joy – Dr Vanessa Pozzali

Psychological research and literary attention to joy are not very extensive. In psychology, there is, in general, more research on negative emotions than on so-called positive emotions. Even among the latter, joy has not received much attention from researchers, who have focused more on the feeling of happiness.

Joy is that momentary emotion that is felt when, all of a sudden, we realize that all things are in their place. Joy is associated with surprise. We feel joy when an unexpected and pleasant event presents itself before us. Joy is found in small gestures, in a ray of sunshine on a gloomy day, or, quoting the philosopher Spinoza, “Joy is a joy accompanied by the idea of a past thing, which happened unexpectedly.”

From this point of view, joy is an emotion that happens. Due to this nature so linked to luck, attention has always been paid to happiness, which on the contrary is a feeling that we can more easily manipulate and build our happiness.

Yet, it is estimated that joy is the most felt emotion during the day.

In our evolution, joy has played an important role in signalling the approach to our goal and prepares our body to spend much more energy to reach the goal. This was an important function, in order to invest in social resources and increase the sense of community.

Contrary to sadness, which helps develop a critical attitude, joy prepares us to consider the opportunities we face.

We are used to associating joy with positive stimuli, which are morally acceptable or useful to the community to which we belong. Like all emotions, joy manifests itself as a result of an unconscious evaluation of the situation we are experiencing. It is not therefore certain that it is a positive or morally desirable event that triggers this feeling. Without disturbing extreme examples, such as the joy felt by the Nazi guards in annihilating the enemy, many of us will certainly have felt an emotion of Schadenfreude, or that subtle joy we feel in witnessing the misfortunes of others.

Doesn’t it seem that literature offers us many other ideas about joy, that it is better to try it than to study it?

Here are some reflection questions for you. Have you ever wondered about the things that bring you joy? Would you have ever said that it is the most felt emotion? Have you ever heard of Schadenfreude? Have you ever felt this way?

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Bibliografia

Smith, T. W. (2017). Atlante delle emozioni umane: 156 emozioni che hai provato, che non sai di aver provato, che non proverai mai. Utet.

Patty Van Cappellen (2019): The emotion of joy: commentary on Johnson, The Journal of Positive Psychology, DOI: 10.1080/17439760.2019.1685571

In the previous article, we tried to define emotions. We have learned that these are fast and short-lived changes in physiological functions, accompanied by an emotional experience. Furthermore, we have seen that several theories deal with emotions.

Today let’s look a little more closely at the evolutionary theories on emotions. Evolutionary theories began with Darwin’s observations of facial expressions in primates and emphasize the evolutionary role of emotions.

Several studies have hypothesized the existence of basic emotions, common to all human beings. These theories emphasize the adaptive role of emotions in human development and the role that they have played in our history.

This hypothesis is made because every human being, regardless of the culture they belong to, is capable of distinguishing at least six emotions. If every man on earth experienced emotion, emotion must have played an important role in our evolution.

Ekman, a famous scholar of facial expressions, photographed several Western people as they experienced different emotions. He took these photographs to several people from other cultures, especially oriental cultures, and asked them to describe the emotions they saw. He did the same with a remote population of New Guinea, where newspapers and television had not yet reached. All the populations involved were able to correctly identify six emotions: anger, joy, disgust, sadness, fear, and surprise. Ekman and his collaborators found that these emotions were common in all cultures, although they emphasized a strong influence due to the culture they belong to.

The researchers were able to identify that event before the emotions are common to all human beings. The stimuli were identified conceptually, i.e., not listing a precise stimulus, but a concept. For example, it was found that in every culture, people feel sadness when they lose a significant person. Culturally, however, what is meant by a significant person change.

There are several advantages expressed by emotions for our development. First of all, they allow you to be able to relate to other people. Studies have shown that people who suffer from facial paresis and are unable to express their emotions on their faces have a harder time establishing new relationships. Emotions also communicate whether we are safe. For example, if we see another person with a disgusted expression after smelling something, we probably won’t eat it because it could be poisonous. Or, if we imagine ourselves in the forest and see a frightened person, we will prepare ourselves to identify the source of the danger and act accordingly. This is another function of emotions. They prepare our bodies for action. If we are angry, it will most likely be because an obstacle prevents us from reaching the goal (such as, for example, hunting) and body activation helps us to stay focused and to use all the energy necessary to remove the obstacle. When we are scared, our body prepares for action, such as fleeing from danger, attacking it or pretending to be dead to avoid being attacked.

Emotions, therefore, help us understand what is happening and also where we are with the achievement of our goals. Also, Ekman and his researchers have identified that emotions help us in the evaluation. (In the last article we saw how much the unconscious evaluation is crucial in experiencing an emotion). Anger tells us that an obstacle has stood in the way of achieving our goal. Joy signals the achievement of the goal. The sadness that the goal was not achieved or maintained (as above, we did not maintain the relationship with the person who passed away). Fear signals an expectation of failure to achieve the goal.

Evolutionary theories show that emotions “are not requested and not chosen by us” and have to do with past experiences and the predictability of events.

In the next articles, we will explore the basic emotions one by one!

Stay tuned!

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Bibliography

Ekman P., Basic Emotions. In: T. Dalgleish and M. Power (Eds.). Handbook of Cognition and Emotion. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Sussex, UK, 1999.

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The Joy

The basic emotions