Reza Kormi-Nouri
Recently Diener et al. used a new measurement to distinguish between cognitive/ global and emotional components of well-being. Kormi-Nouri et al. examined this distinction among Swedish and Iranian university students and found no cultural differences in cognitive component but cultural differences in emotional component. The present study examined the distinction between global/cognitive and emotional components of well-being where the two groups of Swedish and Iranian participants were in an unpleasant situation and experience a significant amount of stress and negative emotions, namely infertility. The results showed no difference between infertile Swedish and Iranian women in flourishing. However, infertile Swedish women reported higher levels of positive and negative emotions than infertile Iranian women. In both infertile populations, the most predictive affect with regard to flourishing was the balance affect. It was concluded that, under a stressful and unpleasant situation like infertility compared to a normal situation, the same pattern of distinction between global/cognitive and emotional components of well-being can be still observable. However, negative emotions can act differently at cultural level: they become more noticeable in the Swedish population than in the Iranian population. The results are discussed with respect to individualistic-collectivistic dimension.
