Feeling understood as a key to cultural differences in life satisfaction

We investigated the role of felt understanding in life satisfaction, using an event sampling method. As predicted, Asian students in the US were less satisfied with their lives than Caucasian counterparts. Also as predicted, Asian students reported lower levels of felt understanding than did Caucasian students. Finally, felt understanding in everyday life accounted for the mean difference in life satisfaction between Asians and Caucasians. However, the Asian-Caucasian difference in life satisfaction and felt understanding could be due to general positivity or negativity. We thus statistically controlled for extraversion and neuroticism. Controlling for extraversion and neuroticism, felt understanding still mediated the Asian-Caucasian difference in life satisfaction.