UBC Undergraduate Research

Effects of perceived privacy on expressed determinants of happiness Hon, Anthony; Chu, Matthew; Luk, Michael Sin-Hang

Abstract

Privacy often changes expressed behaviors as many behaviors are regarded as unsuitable or inappropriate for public settings. Due to changing societal labels about what is deemed socially normative, some individuals may choose not to express many private values and opinions which would not fit a social context. People tend to attribute happiness to both social as well as non-social factors, their attributions depending on personal, temporal and environmental context. Thus, we set out to examine whether differences exist between private and public disclosure about determinants of happiness. Using pre-designed cardboard cubes marked with the question “What makes you happy?”, we asked voluntary participants to either decorate the cardboard box with their response or to privately write on a note and insert it into a confidential slot within the box. Collected responses were categorized into either social or non-social determinants of happiness. Disclosure of non-social determinants of happiness was found to be significantly correlated with the confidential condition, whilst disclosure of social determinants of happiness was significantly correlated with the public inscription condition. Disclaimer: “UBC SEEDS provides students with the opportunity to share the findings of their studies, as well as their opinions, conclusions and recommendations with the UBC community. The reader should bear in mind that this is a student project/report and is not an official document of UBC. Furthermore readers should bear in mind that these reports may not reflect the current status of activities at UBC. We urge you to contact the research persons mentioned in a report or the SEEDS Coordinator about the current status of the subject matter of a project/report.”

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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada