Chapter 36 :Happiness and contentment in English and Polish

Authors : P. A. Wilson, B. Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk & Y. Niiya

Abstract : The GRID paradigm was employed to compare the differences between the conceptualizations of American English terms contentment and happiness with those of their respective Polish counterparts, zadowolenie and szczęście. Consistent with the prediction that the basic emotion status of happiness would restrict cross-linguistic variation, the sole difference between szczęście and happiness was the higher ratings of the former over the latter on the arousal features. As expected, there were more cross-linguistic differences between zadowolenie and contentment, with zadowolenie being more associated with relatively more positive valence, and higher power, arousal and novelty than contentment. This pattern of results is consistent with dictionary definitions showing that zadowolenie is characterized by elements of satisfaction and pleasure. The relatively closer proximity of zadowolenie to pleasure is supported by further analyses on the GRID data showing higher correlations between zadowolenie and szczęście than between contentment and happiness. 

Keywords : Contentment Happiness zadowolenie szczęście cross-linguistic VALENCE POWER AROUSAL NOVELTY

Ch 36 - Table SM 1.pdf
Ch 36 - Table SM 2.pdf
Ch 36 - Table SM 3.pdf
Ch 36 - Table SM 4.pdf