Constructions of Happiness and Satisfaction in the Kingdom of Tonga

Constructions of Happiness and Satisfaction in the Kingdom of Tonga Heather E. Young-Leslie and Sean E. Moore

Cross-cultural studies of happiness and related positive feelings, such as life satisfaction and subjective wellbeing, have proliferated during the past two decades (Diener 2009; Diener & Suh 1999, 2000; Diener, Kahneman, & Helliwell 2010; Kahneman, Diener, & Schwarz 1999; Veenhoven 2011). Many of these studies typically compare large, random samples of respondents from various cultural groups or nations with an underlying goal of identifying common predictors of happiness or satisfaction. This expansion has been driven by academic interest in topics such as positive psychology (Seligman 2002), as well as a growing public interest in improving the emotional quality of life (Lyubomirsky 2008). While this body of work is impressive in scope, in that it includes reports of happiness from thousands of people in over 150 different countries, it is still incomplete and does not include information from some large geographic regions in the world (Veenhoven 2011). Moreover, much of this large-scale work has failed to survey the well-being of smaller, less populous cultural groups (Biswas-Diener, Vittersø, & Diener 2005). Most notably, and despite stereotypes of ‘happy natives’ (Theroux 1992), very little work has examined happiness in the Pacific Islands, a region of the world that covers a vast geographic area, containing thousands of relatively small islands populated by a diverse number of ethnocultural groups. In the present chapter, we will review and expand upon one of the first cultural psychological surveys of happiness and life satisfaction conducted in the South Pacific island nation of Tonga (Moore, Young-Leslie, & Lavis 2005).

Kingdom of Tonga Tonga is an archipelago nation of nearly 106,000 people located in the Polynesian subregion of the South Pacific (Central Intelligence Agency 2009). The country consists of over 170 islands and coral atolls spread over 800 km of the Pacific Ocean. Some of its neighbours include Fiji to the west, Samoa to the northeast, and New H.E. Young-Leslie (B) University of Alberta, Edmonton AB, Canada e-mail: [email protected] H. Selin, G. Davey (eds.), Happiness Across Cultures, Science Across Cultures: The History of Non-Western Science 6, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-2700-7_13, C Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012

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H.E. Young-Leslie and S.E. Moore

Fig. 1 Map of Tonga Source: Perry Castañeda Library, University of Texas Libraries, downloaded from http://www.lib. utexas.edu/maps/islands_oceans_poles/tonga.jpg on April 30, 2011, Public domain

Zealand to the southwest (see Fig. 1). Administratively, Tonga is divided into 4 main divisions or subregions: Tongatapu and ‘Eua, Ha’apai, Vava’u and Niuatoputapu and Niu’afo’ou. Over 70% of people live in the southern Tongatapu subregion. In terms of ethnocultural groups present in Tonga, over 90% of the population are indigenous Polynesian, and a very small proportion of minority groups claim European, Asian,

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and other Pacific Island ancestry (Tonga Department of Statistics 2006). Most people in Tonga speak Tongan, an indigenous Polynesian language, on a day-to-day basis. Few Tongans use English regularly except when speaking to foreigners and in secondary education. Like most countries in the world, Tonga has experienced a pattern of increased urbanization with approximately 23% of the population classified as living in urban settings (Tonga Department of Statistics 2006). However, the vast majority of the populace still lives in rural villages of 500 or fewer persons. Politically, Tonga is a constitutional monarchy headed by a hereditary king (currently King George Tupou V) and governed by a prime minister and parliament (see Latukefu 1974 and Campbell 2001, 2005 for an overview of the history of Tongan rule). Recent electoral reform has established a parliamentary system consisting of elected representatives of both the titled nobles and non-titled ‘commoners’. Despite the fact that Tonga has undergone significant political change in recent years including a protracted public servants’ strike and a protest for electoral reform which ended in a riot with several buildings associated with the ruling family burnt and looted (Young-Leslie 2007a), there is still a deep respect for the idea of traditional political institutions (Campbell 1999, 2005; Lawson 1996). Tongans are very proud of their unique history in the South Pacific. While the country came into contact with a variety of European forces during the colonial period, unlike most other Pacific Island nations, Tongans were able to maintain indigenous governance. The economy in Tonga is based primarily in agriculture, fishing, and handicrafts, along with a growing tourism industry. Much of this economic activity takes place in the larger, more populous region of Tongatapu, where 37% of the population report having fulltime paid employment (Tonga Department of Statistics 2006). In contrast, Tongans living on the smaller and more remote “outer islands” engage the market economy in a more limited fashion. Rural life on these islands consists of approximately 70% reliance on subsistence food supplemented by textile production, opportunistic marketing of copra (desiccated coconut), fish and agricultural products, and remittances from overseas kin. Cultural prescriptions for masculine and feminine roles emphasize food production for men and textile production for women, and this has not changed in the urban context (Young-Leslie 2004). Even in the most urbanized settings, such as the capital of Nuku’alofa, many citizens engage in some form of subsistence work. A mix of traditional and modern values thus typifies Tongan social and cultural life (Young-Leslie 2007; Young-Leslie & Evans 2001). The most significant values include the maintenance of strong social cohesion and a deep respect for traditional practices. Cohesion is maintained through both church and traditional ideologies. Traditional practices that maintain this cohesion include an overt emphasis on smooth social relations, encouragement of fulfillment of kinship obligation, maintenance of a status ranking hierarchy, gifting, and status rivalry (Evans 2001; Goldman 1955; Marcus 1978). Social cohesion is also emphasized through involvement with religious institutions in Tonga. For example, in the most recent Tongan census, over 95% of the population reported affiliation with a Christian-based church, while a “no religious affiliation” response was virtually absent in the population (Tonga

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Department of Statistics 2006). Like other indigenous groups in the South Pacific, Tongans were not immune from colonial and missionary influences, including being targeted by the Church of Latter Day Saints who hoped to make Tonga the first entirely Mormon nation in the world (Gordon 1988, 1990). However, the religion that is practiced can best be described as a mix of Christian and ancient traditions that is distinctly Polynesian in flavour (Latukefu 1974; Olson 1993). The data for the survey that we describe in this chapter were collected by Young-Leslie in the central Ha’apai region of Tonga (Moore et al. 2005). To many Tongans, Ha’apai is considered a distinctive region within the nation. Because of its more remote and rural context, it is often described as one of the least developed and affected by outside/foreign influences. Importantly, as a result of this perceived lack of foreign influence, Ha’apai is often stereotyped by Tongans as an example of “true” cultural practices within Tonga. Because of this view of Ha’apai as a bastion of traditional Tongan culture, we believe it served as an ideal place for examining the cultural basis of happiness and satisfaction judgments within the nation. For a more detailed description of the Ha’apai region in which these data were collected, see Moore et al. 2005 or Young-Leslie 1999.

Cultural Studies of Happiness As mentioned previously, studies of the cultural-psychological influences on happiness have grown exponentially in number since the beginning of the 1990s. The majority of this work is part of the larger body of research examining the nature and correlates of subjective wellbeing and life satisfaction judgments (Diener, Suh, Lucas, & Smith 1999; Kahneman et al. 1999; Wilson 1967). Methodologically, much of the cross-cultural work on wellbeing has relied on survey reports of happiness and satisfaction collected from large, random samples of people on standardized question sets, such as the World Values Survey. In analyzing reports of happiness, researchers typically compare averaged levels between the various national samples. Based on these large data sets, several general conclusions about the relationship between culture and wellbeing have been made (Diener 2009; Diener et al. 2010; Diener & Suh 2000). First, there is widespread variability in reports of satisfaction and wellbeing across various national and cultural groups (Diener, Diener & Diener 1995; Tov & Diener 2007). Second, despite these significant differences, most samples of people from varying cultures report moderate to high levels of overall satisfaction (Diener & Diener 1995). Third, variables such as income or economic development tend to positively correlate with wellbeing, although the relationship is stronger in some countries than others (Diener & Biswas-Diener 2009; Diener et al. 1995). Finally, the variability in reports of happiness and satisfaction across various cultural groups can be accounted for by culturespecific factors such as values, norms, or culture-specific goals related to emotions (Diener et al. 1995; Oishi, Diener, Lucas, & Suh 1999; Schimmack, Oishi, & Diener 2002; Suh, Diener, Oishi, & Triandis 1998).


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At the same time that there has been a significant increase in cultural research on happiness, recent studies of emotional processes in the ethnocultural groups of the Pacific Islands have remained sparse. Much of the existing research that has been conducted on emotions in Oceania has been influenced more by anthropological disciplines than mainstream psychology (Gerber 1975). These ethnopsychological and indigenous approaches adopt differing assumptions about the causes of emotions and often use methods that differ from the large-scale quantitative surveys reported in most psychology journals. In general, the findings of these studies illustrate that Western definitions of emotions may not be as universal as was initially thought. For example, Lutz (1988) described how the emotion of fago among the Ifaluk of Micronesia embodied what Westerners might view as contradictory emotion concepts (i.e., love and sadness). Similarly, Levy (1982) provided an analysis showing that the Tahitian language lacked specific emotion labels for the experience of sadness, unlike many other Western languages. While these anthropological studies have provided useful information about the uniqueness of emotional experience in the Pacific Islands, to date there have been few published attempts to survey experiences like life satisfaction and happiness in this region. The reasons for this lack of larger scale surveys of happiness in the Pacific Islands are complex but can likely be divided into two main categories. The more simple and straightforward reasons are likely pragmatic ones. The Pacific Islands possess a unique geography that makes them particularly challenging to study using largescale survey methodology. Many of the islands are remote and not as easily or affordably accessed by major modes of transport. For example, in Tonga, while there is one international and several regional airports, much of the travel between the various islands in the archipelago is by ocean ferry or small fishing boat. The islands are also spread out over hundreds of kilometers. In addition, because many of the smaller islands are sparsely populated, it requires a greater number of work hours on the part of the researcher to recruit large numbers of people to complete their surveys. There may also be an association of the more impersonal survey methodologies of research with unwanted colonial influences. Finally, there may be a lack of significant local research infrastructure, in the form of post-secondary institutions, to support carrying out these types of surveys. While there are several prominent post-secondary institutions located in Oceania (e.g., University of the South Pacific or University of Papua New Guinea) they lack the critical mass of faculty, students, and funding needed to study such highly specialized topics as emotion science. Scholars in Oceania and the wider region (including Australian, New Zealand and French Polynesian institutions) have tended to focus generally on more pragmatic issues of economy, gender, health and security. A second reason for the lack of survey research on this topic in the Pacific Islands is likely due to differences in theoretical approaches to the study of happiness employed by psychologists and anthropologists. Anthropologists have primarily conducted existing research on emotions in the South Pacific. A large body of psychological anthropology studies occurred in the 1940s and 1950s, though some interest persists (see Lutz & White 1986 for a review of the literature). Ethnographers have tended to privilege local understandings of emotional states.

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Mainstream psychological research on emotion has largely been influenced by natural scientific theories of their causes that emphasize the universality of emotional experience (Tov & Diener 2007). For example, in Darwin’s (1872) seminal work on emotion expression, he suggested there were underlying biological processes that cause universal emotional experiences in humans and related species. Extending this line of thinking, Ekman & Friesen (1971) showed that people from various cultural groups recognize and express happiness and several other emotions in a similar or universal manner. Thus, from a natural scientific perspective, happiness research is more oriented toward documenting the cross-cultural similarities in emotional experience. If smaller ethnocultural groups are not included in a cross-cultural analysis, it is likely assumed that findings with these excluded groups should be roughly equivalent to the groups that are studied. In contrast, indigenous and psychological anthropologists emphasize that emotions are local social constructions that vary from culture to culture (Kim, Yang, & Hwang 2006; Lutz and White 1986). Researchers advocating this perspective rely less on quantitative methods such as surveys, and more on descriptive, qualitative approaches, such as ethnographies, interviews, and observational research, to investigate cultural influences or to demonstrate how Western ideas are modified after introduction to non-Western societies (Young-Leslie 2002). The indigenous perspectives are sometimes described as anti-colonialist in stance and actively oppose applying mainstream theories and research methods to non-Western ethnocultural groups (Sinha 1984; Finau 2007). To resolve the problem of theoretical incompatibility and encourage more collaborative research on the topic of cultural influences on wellbeing, happiness researchers have recently advocated for a middle path approach that welcomes elements of both theoretical perspectives (Tov & Diener 2007). It is thought that by encouraging a more unifying approach to the study of culture and wellbeing, several important advances can be made. For example, from this middle ground perspective, it is expected that there should be both universal patterns that are cross-culturally consistent as well as locally specific, unique cultural patterns. In addition, advocates of this approach endorse the use of more eclectic, multi-method approaches to studying cultural influences. Thus, more quantitatively-based survey method approaches can be used alongside more descriptive ethnopsychological approaches.

Happiness, Life Satisfaction, and Subjective Wellbeing in Tonga Presaging and yet consistent with the middle path approach described above, we analysed a survey to examine the cultural construction of happiness (fiafia) and satisfaction in Tonga. This paper-and-pencil survey consisted of 140 rating scales on which respondents were asked to indicate their levels of happiness, overall life satisfaction, and subjective wellbeing in a variety of life domains. Paper surveys were used in this study for their ease of administration and relative low cost. The entire survey was written in Tongan. All responses, except those that asked about respondent demographic traits were measured on 3-point rating scales to ensure ease of


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completion for respondents unfamiliar with rating scale formatting. For anyone who had difficulty completing the survey due to any limited reading or physical capabilities, they were instructed to have a proxy respondent read and complete the survey for them. This survey was part of a larger ethnographic field study carried out by one of the authors in the Ha’apai region of Tonga (Young-Leslie 1999). To assess life satisfaction, happiness, and wellbeing, respondents completed a Tongan version of the SUBI (Subjective Well-being Inventory) developed by Nagpal and Sell (1985). This survey was adapted and translated following recommended guidelines set out for cross-cultural translation of questionnaires using a multi-stage, multicultural translation process (Harkness 2003). Participant recruitment was achieved through a public announcement at a community gathering called a fono. All adults living in the 4 villages on Ha’ano Island (Muitoa, Ha’ano, Pukotala, and Fakakai) were invited to complete the survey. It was presented to participants as being one of several methods being used in a larger ethnographic project which also included interviews, observations, and informal discussions with members of the community. Participants were given paper questionnaires and invited to return them to the researcher within a week. Roughly three quarters (227 out of 300) questionnaires were completed and returned. No incentives were offered for completion of the survey. We attribute the highly successful recruitment to the participant observation methodology which ensured the research was understood and valued by the community. There were several key issues addressed in the analysis of this survey. Consistent with the middle ground perspective described above, we expected there to be both similarities of the Tongan survey with those cross-cultural results reported elsewhere (Diener et al. 1995) and for there to be unique cultural elements of happiness in Tonga. First, as there were no other published accounts of happiness and satisfaction in Tonga, we wanted to use this survey to describe the overall level of happiness and wellbeing of residents within this region of the country. It was unclear how happy and satisfied Tongans would be because there are conflicting views on this question. Cross-cultural comparisons of life satisfaction indicate that most people are moderately happy and that only those cultural groups that experience severe deprivation in terms of basic needs, such as food, shelter, and security, seem to report significant decreases in wellbeing (Biswas-Diener & Diener 2001; Diener & Diener 1995; Tov & Diener 2007). While Tonga is considered a developing economy that is reliant on foreign aid, it is unlikely that many Tongans would perceive their basic needs were not being met. According to this general theory, if Tongans perceive that their basic needs are being met, they should report moderate to high levels of happiness. However, other researchers suggest that because of the high levels of tension that exist between traditional and modern cultural values in the Pacific Island region, there should be signs of poor psychosocial adaptation, such as decreased satisfaction, increased incidence of addictions and psychological disorders, evident in these cultural groups (Marsella, Austin, & Grant 2005). Along with this presumed commonality of happiness processes in the Tongan sample, a second purpose for conducting this research was to identify the unique cultural predictors of satisfaction and happiness in this nation. Given the emphasis in Tongan culture on preservation

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of traditional values and emphasis on smooth social relations, we expected these sorts of concepts to be the strongest predictors of happiness and life satisfaction in the survey.

Commonalities of Tongan Happiness and Satisfaction Consistent with the psychological perspective that happiness and satisfaction should show some elements of cross-cultural consistency, two patterns of findings common to other cultures were documented in the Tongan sample. First, consistent with Tov and Diener’s (2007) assertion that most people around the world are happy regardless of their culture, we found that most Tongan respondents in our sample were generally quite happy and satisfied with their lives. We based this conclusion on the analysis of nine survey questions that asked respondents about their overall satisfaction/happiness with their life conditions (e.g.,‘Oku anga f¯ef¯e ha’o ongo’i ki ho’o mo’ui fakalukufua?: How do you feel about your life as a whole?). Summary satisfaction scores were determined by calculating the average of all happiness/satisfaction items included in the survey. Overall, the Tongans who completed the survey reported an average life satisfaction score of 2.36 on a 3-point scale (where 3 represented very happy/satisfied). A closer inspection of the results showed that over 85% of the sample reported being happier than the mid-point (2) of the scale. Thus, we concluded that the vast majority of Tongans living in this region of the country were quite happy with the state of their lives at the time they completed the survey. The second finding we documented that appeared to be consistent with the results of prior cultural studies of happiness was the underlying structure of Tongan subjective wellbeing judgments. According to the literature, wellbeing judgments across a variety of cultures can be broken down into three common components: frequency of positive emotions, frequency of negative emotions, and overall summary judgments of life satisfaction (Diener 1984; Diener et al. 1999). Those people who are most satisfied with their lives tend to report frequent positive emotions and infrequent negative emotions. We used a factor analysis to determine the underlying groupings or structure of subjective wellbeing judgments. This analysis showed that Tongans evaluated their lives in a manner consistent with the aforementioned three-factor structure; there were a set of questions that assessed sources of positive emotions in respondents’ lives, a separate set of questions measuring experiences of negative emotion, and a third grouping of questions that measured overall life satisfaction. We also found that Tongan wellbeing judgments fit the general pattern of happy people—frequent positive emotions and infrequent negative emotions. This was determined by calculating an affect-balance score, which involves subtracting negative emotional experience scores from positive emotional experience scores (Bradburn 1969). This analysis revealed that the respondents in our survey had on average a positive affect-balance score (M = 0.25, SD = 0.54), indicating they experienced a greater frequency of positive emotions than negative emotions in their rated life domains.


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Unique Elements of Tongan Happiness and Satisfaction Consistent with the ethnopsychological perspective on emotions, we also found that there were several distinct characteristics of Tongan happiness and satisfaction reported in this survey. While the Tongan respondents reported absolute levels of happiness and satisfaction that were similar to other cultural groups, the types of experiences that defined satisfaction differed. In terms of the structure of happiness judgments, the domains in which Tongans reported positive emotional experience reflected prevailing cultural values emphasizing collectivistic concerns (Markus & Kitayama 1991; Triandis 1995). Prior research has shown that in cultures where individualistic values are prominent, life satisfaction scores are predicted by experiences related to individual goal pursuits such as self-esteem striving or recognition of individual achievement (Oishi 2000; Oishi et al. 1999). In contrast to these findings, the Tongan reports of positive emotional experiences and overall life satisfaction were much more strongly related to concerns for smooth social functioning and positive fulfillment of kinship obligations. For example, of the 29 survey questions that were used to assess positive emotion experience, 20 (69%) reflected happiness with either familial or extended group belonging; they viewed family as a source of confidence and believed that they would be looked after by family if they were ill. In addition, reports of positive feelings and happiness in these group-belonging domains were the strongest predictors of overall life satisfaction. Negative emotional experiences were much more individually focused, with only 2 of the 20 items (10%) reflecting collectivistic goals or values. These items tended to reflect personal expressions of emotion in the absence of any social context, such as feeling distracted or worried over confidence. The negative emotion items were also not significant predictors of overall life satisfaction. One way to interpret this pattern of findings is that citizens who fulfilled Tongan values that emphasize social and kinship obligations felt satisfied with their lives, while those who focused more on individualistic concerns did not experience these same higher levels of happiness and satisfaction. This pattern of findings also supports the assertion that Tongan constructions of health or “living well” (mo’ui lelei) are primarily concerned with appropriate social relations (va lelei and tahi vaha’a) as reflected in fulfillment of kinship obligations, gender roles, and group definitions of achievement (Young-Leslie 1999, 2002). Our analysis of this wellbeing survey revealed several other important predictors of happiness that we believe are distinctly Tongan in nature. We ran a regression analysis that included separate indicators of family obligation, such as viewing family as a source of confidence and religious obligation, with individualistic goals, such as worries over personal lack of confidence, as predictors of overall life satisfaction scores. We found that the two items reflecting important Tongan social institutions—family and church—significantly predicted satisfaction, while the more individualistic goal representing personal worries was not predictive of overall happiness. Additionally, in terms of demographic factors, we found that older, mature respondents reported greater levels of positive emotional experience as well as greater life satisfaction and happiness. This finding appears to

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contradict research from individualistic cultures which indicates that aging is associated with higher rates of negative emotions and depression (Zivin et al. 2010). The Tongan results can be explained by the emphasis on social hierarchy within the culture. Elders and female siblings tend to receive social priority with greater levels of authority and autonomy, while younger family members are typically expected to obey those of higher cultural rank. The lack of autonomy and freedom for young adult respondents may account for the lower levels of happiness and satisfaction reported by these respondents.

Conclusions and Future Directions for Research The research we described in this chapter briefly reviews the background, purpose, and results of an initial survey of the happiness and life satisfaction of residents of the Ha’apai region of Tonga. The major goal of this work was to describe the nature of the Tongan cultural construction of happiness, as very little cultural psychological research has explored this topic in Tonga and the wider Pacific Islands region. Consistent with a middle path approach that incorporates both the psychological and anthropological perspectives on culture and happiness, we found similarities of the Tongan experience of happiness to many other cultural groups studied in the literature as well as some uniquely Tongan cultural influences on judgments of happiness, satisfaction, and subjective wellbeing. In particular, consistent with the cross-cultural psychological work on satisfaction, we found the majority of the Tongan respondents in our survey reported being quite satisfied and happy with their lives. The underlying structure or pattern of these judgments also reflect the common three-factor structure of subjective wellbeing— positive emotions, negative emotions, and overall life satisfaction—identified in a great majority of the prior research on the topic (Diener 1984; Diener et al. 1999). In terms of unique cultural features, these judgments of happiness and satisfaction were strongly influenced by the prevailing cultural values present in Tonga. The experience of positive emotions such as satisfaction and happiness were based on respondents’ perceptions of smooth social functioning and fulfillment of kinship obligations. Satisfaction with religion also contributed to Tongan’s happiness. In addition, factors related to rank and status within Tongan culture, such as maturity, predicted overall satisfaction and positive wellbeing. Concerns and emotions focused on individualism were not highly predictive of satisfaction levels. While this research provides a promising first step in helping social scientists understand the nature of happiness within Tonga, there is most certainly a need for much more thorough and in-depth study. We believe that there are several ways to expand upon these findings. First, there is a need for longitudinal research on happiness and wellbeing in Tonga. The survey results we reported provide a snapshot in one particular region of Tonga during a single, isolated time period. Studying happiness and wellbeing longitudinally would not only allow researchers to try to replicate the patterns of findings we found but would also allow others to identify the changes in happiness and satisfaction that might occur as a result of significant


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historical events. The survey results we reported were collected in a rural and remote area during the mid-1990s; since that time, Tonga had a new king crowned and experienced significant civil unrest in the capital of Nuku’alofa in 2006 (Young-Leslie 2007a) and undergone dramatic electoral reform. Furthermore, the global financial crisis and natural disasters have affected the economics of life on the outer islands. These types of significant events no doubt may have changed some citizens’ judgments of their subjective wellbeing. A second area for further research would involve comparing reports of happiness and satisfaction of Tongans from different regions of the country, particularly those people from the more rural outer islands and those living in the more urbanized Tongatapu region. If globalization pressures for change are more prominent in the urbanized regions of Tonga, there may be decreased wellbeing and greater incidences of psychosocial stress in these areas, much like the findings reported in other parts of the South Pacific (Marsella et al. 2005). Related to this point, a third way to expand upon these findings would be to collect cross-cultural reports of happiness and satisfaction in comparable Pacific Islands areas, such as Fiji, Samoa, Tahiti, New Caledonia, and Vanuatu, to determine if these processes are culturally constructed in a similar manner. It might also be useful to compare reports of wellbeing in Tonga to other indigenous groups that have been exposed to significant colonial and globalization pressures around the world, such as the First Nations groups in Canada or the Maori of New Zealand. Finally, we believe that future research should include a broader array of indicators of emotional health in addition to life satisfaction, as well as other measures of physical health functioning, in order to determine if all of these processes combined contribute to a general perception of subjective wellbeing and happiness within the Pacific Islands. By building upon the results of this research, researchers will be able to gain knowledge about happiness in an understudied region of the world as well as contribute to the ongoing discussion of issues pertaining to the cultural contributions to human emotional life.

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