Happiness is something that many people seek, but what defines happiness can vary from person to person. Typically, happiness is an emotional state characterized by feelings of joy and satisfaction.
Although happiness has many different definitions, it is often described as a positive emotion and satisfaction with life.
In fact, happiness plays a quite important role in human life, and can have a big impact on the way you live your life. Although researchers have yet to find an agreed-upon definition or framework for happiness, there is a lot you can learn in the last few decades.
When most people talk about the true meaning of happiness, they are probably talking about how they feel right now or referring to a more general understanding of how they feel about life as a whole.
Because happiness tends to have a broad definition, psychologists and other social scientists usually use the term ‘subjective well-being’ when they discuss this emotional state. As it sounds, subjective well-being tends to focus on a person’s overall personal feelings about their life at the moment.
Two key components of happiness (subjective wellbeing) are:
1. Emotional balance
Everyone experiences positive and negative emotions, feelings and moods. Happiness is generally linked to experiencing more positive feelings than negative feelings.
2. Life satisfaction
It has to do with how satisfied you feel with various areas of your life including relationships, work, accomplishments, and other things you consider important.
Another definition of happiness comes from the ancient philosopher Aristotle, who argued that happiness is the only human desire, and that all other human desires exist as a means to obtain happiness. He believes that there are four stages of happiness:
- happiness due to immediate gratification,
- due to comparisons and achievements,
- for making positive contributions, and
- because it reaches satisfaction.
Happy people still experience a wide range of human emotions such as: anger, frustration, boredom, loneliness, and even sadness from time to time. However, even when faced with discomfort, they have an underlying sense of optimism that things will get better, that they can face what happens, and that they will be able to feel happy again.
Is it difficult to define Happiness scientifically?
With so many things related to happiness, it is not surprising that happiness is rather difficult to define scientifically; Of course, there are different opinions about what exactly happiness is.
According to researchers Chu Kim-Prieto, Ed Diener, and their colleagues (2005), there are 3 primary ways of approaching happiness in positive psychology:
- Happiness as a global assessment of life and all its aspects;
- Happiness as memories of past emotional experiences;
- Happiness as a collection of emotional reactions over time (Kim-Prieto, Diener, Tamir, Scollon, & Diener, 2005).
Although they all generally agree about what happiness feels like — satisfaction with life, being in a good mood, feeling positive emotions, feeling pleasure, and so on — researchers find it difficult to agree on the scope of happiness.
However, by defining a basic definition that combines the OED definition with the definition of positive psychologists: happiness is a state characterized by general contentment and satisfaction with one’s current situation.
Pleasure vs Happiness
With the close relationship between pleasure and happiness, you may wonder how to differentiate between the two. After all, the OED’s definition of happiness describes it as the state of experiencing pleasure!
The relationship between the two makes sense, and we often hear the two words used interchangeably outside of literature; However, when discussing positive psychology, it is important to distinguish between the two.
Happiness, as explained above, is a state characterized by feelings of satisfaction and contentment with life or the current situation. On the other hand, pleasure is a more profound experience and happens in the moment. It often refers to the sense-based feelings you get from experiences such as eating delicious food, getting a massage, receiving a compliment, or having sex.
Happiness, although not a permanent state, is a more stable state than joy. Happiness generally lasts longer than a few moments, whereas pleasure can come and go in seconds.
Pleasure can contribute to happiness, and happiness can enhance or deepen feelings of pleasure, but they can also be mutually exclusive. For example, you can feel happiness based on meaning and involvement that has nothing to do with pleasure, or you can feel pleasure but also struggle with feeling guilty about it, thus preventing you from feeling happy at the same time.
