chicagobooth.edu/review | Relationships are well known to be an important aspect of personal happiness. Collectivist cultures are well known for prioritizing strong, stable interpersonal relationships. And yet, collectivist cultures tend to score lower in happiness than do individualistic cultures. What explains this paradox? Chicago Booth’s Thomas Talhelm, studying the disparity in happiness between rice- and wheat-growing regions in China, finds evidence that the answer may have to do with social comparison.