Equivalent term of happiness for Hindi speaking youth: An exploration

Pages: 1003-1006
Seema Singh (Department of Psychology, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Degree College, Bhabua, Kaimur, Bihar)
Deepa Punetha (Department of Psychology, University of Allahabad Prayagraj, Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh)

The growing interest in happiness became the centre of inquiry. The impact of culture and language on the levels of happiness across countries has been a topic of dialogue among social scientists. The objective of the present research paper was to explore the equivalent term of happiness for Hindi speaking youth. There are different terms used in different languages, cultures and countries for happiness. Wherever Indian languages have also many terms for happiness, there is a need to establish an equivalent term for happiness in Hindi. The present paper planed to explore the equivalent term for happiness among Hindi speaking youth. The study comprised of two sections. Section-1 is related to participants self report about the frequently used term for happiness in their own language. The section-2 was related to find out nearest word for term happiness from ten most frequent selected words on the basis of the result of section-1. In the first section 30 participants were selected through purposive sampling from two different contexts: Hostels of University of Allahabad (15 participants- 07 Male, 08 Female, the age range of 18-30 years.) and religious / spiritual Ashram of Allahabad city (15 participants – 07 Male, 08 Female, the age range of 18-30 years.). 30 different participants from same contexts participated in sections two. Analysis revealed the highest frequency of equivalent term of happiness was Khusi (f-30). While the least mean (nearest to happiness) found for word happiness is khusi (Mean- 2.43). This indicated that ‘khusi’ is frequently used term among Hindi speaking youth.