Cultural Factors of Social Happiness (Case Study: Youth of Isfahan)

One the essential human needs that can affect social and cultural aspects of his/her life is the feeling of happiness. The research is to study the relationship between cultural factors and social happiness among the residents of the city of Esfahan. The research population consisted of all the residents above 10 years of age which totaled 1663834, of which, on the basis of Cochran formula and utilizing a quota sampling technique, 600 individuals were chosen as the sample. The theoretical framework was provided by drawing on the ideas of Bourdieu, Fordise, Singleman, and Allison. The research questionnaire had face validity and the reliability coefficients were above 69/5. The results showed that social happiness was moderately and significantly associated with religiosity (r= 0/38), cultural capital (r= -0/41), mass media programs (r= -0/47), recreation and entertainment facilities (r= 0/63). The results also showed that social happiness was significantly related to age, sex, income, education, and occupation. The results of regression analysis showed that all the independent variables entered the equation and that all together could explain about 28/9 percent of the variance of social happiness. Religiosity and cultural capital had, respectively the highest and the lowest amount of influence on social happiness.