Table 6.
French and American scores on 13 items bearing on comforts versus joys1.
| Item | No. neg rs with 12 others | Mean: France | Mean: USA2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| FACTOR 1 | |||
| Favorite versus new vacation site (see text) | 4 | 0.76 | 0.75 |
| What is more important to you in a tropical hotel room? A. air-conditioning; B. a view | 3 | 0.51 | 0.67* |
| What do you most desire your life to be like? stimulating versus stable (reverse scored) | 2 | 0.53 | 0.52 |
| What do you most desire your life to be like? contented versus fulfilled | 5 | 0.30 | 0.74*** |
| FACTOR 2 | |||
| Favorite versus new food (see text) | ?? | 0.41 | 0.31 |
| Favorite versus new music (see text) | 0 | 0.33 | 0.06*** |
| Circle the word that you associate most closely with MEAL: nutrition/energy family/friends | 6 | 0.70 | 0.56 |
| If you were to vacation for a week, for the same price, would you rather: | 4 | 0.87 | 0.69** |
| A. lie on a beautiful beach for a week; B. travel, sightsee, and engage in various activities | |||
| FACTOR 3 | |||
| Ideal metaphors for life3 | 5 | 0.73 | 0.17*** |
| What do you most desire your life to be like? comfortable versus interesting | 0 | 0.71 | 0.64 |
| Circle the word that you associate most closely with HAPPINESS: comfort excitement | 2 | 0.80 | 0.29*** |
| FACTOR 4 | |||
| For the same price would you choose to: A. spend the night at a luxurious hotel; spend the night at an average hotel and buy tickets to an excellent event(such as a concert or sports event) | 1 | 0.75 | 0.78B. |
| Imagine a vacation at an isolated resort with food included, for the same price would you rather vacation for a week at: A. an average hotel with the best food; B. a luxurious hotel with average food (reverse scored) | 3 | 0.60 | 0.59 |
*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001. N = 87 for USA and N = 106 for France. 1All items scored on a 0–1 scale, with 1 equal to the maximum joy alternative. This is the second alternative in the questions listed, except for the two items indicated as reverse scored. 2Items with more than two choices evaluated with independent t-tests. Items with two choices evaluated with X2. N = 185–191 across the 13 items. 3“These are metaphors for life. Using the scale of 1–2, one being the most ideal and two being the second most ideal, rate the two that you want your life to be like. a. Lying on a feather bed; b. a roller coaster; c. a challenging puzzle; d. a pleasant trip to a foreign country; e. a gathering with loved ones; f. a great vacation; g. being locked up in a prison cell; h. an old and tired dance routine.” Score feather bed as comfort (negative) and roller coaster or challenging puzzle as + 1 for joys. A first importance rank is scored −2 for comfort and +2 for joy, with values of −1 and +1 for second importance. For each participant, the three possible scores are summed. For purposes of combination with other scores, to put the score into the 1–5 range of the other scaled scores, we added three to the summed score.