ISSN : 1229-0653
Focalism is a tendency to neglect relevant but less salient factors in theprediction of happiness. To explore whether focalism occurs in the context of predicting other people’s happiness in Korea, the actual and predicted levels of happiness of Seoul and Choonchun residents were analyzed (N=1,429). As expected, predictions of other’s happiness were based disproportionately heavily on aspects of life that might be highly salient from the standpoint of a non-resident. For instance, Choonchun residents overestimated the amount of satisfaction residents of Seoul might derive from domains of shopping and job opportunities. Conversely, people living in Seoul overestimated how happy Choonchun residents might feel in their leisurely pace of life style. The current findingssuggest that focalistic judgmental tendencies emerge among Koreans in happiness predictions, despite holding holistic worldviews that may potentially attenuate such biases (Lam et al., 2005).
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