Two studies tested the hypothesis that while Americans believe that happiness is an enduring positive state to be pursued by each individual, Japanese believe that it is a positive, but transitory interpersonal moment fraught with negative consequences such as others' envy and a reduced ability to attend to one's surroundings. Study I used a standard questionnaire method to show that people in Japanese cultural contexts have a more holistic concept of happiness than do people in European-American cultural contexts. Study 2 showed that this Japanese holistic view of happiness is associated with a holistic worldview rather than personal subjective well-being. This suggests that the holistic view of happiness is related to a dialectic thinking style prevalent in Japanese culture and unrelated to individual levels of subjective well-being.

Key words: happiness, culture, self, holism