Cross-Cultural Consistency and Relativity in the Enjoyment of Thinking Versus Doing


Buttrick N., Choi H., Wilson T. D., Oishi S., Boker S. M., Gilbert D. T., ...More

JOURNAL OF PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, vol.117, no.5, 2019 (SSCI) identifier identifier

  • Publication Type: Article / Article
  • Volume: 117 Issue: 5
  • Publication Date: 2019
  • Doi Number: 10.1037/pspp0000198
  • Journal Name: JOURNAL OF PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
  • Journal Indexes: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus
  • Keywords: thinking, individual differences, cultural differences, replication, MOTIVATION, HEALTH, LIFE, NEED
  • Middle East Technical University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

Which is more enjoyable: trying to think enjoyable thoughts or doing everyday solitary activities? Wilson et al. (2014) found that American participants much preferred solitary everyday activities, such as reading or watching TV, to thinking for pleasure. To see whether this preference generalized outside of the United States, we replicated the study with 2,557 participants from 12 sites in 11 countries. The results were consistent in every country: Participants randomly assigned to do something reported significantly greater enjoyment than did participants randomly assigned to think for pleasure. Although we found systematic differences by country in how much participants enjoyed thinking for pleasure, we used a series of nested structural equation models to show that these differences were fully accounted for by country-level variation in 5 individual differences, 4 of which were positively correlated with thinking for pleasure (need for cognition, openness to experience, meditation experience, and initial positive affect) and 1 of which was negatively correlated (reported phone usage).