Semantic Schema and Group Differences in Everyday Conceptions of Happiness and Unhappiness: An Investigation with a Word-association Network

Abstract

What does happiness mean to ordinary people? Answering this requires examining not only the components people associate with happiness, but also how these components are organized and structurally connected into a semantic schema. The same questions apply to its conceptual counterpart—unhappiness—and to how both vary across social groups. To address these questions, this study employs a word-association network approach to investigate the semantic schemas and group differences in people’s perceptions of happiness and unhappiness. Specifically, we create semantic representations of happiness and unhappiness using a word-association task in which participants freely listed words they associate with happiness and unhappiness, and then listed further words associated with each response; these word pairs are used to construct association networks from which underlying schemas are identified and demographic differences examined. Based on a survey conducted in Japan, our findings reveal major components, such as “ Wealth ” and “ Relationships ,” widely identified in existing theories, as well as underrepresented components, such as “ Food .” Moreover, our analysis provides insights into the structural relationships among these components, allowing us to understand how different components are connected to one another and what roles they play within the schema. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the word-association network approach provides a useful framework for investigating how everyday conceptions of happiness and unhappiness differ across demographic groups, revealing variation across groups in both schema structure and specific semantic features. Overall, this study demonstrates the value of word-association networks for capturing everyday conceptions of happiness and unhappiness, offering both theoretical insights and practical implications for developing more accurate and culturally grounded measures.