“Follow your passion” has become the go-to message in nearly every commencement speech and career guide. But social psychologists Paul A. O’Keefe and E. J. Horberg argue this advice is not a universal truth but a cultural artefact — one rooted in Western individualism and sustained by economic privilege. In cultures that prize interdependence and pragmatism, passion is treated with caution. Drawing on new cross-cultural psychological studies, this article reveals the dangers when we mistake the passion narrative – which is a culturally specific ideal – for a universal human need.

In 2005, Steve Jobs stood before a graduating class at Stanford University and delivered one of the most famous pieces of career advice in modern history. “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life,” he told them, “and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.”

This injunction to “follow your passion” is pervasive in Western culture. It appears in commencement speeches, self-help books, and career counselling offices across North America and Western Europe. It is also intuitively appealing, encapsulated by the old adage: “If you do what you love, you will never work a day in your life.” This logic implies that passion is a limitless fuel source, one that provides endless motivation, fulfilment, and perhaps even financial success.

But is this as widely believed as it appears? Or is it a specific cultural narrative that we have mistaken for a universal law of human nature?

In our psychological research, we have found that the emphasis on passion in career decisions is not a universal human priority. Instead, it is culturally constructed. While Western perspectives often view passion as an essential ingredient for a good life, other cultures—specifically those with less individualistic views of the self—construe passion differently. They see it not just as a source of motivation but as a potential problem.

The Western Ideal vs. The Pragmatic Reality

To understand why “follow your passion” is such a distinctly Western ideal, we first have to consider how people from different cultures construct the ‘self’.

In many Western cultures, like the United States, people tend to hold an independent model of the self. We view good actions as those that are self-focused, autonomy-driven, and aligned with individual preferences and intentions. Because passion is fundamentally about intense personal interest and identity, it fits perfectly into the independent worldview. For an American, choosing a career based on what they love is an important expression of agency.

However, in many Asian cultures, the model of self is less independent and more interdependent. Decisions are guided less by personal preference and more by obligations to others and pragmatic concerns. In this context, the indulgence of following one’s passions can seem at odds with the necessity of stability, family and job expectations, and practical concerns. As the matriarch, Eleanor Young, quips in the film Crazy Rich Asians, “Pursuing one’s passion... how American.”