Stud. 2020;1–31. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10902-020-00335-4. 43. King M, Smith A, Gracey M. Indigenous health part 2: The underlying causes of the health gap. The Lancet. 2009; 374: 76–85. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19577696/ PMID: 19577696 44. Biddle N. Measuring and Analysing the Wellbeing of Australia’s Indigenous Population. Soc Indic Res. 2014; 116(3):713–29. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11205-013-0317-8. 45. Wilk P, Maltby A, Cooke M. Residential schools and the effects on Indigenous health and well-being in Canada—A scoping review Public Health Reviews. 2017; 38: 8. http://publichealthreviews. biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40985-017-0055-6 PMID: 29450080 46. Reyes-Garcı́a V, Paneque-Gálvez J, Bottazzi P, Luz AC, Gueze M, Macı́a MJ, et al. Indigenous land reconfiguration and fragmented institutions: A historical political ecology of Tsimane’ lands (Bolivian Amazon). J Rural Stud. 2014; 34:282–91. https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/ S0743016714000345. 47. Fernández-Llamazares Á, Dı́az-Reviriego I, Guèze M, Cabeza M, Pyhälä A, Reyes-Garcı́a V. Local perceptions as a guide for the sustainable management of natural resources: Empirical evidence from a small-scale society in Bolivian Amazonia. Ecol Soc. 2016; 21(1). https://pmc/articles/PMC5029546/? report=abstract PMID: 27660639 48. Leclerc C. L’adoption de l’agriculture chez les pygmées Baka du Cameroun, Dynamique sociale et con- tinuité structurale. MSH/Quae. Paris/Versailles; 2012. 49. Kitanishi K. The Impact of Cash and Commoditization on the Baka Hunter-Gatherer Society in South- eastern Cameroon. Afr Study Monogr. 2006; Supplement(33):121–42. 50. Kaskija L. Images of a forest people : Punan Malinau: identity, sociality, and encapsulation in Borneo. Uppsala universitet; 2012. 270 p. https://books.google.fr/books/about/Images_of_a_Forest_People. html?id=v5wyLgEACAAJ&redir_esc=y. 51. Levang PP. S S and E D, Sitorus S, Dounias E. City life in the midst of the forest: a Punan hunter-gather- er’s vision of conservation and development. Ecol Soc. 2007; 12(1):18. 52. Napitupulu L, Bouma J, Reyes-Garcı́a V. The Things We Share: Sharing in Daily Life and Experimental Settings Among Punan Tubu, Indonesian Borneo. Ecol Econ. 2018; 152:88–97. https://linkinghub. elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0921800917308716. 53. Diener E, Emmons RA, Larsem RJ, Griffin S. The Satisfaction With Life Scale. J Pers Assess. 1985; 49 (1):71–5. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa4901_13 PMID: 16367493 54. Cheung F, Lucas RE. Assessing the validity of single-item life satisfaction measures: results from three large samples. Qual Life Res. 2014; 23(10):2809–18. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-014-0726-4 PMID: 24890827 55. Lucas RE, Donnellan MB. Estimating the Reliability of Single-Item Life Satisfaction Measures: Results from Four National Panel Studies. Soc Indic Res. 2012; 105(3):323–31. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s11205-011-9783-z PMID: 23087538 56. Kuppens P, Realo A, Diener E. The Role of Positive and Negative Emotions in Life Satisfaction Judg- ment Across Nations. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2008; 95(1):66–75. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.95.1. 66 PMID: 18605852 57. Helliwell JF, Layard R, Sachs J, De-Neve J-E. World Happiness Report 2020. New York; 2020. 58. Uchida Y, Kitayama S. Happiness and Unhappiness in East and West: Themes and Variations. Emo- tion. 2009; 9(4):441–56. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0015634 PMID: 19653765 59. Thin N. Counting and recounting happiness and culture: On happiness surveys and prudential ethnobio- graphy. Int J Wellbeing. 2012; 2(4). https://www.internationaljournalofwellbeing.org/index.php/ijow/ article/view/137. 60. Diener E, Diener C. Most People Are Happy Psychological Science. 1996; 7:181–5. https://www.jstor. org/stable/40062938. PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251551 May 13, 2021 15 / 16 PLOS ONE Happy just because 61. Reyes-Garcı́a V, Babigumira R, Pyhälä A, Wunder S, Zorondo-Rodrı́guez F, Angelsen A. Subjective Wellbeing and Income: Empirical Patterns in the Rural Developing World. J Happiness Stud. 2016; 17 (2). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-014-9608-2 PMID: 27642259 62. Schimmack U, Diener E, Oishi S. Life-Satisfaction Is a Momentary Judgment and a Stable Personality Characteristic: The Use of Chronically Accessible and Stable Sources. In Springer, Dordrecht; 2009. p. 181–212. 63. Rozin P, Royzman EB. Negativity Bias, Negativity Dominance, and Contagion. Personal Soc Psychol Rev. 2001; 5(4):296–320. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1207/S15327957PSPR0504_2. 64. Oishi S, Diener EF, Lucas RE, Suh EM. Cross-cultural variations in predictors of life satisfaction: Per- spectives from needs and values. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 1999; 25: 980–90. 65. Schimmack U, Oishi S, Radhakrishnan P, Dzokoto V, Ahadi S. Culture, personality, and subjective well-being: Integrating process models of life satisfaction. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2002; 82(4):582–93. PMID: 11999925 66. Diener E, Ng W, Harter J, Arora R. Wealth and Happiness Across the World: Material Prosperity Pre- dicts Life Evaluation, Whereas Psychosocial Prosperity Predicts Positive Feeling. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2010; 99(1):52–61. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0018066 PMID: 20565185 PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251551 May 13, 2021 16 / 16