Bugün bizim kültürdeki "Çok gülme başına bir iş gelir" korkusunun kısmen evrensel olduğunu öğrendim bugün, üstelik akademik kaynaklara göre
Daha doğru bir ifade ile "fazla mutluluktan sonra kötü şeyler olur" korkusu bir çok kültürde varmış. 2014’te yapılan bir araştırmanın1 özeti şu:
A survey of the cultural notions related to happiness and the existing empirical evidence indicate that some individuals endorse the belief that happiness, particularly an immoderate degree of it, should be avoided. These beliefs mainly involve the general notion that happiness may lead to bad things happening. Using multigroup confirmatory factor analysis and multilevel modeling, this study investigates the measurement invariance, cross-level isomorphism, predictive validity, and nomological network of the fear of happiness scale across 14 nations. The results show that this scale has good statistical properties at both individual and cultural levels. The findings also indicate that this scale has the potential to add to the knowledge about how people conceive of, and experience, happiness across cultures.