행복에 대한 연구는 서구 중심의 학자들과 학문적 토대 아래 이루어져 왔다. 서양에서는 행복을 개인적인 성취와 대인관계에서의 긍정적인 정서적 경험으로 개념화하고 있다. 하지만 일본이나 중국 같은 동양권 문화에서 수행되었던 연구에 따르면 행복의 개념이 서양의 개념과 다르다는 것을 제안해준다. 본 연구는 83명의 대학생들을 대상으로 양적 분석 방법과 질적 분석 방법을 사용해 한국인들이 행복을 어떻게 개념화 하고 있는지 알아보았다. Yukiko와 Kitayama (2009)에서 일본인들과 미국인들의 행복개념을 비교 연구할 때 사용한 방법을 이용하여 한국인의 행복개념을 이전의 일본과 미국 데이터와 비교하는 작업을 실시했다. 분석 결과, 한국인들은 행복으로 인해 생기는 긍정적인 결과와 부정적인 결과를 모두 고려하는 변증법적인 행복 개념을 가지고 있어 일본인들과 비슷한 행복개념을 보이는 것으로 나타났으며, 행복을 지배적으로 긍정적인 경험으로 지각하는 미국인들과는 차이를 보였다. 또한 한국인들은 정서 상태로서의 행복과 삶의 다른 영역 (대인관계, 일)에 영향을 미치는 기능으로서의 행복으로 분류하는 것으로 나타났다. 본 연구는 한국인들의 행복개념을 체계적으로 분석하는 시도를 통해 한국인이 가지는 행복개념의 특수성을 기존의 서구 중심의 행복 연구와 이론에서 정의하는 행복개념과 함께 고려하는 통합적인 시각이 필요하다는 점을 시사해준다.
Happiness research has primarily been conducted based on the American model of happiness. The agentic concept of happiness in the West emphasizes the positive feeling state stemming from individual achievement and positive interpersonal relationships. However, previous studies on lay theories of happiness in other East Asian countries, such as China and Japan, have suggested that these meanings of happiness differ from those of the Western cultural context. The present study examined the lay theory of happiness among Koreans using qualitative and quantitative approaches. Furthermore, the authors compared the Korean model of happiness with that of the Japanese and Americans from Uchida and Kitayama (2009). The findings from the present research indicate that the Korean model of happiness involves both positive and negative states and consequences of happiness, unlike the uniformly positively connoted happiness in Western cultural contexts. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of the current findings on happiness research in the Korean culture.
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