Emerging Technologies Lab is pleased to join a new international research project titled “Korean Happiness Paradox: Diagnosis and AI Narrative Coach Intervention.” The project has received funding from the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) Cooperative Research Program for the 3-year period starting in June 2026.
The project is led by Professor Dohyun Ahn from Jeju National University, Department of Journalism and Public Relations. The research team brings together scholars from Korea, Finland, and Singapore. Professor Atte Oksanen from Tampere University’s Emerging Technologies Lab is involved as a co-investigator, continuing long-standing collaboration with Professor Hye-Jin Paek from Hanyang University.
The project addresses what the team calls the Korean Happiness Paradox: a societal pattern in which the pursuit of happiness may, paradoxically, move people further away from happiness. The project approaches the paradox as more than a matter of measurement, focusing on how happiness is understood, narrated, and pursued in contemporary society. The research combines the Function-Indicator Model of happiness and the Humanistic Growth Narrative approach.
A central aim of the project is to develop diagnostic tools for understanding happiness-pursuit intensity, self-acceptance, and narrative balance. Building on this work, the team will design and test an AI narrative coach prototype that provides personalized narrative scaffolding based on diagnostic results. The project examines how AI-supported communication may help people reflect on beliefs about happiness and reshape self-narratives in ways that support well-being and growth.
For Emerging Technologies Lab, the project connects directly to our AI in Society research stream and ongoing work on the societal impacts of artificial intelligence, human–AI interaction, and technology-supported well-being. It also strengthens international collaboration on how emerging technologies can be studied and designed in socially meaningful, ethically sensitive, and human-centered ways.
More information about the project is available on the project website: paradox.minds.kr.