Nathania Rochelle and Jürgen Hoyer discuss their co-authored paper, ‘A Cross-Cultural Conceptual Comparison of Behavioral Activation and Ikigai.’ Nathania, in search of a bachelor thesis topic, reached out to Jürgen, who introduced her to the concepts of behavioral activation and ikigai.
Jürgen, inspired by Ken Mogi's book on ikigai and its similarities to the Western therapy technique of behavioral activation, saw an opportunity to bridge Eastern and Western approaches to motivation and fulfillment. What started as a small project grew into a groundbreaking study, eventually published in an international scientific journal.
From a mini bachelor’s thesis to something much larger
Nick: So in this article, you propose that cultural bridging is possible between behavioral activation and ikigai, as they share the same basic principle, the importance of an individual's values of becoming motivated and guiding everyday action decisions. So I probably should ask, how did this paper come about?
Nathania: I think this paper came about, this is a little bit more personal, but I think it's fine if I explain it as well. I was looking for topics for my bachelor thesis, actually. So I was just writing on professor and asking, ‘hey, do you have any topics?’
And I come across Jürgen, and I just wrote him, ‘Hey, do you probably have some topic?’ And he brought up this topic, actually. So this started off as like a mini bachelor thesis in order for me to get my degree, actually.
But then it became something a lot bigger, I guess, something that I did not quite expect that it would be like that. I mean, when I remember writing my bachelor thesis, I had tons of fun doing it, just reading about ikigai, reading about behavioral activation, and learning about all of these things that are similar, and some of them are not similar. Maybe coming from an Eastern background as well, that topic, obviously, is very interesting to me.
And having study here, obviously, I am also German trained, in a way, because I do my university and education here to become a psychologist, so I think that really sparks my interest in it. And yeah, that's how I came across ikigai. And I guess, the topic, as well, you've seen it in bookstores, too—books about it and things like that.
Nick: Okay, so was it Jürgen, you actually introduced ikigai to Nathania?
Jürgen: That's correct. And you can call it a fortunate accident, because I came across ikigai, I can’t exactly remember, but I guess that some algorithm behind Instagram was the cause. So I just came across ikigai, I found it interesting, and I bought the book by Ken Mogi on ikigai to give it to my wife, because I thought it would be an interesting read.
Then I opened up the book and I saw the five principles, and that gave me goosebumps, because immediately I saw the similarity between this Eastern concept and the Western strategy in treatment that I've been using a lot during recent years, which is called behavioral activation.
So the reasons why we become active are maybe shared knowledge across cultures, but they may be turned differently, and the strategies to arrive at a fulfilling form of activity are different ones. And so I thought both strategies could benefit from each other and help us to become more flexible in finding our motivations and and ikigai moments.
That was my thinking, but I've enough to do as a therapist, as a professor, as a researcher. And then, Nathania asked me for a topic, so guess what I told her? I'm actually fortunate that our motivations really came together. Nathania, I must say, is so talented, because it's quite unusual that a bachelor thesis finally makes it into a scientific international journal with external review, which it did. Thanks to Nathania.