Meet the Danes

To further explore well-being in relation to culture, we looked at it in the real world. The best way to get an idea of Danish culture is to interact with Danish citizens. Before meeting the Danes, the study groups worked on defining what well-being is for the Danish. We also drew a model according to Hofstede to determine where the Danes fell on his scale. Our next project was to create a poster defining well-being for the average Dane as we could infer from our stay thus far and class discussions. Group 5 (aka The Spice Girls), created the following poster.

While we attempted to define well-being, nothing is better than getting information straight from the Danes themselves. In new groups, we got to meet and discuss different cultural norms and well-being. My group asked numerous questions on a Likert scale to determine which stereotypes we had of the Danish people and which were actually common behavior. Some of the questions involved leaving a baby in a pram on the street to whether or not they speak to strangers on the street or not. In most of these questions, it was more a matter of the city size. In smaller cities this behavior would be more common than in the Copenhagen city center. Then followed a question and answer session where we got to freely ask questions and the Danes could ask their own. This was very interesting as it showed how they perceived us and America as well allowed us to get answers to certain behavior we see on the streets yet don't understand. 

One common question the groups had was to describe hygge. Most of the Danes could not provide a strict definition. It is an abstract concept in Denmark that involves relaxation and a laid back social atmosphere in which people interact with each other and just enjoy themselves. There is no doubt this relaxed social interaction contributes a large deal to the Danish well-being.