The happiness of students and staff at two public universities respectively in Hong Kong and London: A comparative analysis from the Confucian perspective

Happiness is one of the important components in life and culture is considered having impact on happiness. Different cultures may define and perceive happiness dissimilarly. In particular, the collectivistic Confucian happiness is notably distinct from the individualist conceptions of happiness often seen as a feature of contemporary Western cultures. The virtuous considerations of Confucian happiness, according to Luo (2021), differentiate it from the individualist conceptions, where there are two levels in the Confucian happiness: (a) satisfaction of personal basic needs and (b) contribution to the social society at large (Zeng and Guo 2012), and group interests are accorded higher priority over individual interests.

Notwithstanding cultural differences, happiness studies have been biased to a great extent towards the Western conceptions. Happiness research in the Chinese context is not common, let alone studies from the perspective of Confucianism.

The current doctoral study adopted a comparative approach from the perspective of Confucianism to explore the perceptions of happiness of students as well as a few staff at the University DEF (pseudonym; “DEF” hereafter) in London and at the University NOP (pseudonym; “NOP” hereafter) in Hong Kong. There were four research questions: How would students and staff at DEF and NOP respectively perceive happiness? In what ways would responses at DEF be different from those at NOP? Would culture be a significant factor determining their perceived happiness? How could the findings be analysed and interpreted from the Confucian perspective? A bilingual questionnaire was prepared, incorporating the 48-item Chinese Happiness Inventory (CHI) as the measurement tool. The CHI combines 28 out of 29 dimensions from the Oxford Happiness Inventory (Argyle, Martin and Crossland 1989) with 20 Chinese culture dimensions (Lu and Shih 1997a), involving not only Western elements of individuality but also Chinese components of community. It is considered a culturally-balanced tool to measure happiness in the present study. Approval for the use of the CHI was granted by the first author of Lu and Shih (1997a) at the National Taiwan University. Questionnaires in both online and paper formats were sent out and there was a return of 213 completed questionnaires. Software employed was SPSS (version 28.0.1.1 (14)) and SmartPLS (version 3.3.7) for data analyses.

The findings revealed statistically significant differences in happiness between students’ responses from the two universities. In general, respondents at DEF had higher happiness values than those at NOP. In particular, there were significant differences, to various degrees, in students’ levels, modes and years of study. Significant differences were also identified in demographic variables including gender, age, marital status, number of children, nationality, ethnicity and religion. There was no significant difference between staff groups and student groups. There was no difference in the attribute of “highest educational level attained”, either.

The results of the present study pointed out that culture was a significant factor determining the respondents’ perceived happiness, but the anticipated Confucian values of respondents at NOP in Hong Kong may have been influenced by Western cultures. In addition to statistical interpretation, attempts were made to interpret the results from the Confucian perspective. The impact and limitations of the present study were discussed. Future studies were also suggested.