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Person-culture fit perspectives posit that individuals have higher self-esteem when their values match the values of the sociocultural environment in which they live. The current study tested this hypothesis by examining the associations between value congruence and self-esteem in a large-scale sample in the United States (N = 48,563). Multilevel response surface analyses revealed no evidence of value congruence effects on self-esteem, such that the agreement between individual- and state-level values did not positively predict self-esteem for any of the 10 basic values. Instead, we found positive (stimulation, security) and negative (conformity) linear associations between individual-level values and self-esteem. We also found positive curvilinear relationships between individual-level achievement and tradition values and self-esteem, and negative curvilinear relationships between individual-level self-direction, hedonism, power, benevolence, and universalism values and self-esteem. In addition, state-level values moderated the relationship between values and self-esteem for tradition, universalism, and conformity values. In federal states with stronger endorsement of tradition values, individuals' tradition values were more positively associated with self-esteem. In contrast, in states with stronger endorsement of universalism values, individuals' universalism values were more negatively associated with self-esteem. Lastly, individuals' conformity values were negatively associated with self-esteem, particularly in states with weaker endorsement of conformity values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychologists typically conceptualize a good life either in terms of hedonic (e.g. life satisfaction, positive affect) or eudaimonic well-being (e.g. meaning, fulfillment of potential). In the current research, we explored another form of a good life: the psychologically rich life. In Study 1, we conducted a 14-day daily diary study (N = 203). In Study 2, we compared Chinese studying in the United States (N = 97) with Chinese studying in China (N = 169). In Study 3, we conducted a 12-week weekly survey study among Americans studying abroad (N = 43) and Americans studying in the United States (N = 100). In Study 4, we recruited students who had studied abroad (N = 84) and their friends (informants) who did not (N = 76). Study 1 showed that participants who scored higher in a psychologically rich life were more likely to take a short trip during the 14-day period. In Studies 2 to 4, those who studied abroad reported higher levels of a psychologically rich life than those who did not. Unusual experiences such as study abroad were consistently associated with higher levels of psychological richness, whereas they were not consistently associated with life satisfaction, positive affect, and meaning in life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Excess sugar consumption has been linked to numerous negative health outcomes, such as obesity and type II diabetes. Reducing sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption may reduce sugar intake and thus improve health. The aim of the study was to test the impact of the potentially different rewarding nature of water or diet drinks as replacements for SSB, using a habit and implementation intention–based intervention. Method: An online randomised, two-arm parallel design was used. One hundred and fifty-eight participants (mainly from the UK and USA) who regularly consumed SSBs (Mage = 31.5, 51% female) were advised to create implementation intentions to substitute their SSB with either water or a diet drink. Measures of SSB consumption, habit strength and hedonic liking were taken at baseline and at 2 months. Water or diet drink consumption was only measured at 2 months. Results: There was a large and significant reduction in SSB consumption and self-reported SSB habits for both the water and diet drink groups, but no difference between groups. There were no differences in hedonic liking for the alternative drink, alternative drink consumption and alternative drink habit between the two groups. Reduction in SSB hedonic liking was associated with reduced SSB consumption and habit. Conclusion: This study demonstrates that an implementation intention–based intervention achieved substantial reductions in SSB consumption and habits. It also indicates that hedonic liking for SSBs and alternative drinks are associated with changes in consumption behaviour. Substituting SSBs with water or diet drinks was equally as effective in reducing SSB consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fashion industry is responsible for bringing some of the worst consumption practices out of individuals by reinforcing tendencies for overconsumption throughout society. Consuming too much has led to negative economic, societal, and environmental consequences. The purpose of this paper is to understand whether promoting a style orientation among consumers (rather than a fashion orientation) will lead to more sustainable apparel consumption. Data collected from 6,386 consumers across five countries that are considered to be leaders in sustainable development (Sweden, Netherlands, Germany, the U.K., and the U.S.) suggest that promoting style can be a potential solution to attain slow fashion and, thus, improve sustainable apparel consumption. We further examine the role of hedonism and materialism in influencing sustainable practices in the industry. Based on the findings, the paper emphasizes the need for the collective effort of different actors, especially the role of government, in creating a more sustainable fashion system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Although psychological factors have been explored in relation to other life transitions, their influence on retirement adjustment quality has been largely overlooked. This study assessed the contribution of personality traits and generativity before retirement in the prediction of hedonic and eudaimonic well-being at two temporal points after retirement.Method: This article analyzes data from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) longitudinal sample. Specifically, it uses a subsample of people who were not retired at Time 1, but were 9 years after at Time 2 (n = 548) and 18 years after at Time 3 (n = 351).Results: After controlling both for initial values on hedonic and eudaimonic well-being and for the effects of personal attributes and resources, higher scores on Extraversion at Time 1 significantly predicted hedonic well-being at Time 2, whereas lower scores on Neuroticism and higher scores on generativity at Time 1 significantly predicted eudaimonic well-being at Time 2. Neuroticism and generative concern at Time 1 remained significant in the prediction of eudaimonic well-being at Time 3.Conclusions: The study shows that personality traits and generative concern at midlife explain a meaningful part of the variation in individuals' quality of subsequent retirement adjustment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Happiness represents, starting from the ancient times, the main goal of any individual. Despite de boom of the life satisfaction literature from the last decades, a still not very exploited issue is the relationship between capital markets and life satisfaction due to the difficulty of collecting aggregate information at high frequency. To overcome such difficulty we use the hedonometer's data set generated by Twitter's feed and daily values of S$P500 and VIX. The results show an important correlation between capital market evolutions and Happiness Index. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current research provides a descriptive and comparative assessment of lay conceptions of well-being in undergraduate student samples from South Korea and the United States. The objectives of the current research were (1) to examine potential cross-cultural variability in the degree to which the experience of pleasure, avoidance of negative experience, self-development, and contribution are emphasized in the lay conceptions of well-being espoused by undergraduate students in South Korea and the United States, and (2) to investigate potential cross-cultural variability in associations between each of the above dimensions and multiple indicators of experienced well-being. To address these objectives, samples were drawn from universities in the United States and South Korea, and self-report instruments measuring the constructs of interest were administered. Results indicated that the South Korean sample emphasized the experience of pleasure and avoidance of negative experience to a greater degree than the United States sample, whereas the United States sample emphasized contribution to others to a greater degree than the South Korean sample. Despite these differences, associations between lay conception of well-being dimensions and experienced well-being were largely similar across cultural groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, legal scholars have become acutely concerned with the hedonic consequences of incarceration. Despite this interest, no research has simultaneously tested (1) whether current incarceration and recent incarceration lead to declines in happiness, and (2) whether the direct effects of imprisonment (what Gresham Sykes referred to as the "pains of imprisonment") or the indirect effects of imprisonment (what scholars have come to call the "collateral consequences" of imprisonment) explain these effects, although there are compelling reasons to expect both. In this Article, we consider research on the causes of happiness and the consequences of incarceration to generate three hypotheses: the pains of imprisonment hypothesis, the incomplete adaptation hypothesis, and the selection hypothesis. We then use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study and an array of rigorous statistical methods to isolate effects of current incarceration and recent incarceration on happiness. The results suggest that current incarceration has hedonic consequences, leading to statistically significant reductions in happiness across a range of statistical models. Indeed, current incarceration is the only factor more strongly correlated with current happiness than prior happiness. Furthermore, the indirect effects of imprisonment do little to explain these hedonic consequences, providing support for the pains of imprisonment hypothesis. The only inmates whose happiness does not follow this pattern were affectively unusual. They either disproportionately suffered from depression before incarceration or were profoundly unhappy prior to their incarceration (suggesting they had little possibility of becoming less happy while incarcerated). Recent incarceration, on the other hand, has no discernible effects on happiness after accounting for existing individual personality traits. Taken together, these results suggest that in terms of happiness lost, it is possible to match punishments with crimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to explore contemporary consumer culture in the making. This is done by means of an analysis of historical consumer cultural products. Through an investigation of a subset of lyrics from the Southern California popular music scene of the early 1960s, themes of hedonic consumption and consumer rituals are analyzed. It is argued that these songs are reflective of a resonant meeting between a market-oriented culture production system and participation in consumer subcultural systems. As such, it represents an early form of coolhunting. Finally, the themes from the lyrics are used to flesh out the various types and elements of play in consumption practices, as well as to underline the importance of historicizing consumer culture theoretical constructs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that American organized crime is composed of atavistic cultural groups who organize themselves according to an antiquated social structure emphasizing ethnicity. La Cosa Nostra: U. S. Families (i.e., the Maia), for example, is composed only of men who are of Italian and Sicilian descent. Catholicism is the only allowed religion. Other criminal groups are united solely by their ethnicity whether they are Irish, Jewish, African-American, Cuban, Chinese or Russian. Other criminal groups such as prison gangs and motorcycle gangs follow a similar pattern. This paper also argues that organized criminal groups historically are the chief providers of hedonistic cultural services including, but not limited to sex, gambling, and narcotics. Since the colonial period in the eighteenth century, organized criminal groups indulged in and/or provided illegal goods and services, especially those of a hedonistic nature. These atavistic and hedonistic characteristics recast American organized crime in a new light. Instead of identifying this phenomenon as organized hierarchy and corruption (Cressey, 1969), illicit enterprise (Smith, 1975), syndicated crime (Albini, 1976), ethnic succession (Ianni and Reuss-Iannni, 1976), or as an eclectic ongoing criminal activity (Abadinsky 1985), this definition focuses on the motivations of organized criminals who at one and the same time seek to maintain a past social structure while also pursuing futuristic hedonistic goals. In effect, American organized crime is like a two-headed eagle, facing both the past as well as the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined American customers’ perceptions of values regarding dining experiences in Korean restaurants in the United States. Specifically, the effects of hedonic and utilitarian values on customer satisfaction and behavioral intentions were investigated. This study also examined the moderating effect of familiarity with Korean restaurants on the relationships among perceived values, satisfaction, and behavioral intentions. Overall, the results indicated that American customers valued the utilitarian aspects of Korean restaurants more than the hedonic aspects. Additionally, utilitarian aspects had a stronger impact on customer satisfaction and behavioral intentions than hedonic aspects. However, when considering customers’ familiarity level with the restaurants, hedonic aspects more effectively induced positive behavioral intentions in the low familiarity group, proving that familiarity has a moderating role. Conversely, utilitarian aspects appeared to be more influential in terms of the behavioral intentions of the high familiarity group. Theoretical and practical implications are also discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article presents the author's views regarding the summary of pleasure and the good life, as well as the nature, varieties, and plausability of hedonism in the U.S. The goal intention of the author was to show that when carefully formulated and charitably interpreted, certain forms of hedonism yield plausible evaluations of the prudential value of lives.

Through an ethnography of shopping that takes place in five thrift stores in a US midwestern town, the authors examine the role of thrift in a shopping process that is both economic and hedonic--'thrift shopping'. Taking a dialectical perspective on the study of shopping (Sherry, 1990), Miller's (1998) findings on the role of thrift are extended by showing that in the thrift shopping context thrift coexists with treat, and the pursuit of thrift can itself become a hedonic experience. In addition, the authors identify six ways in which consumers practise thrift in thrift shopping and the hedonic benefits that they derive from this money-saving activity. The findings challenge the traditional frugality perspective of dichotomising thrift and hedonic desire being opposite and contradictory orientations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Models of masculine consumerism may have been especially visible at the end of the 20th century but this chapter of the book Masculinity and Men's Lifestyle Magazines argues that the distinguishing features of the consuming male had already taken shape a hundred years earlier and had become clearly recognizable by the 1930's. Moreover, while these developments were identifiable in Great Britain, it is argued that they were more pronounced and better established in the U.S. In the United States, masculine archetypes oriented around the personal pleasures of consumerism existed in embryonic form within the bachelor subcultures of the fin-de-siècle metropolis and subsequently found fuller expression among the fashionable bucks of the Jazz Age. Masculine identities oriented around consumption certainly challenged established masculine codes and archetypes, especially the production- and family-oriented ideals associated with the traditional middle class. But, rather than being radical or transgressive, the rise of the masculine consumer is better seen as a transformative phenomenon, part of wider changes in the American social structure that saw the emergence of a new, middle-class faction with a habitus whose reverence for hedonism and style was tailor-made to modem capitalism's demand for an endlessly regenerating consumer market.

Examines the relationships between casino play and hedonic factors in Las Vegas, Nevada. Differences between slot players and table game players; Economic impact of gambling; Discipline in terms of gambling spending.

Presents a regulatory focus perspective on hedonic intensity derived from gains from nonlosses and losses from nongains in New York, New York. Attribution of greater pleasure of a gain to stronger cheerfulness; Association of greater pain of a loss with stronger agitation; Implications for models of emotional experiences and prospect theory.

Discusses the concept of pornotopia state in the U.S. Promotion of individual self-realization; Impact of ambivalence toward the pornographic state on U.S. citizens; Information on hedonism.

The article examines the ideology of U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower to better understand both his anticommunism and the buildup of the military-industrial complex during his presidency. It presents many expressions of strong antifascist sentiment in the World War II papers of Eisenhower which supports the claim that Eisenhower emerged from World War II convinced of the moral preeminence of the U.S. and with an ideology of unquestioning righteousness. It offers information on how Eisenhower extended his ideology beyond the military to encompass civilian society and how his lifelong military career shaped his ideological commitment to duty and self-restraint, like his alarmism and the conviction that the moral fiber of the nation was degenerating because materialism and hedonism of American culture was blocking the essential military virtues of patriotism, duty and self-sacrifice.

Private provision of public environmental benefits is considered with a theory of prosocial behavior that elaborates the roles of nonhedonistic values held by agents as well as the functional interaction between private good and public good production processes. The theory also identifies the conditions under which public environmental goods will be privately supplied and motivates an empirical approach. Models of environmental effort in agriculture are estimated based on a survey of U.S. field crop farmers. Results confirm the role of hedonistic motivation of environmental effort and provide very weak evidence of a role of nonhedonistic values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports estimates of metropolitan area specific rates of economic depreciation for residential real estate obtained using the hedonic pricing methodology. Separate hedonic equations were estimated for owner-occupied and renter-occupied properties for each of 59 metropolitan areas. With the exception of variables that identified particular locations within the urban area, the same hedonic equation was used to estimate tenure specific depreciation rates. That is, the same hedonic specification was used for each of the 59 metropolitan areas to estimate depreciation rates for owner-occupied and for renter-occupied housing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract--This paper extends the Brown-Mendelsohn hedonic travel cost (HTC) model by estimating the travel cost function for each recreationist as a technically efficient frontier. It also constrains the marginal prices for desirable characteristics to be non-negative. The model is used to value improvements in the quality of sport fishing in the Albemarle-Pamlico Estuary in North Carolina. The application compares the performance of the frontier HTC with ordinary least squares estimates and finds the former to be free of problems identified in the literature and to provide more plausible and robust benefit estimates for quality improvements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports on the findings of a preliminary investigation into the role played by amenities in the rapid post-World War II population growth of Arizona. Concept of amenity as a locational factor influencing the movement of population and industry; Proportion of Arizona's in-migrants responding to the pull of an amenity, especially climate; Proportion of in-migrants who acted in response to hedonistic motivation.

This article focuses on hedonic estimation of housing market prices in the U.S. Whether urban housing markets are in "equilibrium" or not, the central problem in estimating hedonic equations involves the delineation of homogeneous submarkets. A huge variation exists both in the types of housing available across geographic submarkets within a metropolitan area and in the demand for housing of a given type at a given location. A wide variation in the density and other characteristics of the housing stock can be observed in a given location at any point in time, principally reflecting the fact that the stock was built over a long period of time when factor and output prices varied. Many of the attempts to estimate the effects of race on housing prices make aggregation error. Typically a household race dummy is included in a regression equation for prices based on data drawn from a broad geographic area. Assuming housing market discrimination is significant, and that Black and White households differ due to differences in income and family size, the relationship between housing demands and supplies in the ghetto is likely to result in a very different structure of prices than for similar units in nearby White submarkets.

The article focuses on the theory of hedonism and self-actualization that had influence the nature of happiness among individuals in the U.S. Hedonism is centered in the pursuit of pleasure as a matter of ethical principle while self-actualization emphasized on the creative fulfillment of a person's potentials. The author notes that achieving happiness can be encountered through the constant flow and process at all stages of life.