Study Suggests Happiness “Less Important” to Asians

A recent Time article discusses a University of Washington paper which found that “having positive emotions — ‘happy,’ ‘joyful,’ ‘proud,’ ‘strong’ — tended to reduce stress and depression symptoms among European Americans but not immigrant Asians. The results for U.S.-born Asian Americans were mixed. […] The new paper doesn’t take a stand on how Asians and Americans differ in their views, but it does show, through its controlled experiments, that positive emotions are less important to Asian-born Asians than to Americans.” Which means, instead of blaming your parents for not being happy about anything you do, now you can just blame societal Confucian ideals. Take that to the therapist you’re not going to!