Conceptions of happiness and life satisfaction: An exploratory study in 14 national groups

•We used a sample consisting of university students from 14 cultures.•Four conceptions of happiness emerged from principal component analysis on a 19-item scale.•Relationships between conceptions of happiness and life satisfaction were examined.•Multi-level modeling showed that self-transcendence and conservation predicted life satisfaction positively.•Self-directed hedonism interacted with self-enhancement in predicting life satisfaction.

This study examined the relationship between 4 conceptions of happiness and life satisfaction in a sample of 2715 university students across 14 national groups. The 4 conceptions were self-transcendence, self-directed hedonism, conservation, and self-enhancement, which emerged from a principal component analysis of a 19-item scale generated for the purpose of the present study. Results of multi-level modeling showed that self-transcendence and conservation predicted life satisfaction positively and significantly. In addition, we found that self-directed hedonism and self-enhancement interacted in their effects on life satisfaction.