Happiness

Happiness is a positive emotion which is experienced as being pleasant and sometimes activating. Amongst the so-called universal emotions, happiness is one of the most desirable. It does not only arise in response to doing or receiving something, but also from a sense of connection between people or a sense of wellbeing.¹ 

Children’s understanding of happiness develops gradually. By the age of five years, children understand what happiness means drawing from their own experiences of what felt ‘good’. Happiness was described as joy, love, feeling good and having fun. Young children find it difficult to explain the idea behind happiness. Children report feeling happy when they receive a new toy or play with friends. Explaining happiness for younger children is made easier by drawing on real-life examples.² 

One study explored how parents communicate emotions to children aged 12 to 24 months during a shared book-reading task. Infants provided labels for emotions around the age of 18 months. Parents used more emotion labels for happiness and sadness, while fewer for disgust. Children may label happiness earlier due to parents' frequent discussion of this emotion, highlighting the significance of early emotional communication in development.³ 

To investigate how specific and general vocabulary influence emotion understanding, researchers showed children, between the ages of 4 to 9 years, vignettes of different emotions, including happiness, and asked children to indicate how the protagonist in the them felt. Children who knew more emotion specific words (beyond their general vocabulary size) demonstrated better emotion recognition and understanding of emotion regulation strategies. This suggests that such vocabulary extends beyond general language skills in enhancing emotional comprehension.⁴ 

The most common ways people describe the sensation of happiness is feeling light or uplifted, energetic, buzzing or tingling, warm, or grounded. The facial expression most commonly associated with happiness is a smile. We can change our facial expressions to look as though we are smiling (even if we do not experience happiness). There is a specific smile, the called Duchenne-smile which is difficult to stage and is therefore considered to be a genuine expression of happiness (including the characteristic ‘crow's feet’). 

Happiness can be expressed in the tone of voice and in our posture: some states of enjoyment may be signalled with a sigh of content, a squeal of joy, excited exclamation or shout, or laughter. Posture changes can be upright or elevated. Children show elevated posture after helping others and after seeing others being happy. For children at 5 years of age, this expression of happiness is stronger when others are watching their helping behaviour.⁵ 

Children’s relationship with their primary caregivers is a key factor influencing a child’s emotional development and thus their happiness. An example of this is the effect of caregiver’s emotion-based language. Parents more frequently use emotions labels for happiness compared to other emotions when describing pictures in a book to their children. This may explain why children are better at recognising happiness compared to other emotions.³  

Family dynamics and positive emotions go hand-in-hand. In one study including families from Mexico, a culture which is places a strong emphasis on community, found that mothers who shared positive emotions in their interactions with their child reported lower levels of parenting stress and they reported fewer temperamental outbursts from the children in their daily lives.⁷ 

Researchers examined how caregivers’ emotions and behaviours during interactions with their preschool children (3- to 5-year-olds) impact children's overall happiness. Caregivers' own expression of happiness, rather than their observable behaviours, were linked to children's expressed positive emotions. However, specific caregiver actions such as narrating and sharing emotions with their child correlated positively with children's own happiness. This highlights the importance of caregivers being emotionally responsive to children because this shapes children's experiences and expressed happiness.⁸ 

Children express elevated happiness after sharing resources (such as cookies) with others. Five-year-old children were judged to look happier after sharing with others compared to when they themselves received a reward. This positive emotion was stronger after children themselves gave up a reward compared when then merely saw someone else receive a reward. In the literature this is referred to as the 'warm-glow effect'.⁹ 

In one study, young children felt happiest when playing with their favourite toys, when spending time with loved ones, getting hugs when they needed them, unwrapping presents, visiting exciting places, enjoying their favourite meals, feeling cozy and relaxed, and accomplishing something they worked hard for. The study concluded that it is the ‘simple’ things which often result in children feeling happy.² 
 

One question researchers are interested in is how emotional expressivity and emotion regulation relate to children’s academic motivation, engagement, and overall achievement. Sixth graders (average age 10 years) who were motivated to do well at school and engagement were also judged to look happier. In particular those children who were skilled at regulating their own emotions, negative and positive, showed higher academic motivation and higher academic achievement.¹⁰ 

There are also cultural influences in happiness. For example, in western cultures, which tend to be individualistic, happiness reflects a high level of positive feelings and more of a sense of satisfaction. In American English, the concept of happiness has evolved to denote positive internal feelings. Happiness is subjective, characterised by heightened positive emotions, diminished negative emotions, and possibly a feeling of contentment or fulfilment. In Mandarin Chinese there are different words to express different states of happiness, such as ‘Gao Xing’ for subjective feelings and ‘Kauai Le’ for general character.¹¹ 

Awe is a positive emotion that, like surprise, arises from witnessing unexpected events. Similarly, it can elicit curiosity, encouraging learning, especially in young children.¹² Awe has also been linked to prosocial behaviour, such as sharing and charity.¹³ The expression of awe includes widening of the eyes, raised inner eyebrow, open and slightly dropped jaw and mouth, goosebumps, small forward movement of the head, and visible inhalation.¹⁴ 

Pride is a positive emotion but also a self-reflective emotion, that occurs following a relevant accomplishment.¹⁵  Much research has investigated the development of pride in children, finding that pride can be recognised by children at the age of 4 years. The expression of pride includes a small smile, head titled slightly back, arms either raised above the head or placed on the hip, and a visibly expanded posture.¹⁶ 

Pride and happiness, though both positive emotions, can be distinguished by the fact that pride requires the individual to be and feel responsible for the positive event. Children progressively differentiate between these two emotions, a skill which matures between 9 and 11 years of age. Pride can also be derived from both self-achievement and altruistic behaviour (this is known as moral pride) and this form of pride develops later in development.¹⁷ 

In one study, researchers examined how different types of play, including pretend and physical play, predicted children's social and emotional skills over a period of two years. Younger children demonstrated lower emotional knowledge and regulation initially but improved over time. Sociodramatic play predicted better emotional expressiveness and regulation, while rough-and- tumble play predicted expressiveness and regulation, with gender differences observed in play preferences and emotional skills.¹⁸