The word joy refers to the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune, and is typically associated with feelings of intense, long lasting happiness.
Dictionary definitions
Dictionary definitions of joy typically include a sense of it being a reaction to an external happening, e.g. a physical sensation experienced, or receiving good news.
Distinction vs similar states
saw a clear distinction between joy,
pleasure
Pleasure refers to experience that feels good, that involves the enjoyment of something. It contrasts with pain or suffering, which are forms of feeling bad. It is closely related to value, desire and action: humans and other conscious anima ...
, and
happiness
Happiness, in the context of Mental health, mental or emotional states, is positive or Pleasure, pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. Other forms include life satisfaction, well-being, subjective well-being, flourishin ...
: "I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for Joy", and "I call it Joy, which is here a technical term and must be sharply distinguished both from Happiness and Pleasure. Joy (in my sense) has indeed one characteristic, and one only, in common with them; the fact that anyone who has experienced it will want it again... I doubt whether anyone who has tasted it would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasures in the world. But then Joy is never in our power and Pleasure often is."
Michela Summa says that the distinction between joy and happiness is that, "Joy accompanies the process through and through, whereas happiness seems to be more strictly tied to the moment of achievement of the process... joy is not only a direct emotional response to an event that is embedded in our life-concerns but is also tightly bound to the present moment, whereas happiness presupposes an evaluative stance concerning one period of one’s life or one’s own life as a whole."
Causes
The causes of joy have been ascribed to various sources.
"When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.” - Gautama Buddha
Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism.
According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in Lu ...
,
"oy is
Oy or OY may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
*Oy, an animal character in Stephen King's Dark Tower series
* ''Oy'' (album), a studio album of Iranian singer-songwriter Mohsen Namjoo
*Oy (band), a music duo which performed at the Montreux Jazz ...
the emotional dimension of the good life, of a life that is both going well and is being lived well." - Miroslav Volf
Miroslav Volf (born September 25, 1956) is a Croatian Protestant theologian and public intellectual and Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology and Director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture at Yale University. He previously taught at the Ev ...
"This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy." - George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...
Arianna Huffington
Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington (née Ariadnē-Anna Stasinopoúlou, el, Αριάδνη-Άννα Στασινοπούλου ; born July 15, 1950) is a Greek-American author, syndicated columnist and businesswoman. She is a co-founder of ''Th ...
an advocate for the things that instigate joy, studied ways that joy can be triggered. In her research, she determined that joy is produced by positive responses that certain neurochemicals in the brain produce during stimulating activities, such as dopamine. According to Huffington, activities that are able to evoke a positive neurochemical response are producers of joy.
Ingrid Fetell Lee has studied the sources of joy. She wrote the book "Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness", and gave a TED talk on the subject, titled "Where joy hides and how to find it."
See also
*
Joie de vivre
( , ; "joy of living") is a French phrase often used in English to express a cheerful enjoyment of life, an exultation of spirit.
It "can be a joy of conversation, joy of eating, joy of anything one might do… And ''joie de vivre'' may be ...
*
Happiness
Happiness, in the context of Mental health, mental or emotional states, is positive or Pleasure, pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. Other forms include life satisfaction, well-being, subjective well-being, flourishin ...
*
Reward system
The reward system (the mesocorticolimbic circuit) is a group of neural structures responsible for incentive salience (i.e., "wanting"; desire or craving for a reward and motivation), associative learning (primarily positive reinforcement and class ...
*
Pleasure
Pleasure refers to experience that feels good, that involves the enjoyment of something. It contrasts with pain or suffering, which are forms of feeling bad. It is closely related to value, desire and action: humans and other conscious anima ...
References
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Emotions
Happiness