What Is the Difference Between Happiness and Joy?

Kelly McGonigal separates happiness from joy by scope and timing. Happiness is a global assessment of whether life is going well. Joy is brief, happens in the moment, points at something good, and works like a signal, much as pain does.

Ask how happy someone is and the reply usually covers the whole of life: home, work, health, politics, and money. People call themselves pretty happy when they do not have a ton of worries and have not recently suffered a major disaster, crisis, or change. In the way many people talk about it, happiness means things are going well. Wanting to be happy often means wanting life to be easier. Joy arrives when something good happens. Someone thanks you and you feel better. Sometimes the feeling shows up in the body as relief and the forehead relaxes. Sometimes it is a flash of closeness with other people, or a sense that who you are is good. Joy lasts seconds to minutes, is always about something, and functions like a signal.