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The Journal of Positive Psychology
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Joy is a distinct positive emotion: Assessment of
joy and relationship to gratitude and well-being
Philip C. Watkins, Robert A. Emmons, Madeline R. Greaves & Joshua Bell
To cite this article: Philip C. Watkins, Robert A. Emmons, Madeline R. Greaves & Joshua Bell
(2017): Joy is a distinct positive emotion: Assessment of joy and relationship to gratitude and well-
being, The Journal of Positive Psychology, DOI: 10.1080/17439760.2017.1414298
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2017.1414298
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THE JOURNAL OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY, 2017
https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2017.1414298
Joy is a distinct positive emotion: Assessment of joy and relationship to gratitude
and well-being
Philip C.Watkinsa, Robert A.Emmonsb, Madeline R.Greavesa and JoshuaBella
aDepartment of Psychology, Eastern Washington University, Cheney, USA; bDepartment of Psychology, University of California, Davis, CA, USA
ABSTRACT
In three studies we investigated joy and its relationship to subjective well-being (SWB). We developed
measures of joy based on recent conceptualizations of joy in the humanities and social sciences. In
Studies 1 and 2 we developed reliable measures of state and trait joy. In Study 3 we used a two-
month prospective design to investigate the relationship of joy to gratitude and SWB. We found
that dispositional gratitude predicted increases in state joy over time. We also found that trait joy
predicted increases in state gratitude, providing evidence for an intriguing upward spiral between
joy and gratitude. Finally, we found that trait joy was associated with increases in SWB over time.
Factor analyses indicated that joy loaded separately from other positive emotions. We conclude that
joy is a discrete positive emotion, it can be measured reliably with self-report instruments, and that
it may be an important component of well-being.
When baseball’s loveable losers – the Chicago Cubs –
won the World Series in 2016, joy was the one word that
perhaps best captured the reaction of Cubs’ supporters.
The sobbing response of Dina Mansaour was typical of
many Cubs fans: ‘I can’t even explain how I feel right now.
This is so epic. I’ve waited my whole life for this. This is the
most amazing feeling in the world’ (McLaughlin & Palmer,
2016). It had been 108years since the Cubs had last won
the championship, and Jason Nye’s reaction echoed that
of Mansaour: ‘I’ve been waiting my whole life for this,
my grandfather has been waiting his whole life for this,
everyone has been waiting for this’ (McLaughlin & Palmer,
2016). Longsuering Cubs fans had indeed waited long for
this event, and joy seemed to be the dominant response.
Although joy appears to be essential to the human con-
dition (Vaillant, 2008), outside of a handful of studies, this
emotion has rarely been empirically examined as a discrete
emotional state. In an attempt to ll this vacuum, our pur-
pose in these current studies is to develop valid measures
of joy, and to investigate the relationship of joy to gratitude
and well-being.
Need for joy research
In his treatise on spiritual emotions, Vaillant stated, ‘We
cannot understand human beings unless we understand
joy and how joy comes to be’ (Vaillant, 2008, p. 131).
Indeed, the understanding of joy has been identied as
important to the goals of positive psychology (Fredrickson,
1998, 2001; Seligman, 1998; Watkins, 2016). Moreover, joy
is invariably included on notable lists of basic emotions
(e.g. Ekman, 1992; Fredrickson, 1998; Frijda, 1986; Lazarus,
1991; Plutchik, 2003; Tompkins, 1962). Because of the
importance of positive emotions to subjective well-being
(SWB) (Myers & Diener, 1995), it would seem that under-
standing joy is crucial to grasp human ourishing. But
despite the apparent importance of joy, it appears to be
the least studied of the positive emotions (Vaillant, 2008).
Joy as a discrete positive emotion
Why has psychological science, and more particularly pos-
itive psychology, neglected the systematic study of joy?
First, it may be because joy is often used as a synonym for
happiness, and thus joy is usually treated as a non-specic
positive aect (e.g. Ellsworth & Smith, 1988). Because of
this, the appraisal most often proposed for joy is interpret-
ing any situation as indicating progress toward or comple-
tion of a personally relevant goal. For example, Fredrickson
(1998, p. 304), states that joy results from events that are
‘construed as accomplishments, or progress towards one’s
goals.’ One issue here is that ‘progress towards one’s goals’
may be viewed as the basic appraisal of any positive emo-
tion, and thus joy is reduced to any positive emotional
© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
KEYWORDS
Joy; gratitude; subjective
well-being; happiness
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 16 October 2017
Accepted7 November 2017
CONTACT Philip C. Watkins pwatkins@ewu.edu
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2 P. C. WATKINS ET AL.
done something important for me’), pride (‘I have achieved
something of value’), and interest (‘there’s something new
about this situation that might be important to me’) seem
fairly straight forward compared to joy. We have seen that
the object that activates joy is appraised as good, but what
makes it good to the individual? People often experience
joy when they receive good news, but what makes the
news good? Here is where a discussion of the appraisal
structure of joy is crucial.
First, there is an implication that the ‘good news’ is news
that one has been waiting for. In this sense, the news is
good because it in some way fullls the individual’s hope
(Wright, 2015). Many approaches to joy have emphasized
human longing: we experience joy when we are longing
for something and we nally receive news that it’s coming
to be (e.g. Lewis, 1955; Vaillant, 2008). Thus, joy is not the
emotional response to all things encountered that one
deems good, but rather one is more likely to experience joy
in response to a hoped for event. Even though a latte may
give us pleasure, we probably won’t experience joy when
consuming our daily latte because it is simply part of our
daily routine, not something that we have been waiting for.
On the other hand, when we’ve been apart from a loved
one for some time and we have longed for their presence,
joy is the probable response when the reunion occurs.
Second, the object of joy is deemed to be good because
it indicates that we are, in some expansive way, blessed
(Motmann, 2015). Thus, when an event suggests to us
that we are favored, joy is the probable consequence.
Volf expands on this idea by suggesting that the object
of joy is ‘intentional’ (presumably from an outside source)
and is viewed as ‘unowed’ (Volf, 2015). For example, in
response to a raise given for excellent performance on
the job, one might be likely to experience pride related
emotions, but not joy. We included items related to this
aspect that allowed us to evaluate whether the objects of
joy are typically viewed as ‘unowed.’ Both Frijda (2007) and
Mathewes (2015) have also argued that joy is more likely
to be experienced when the good object is in excess of
what one expected.
Third, theorists have emphasized that the object of
joy is deemed good because we appraise the situation as
indicating some kind of turning of fortune or a redemp-
tive twist, (McAdams, 2006) where something good fol-
lows on the heels of something bad. Redemption is ‘a
deliverance from suering to a better world’ (McAdams,
p. 7). According to Vaillant (2008), prototypical joy events
involve some kind of triumph after all seemed lost. Thus,
Easter (resurrection after Christ’s death) and Israel’s Red
Sea exodus (when Israel evaded certain death at the hands
of the Egyptian army in their escape through the Red Sea),
are viewed by Vaillant as prototypical joy events.
response. In this paper, we view joy to be a discrete pos-
itive emotion, and seek to investigate it as a specic and
distinctive positive emotional response.
Is there evidence that joy may be seen as a discreet
positive emotion? Several studies have provided evidence
that joy can be distinguished from other positive emo-
tions both in appraisals and function (e.g. Bagozzi, 1991;
de Rivera, 1977; de Rivera, Possell, Verette, & Weiner, 1989;
Eglo, Schmukle, Burns, Kohlmann, & Hock, 2003; Roseman
& Evdokas, 2004). Thus, suggestive evidence supports the
theory that joy is a specic and distinct positive emotion,
and deserves to be investigated in its own right.
What is joy? Recent theoretical proposals on joy
In order to pursue a systematic investigation of joy, we
must have a clear understanding of exactly what it is. As
Vaillant noted, ‘There is no easy denition of joy’ (2008, p.
134), and this may be one reason systematic research on
joy has been absent. Recent scholarship in the theology of
joy has resulted in advances in conceptualizing this emo-
tion and how it may dier from happiness (Volf & Crisp,
2015). Almost all descriptions of joy in that literature state
that joy is a response to a ‘good’ object – usually a positive
event or circumstance. Dierent from mood states, joy as
an emotional state is always about something, and usually
this is news about something good in one’s life. Joy is a
response to some good object. This does not mean that
joy is completely beyond one’s control, however. Although
the emotion of joy is in response to some good event, one
can prepare for joy (see Mathewes, 2015, for a helpful dis-
cussion of the ‘middle voice’ of joy). Thus, in responding
to a positive event, some individuals may experience joy
and some may not. We propose that the disposition of
gratitude is one way that individuals can prepare for expe-
riences of joy.
Most positive emotions are responses to positive
events, so the important question is: how is the event
peculiarly good for a response of joy to result? Most
emotion theorists believe that the appraisal of an event
is crucial to determining specic emotional responses,
so here we discuss various theoretical suggestions for
the appraisal structure of joy. First, we should be quick to
emphasize that the construals of joy are not likely to be
captured in a sentence or two. Unlike fear (‘There’s some-
thing here now that might harm me’) or disgust (‘There’s
something repugnant to me that I must get rid of’), the
appraisal structure of joy is not likely to be so simple, and
this might be another reason that joy has not been system-
atically investigated in emotion science. It is possible that
the appraisal structure of any positive emotion is complex,
but we submit that joy may be unique in this respect. For
example, the appraisal themes of gratitude (‘someone has
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THE JOURNAL OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 3
Those involved with the recent integrative theoretical
project on joy have emphasized other subjective aspects
of joy. For example, Mathewes (2015) suggests that joy
is self-conscious in that when we experience joy we are
aware that we are joyful. He goes on to suggest that
this self-consciousness is not to the extent of becoming
self-consumed. Various theorists have also emphasized the
sense of freedom in joy – particularly freedom to play (e.g.
Moltmann, 2015). Finally, theorists have also argued that
there is a sense of timelessness in joy; when we experience
joy, time ies, time does not ‘drag on’ (Mathewes, 2015;
Moltmann, 2015). The apparent timelessness of joy high-
lights a spiritual aspect of joy: that of a sense of eternity.
Finally, theorists have proposed that the good news
that leads to joy is good because it indicates that things
are working out right, life is going well, in accordance with
one’s perception of the purpose of their life and of the
world (e.g. Volf, 2015). Thus, not just any positive event
should result in joy, but only those events that seem to
be consistent with one’s life plan. This proposition sug-
gests several interesting implications. For example, only
if one has a clear narrative identity would they be able
to appraise a situation as corresponding to their evolving
life story. Thus, one prediction from this theory is that joy
is more likely to be experienced in individuals who have
a clear narrative identity, especially one that contains ele-
ments of redemptive suering.
All of the above suggestions are important theoretical
proposals for the appraisal structure of joy. We have found
Vaillant’s (2008) approach to joy particularly helpful to
developing a theory of the appraisal structure of joy. First,
Vaillant proposes that, ‘Joy is connection’ (2008, p. 124).
By this he means that joy is relational both in its appraisal
and in its function. We experience joy when we appraise
a situation as indicating increased connection with some-
thing good, or appraising a connection with some good
object that we did not previously feel connected to. Here,
Vaillant refers to spring as an important metaphor for joy.
When spring arrives we are reminded of the end of winter,
and the beginning of new life. Thus, out of the deadness
of winter, spring brings the good news that we will be
connected to life again.
Furthermore, Vaillant theorizes that the construals of
‘reunion’ and ‘Separation and return’ (2008, p. 127) are
central to the appraisal structure of joy. Thus, when we
appraise a situation as indicating that we are returning to
that which is good, we will experience joy. Importantly,
Vaillant cites a parent and child game of ‘peek-a-boo’ as
a prototypical joy interaction. The mother hides her face
from the gaze of her child, only to peek back into the child’s
gaze, which invariably brings bursts of joyful laughter in
both parent and child. This example highlights Vaillant’s
theory that joy can only be elicited in situations of secure
attachment. If the child is insecurely attached, the parent’s
hidden face will not be a playful aspect of a joyful game,
but only a threat that the parent may abandon her again.
Finally, Vaillant suggests that when we experience joy
it is the result of an appraisal that we haven’t had a lot to
do with the situation that has caused us joy. This is similar
to Volf’s (2015) idea that joy is the result of an ‘intentional
object’ that seems to require an appraisal of an external
source. We interpret Vaillant as proposing that it is not that
an external source appraisal is required for joy to result,
rather it is simply that an internal attribution for the joy
object is not salient, thus, the individual concludes that
she doesn’t have a lot to do with the joy object.
Summarizing the important theoretical proposals
of the appraisal structure of joy, we have seen that joy
results from construals of: an intentional good object
that is ‘unowed’, something that one has been longing for,
something that indicates we have been blessed or favored,
something that indicates a turning of fortune, and that
life is working out well and that life is being well lived. We
submit that Vaillant’s approach may most parsimoniously
capture the appraisal structure of joy: when we appraise
a situation as indicating a return to that which is good, we
are most likely to experience joy.
What are the thought/action tendencies of joy? Various
authors have proposed that when one experiences joy
one wants to celebrate, and usually celebrate with others.
Although the joyful celebration may be simply communi-
cating one’s success with another, Wright (2015) empha-
sized that joy activates a more physical celebration: when
we experience joy we want to celebrate with clapping,
singing, and dancing. Relatedly, celebratory play is often
the result of joy (Moltmann, 2015; Vaillant, 2008). Frijda
expertly describes this play as ‘free activation’; the thought/
action tendency of joy ‘is in part aimless, unasked-for read-
iness to engage in enjoyments’ (1986, p. 89). Vaillant (2008)
argues that one of the main functions of this celebratory
play is connection – perhaps with others but with any
important good. When we celebrate something with oth-
ers this should provide for a strong social connection. The
appraisal of separation and return results in joy, and thus
for Vaillant, ‘Joy is the motivational system that reinforces
return’ (p. 127).
Finally, recent theorizing has emphasized that joy results
in spiritual longing: joy activates a desire for transcendence
– when we experience joy we long for something beyond
the self. Some have argued that joy is a spiritual emotion
in that it is not closely associated with physical sensa-
tion pleasures (Roberts, 2007), but others argue that the
spiritual aspect of joy is in that joy encourages us to long
for something transcendent (e.g. Thompson, 2015; Volf,
2015; cf. Lewis, 1955). We include items in our joy measures
that relate to both aspects of the spirituality of joy.
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4 P. C. WATKINS ET AL.
reason to believe that joy may be important for gratitude.
People who are high on the aective trait of joy should be
able to rejoice over many things, and should be able to nd
joy even in dicult situations. They should see the good
in their life as coming from sources outside of themselves,
and they should be able to see and celebrate being recon-
nected with good things in their life, particularly reconnec-
tions with important others. All of these may be conducive
to experiencing gratitude. When we recognize gifts, rec-
ognize the goodness of the gift, recognize the goodness
of the giver, and recognize the gratuitousness of the gift, a
grateful response is likely (Watkins, 2014). It is easy to see
how a disposition for joy may enhance these appraisals,
and thus increase the frequency of gratitude. Not only may
gratitude be foundational for joy, here we can see how a
disposition for joy may be conducive to gratitude. Thus,
gratitude and joy may have a reciprocal relationship that
results in an upward spiral that enhances well-being.
We have argued that joy may have be a uniquely
spiritual emotion in that it promotes our longing for tran-
scendence. Thus, in the current studies we investigated
the relationship of joy to a number of spiritual qualities.
Foremost among these qualities was gratitude to God
(Scheibe, Watkins, & Uhder, 2017). For religious people,
gratitude to God may be particularly important to their
experience of joy. Likewise, a disposition for joy may be
important for enhancing one’s gratitude for God.
Summary and overview of the studies
Despite the apparent importance of joy, systematic inquiry
of this positive aect is virtually absent. In order to properly
understand any phenomenon, we must rst develop eec-
tive measurements of the construct. Thus, the purpose of
these studies was to develop valid measurements of joy
as a state and trait, and to investigate the relationship of
gratitude to joy. In Study 1 we develop a measure of the
joyful state, in Study 2 we sought to develop a measure of
trait joy. In Study 3 we utilized a two-month prospective
design to investigate whether gratitude predicts increased
levels of joy over time. In this study participants completed
measures of state and trait joy and gratitude at two points,
seven to nine weeks apart. We predicted that Time 1 levels
of trait gratitude would predict increased levels of state joy
at Time 2, after controlling for Time 1 levels of joy.
Study 1
In Study 1 we sought to develop a reliable self-report meas-
ure of state joy, the State Joy Scale (SJS). We initially created
35 items in an attempt to assess the crucial aspects of joy
as a discrete positive emotion. Because the good news of
joy is not likely to happen frequently, we reasoned that
Another important insight from the recent integrative
eort to understand joy (Volf & Crisp, 2015) is that joy can
be experienced in the midst of trials and dicult events.
There are various reasons proposed for this possibility.
For example, Thompson (2015) proposes that joy can be
experienced in the midst of trouble when one has the
positive outcome of the trial in view. As Vaillant points
out, pain is often intimately involved with experiences of
joy: ‘Without the pain of farewell, there can be no joy in
reunion. Without the pain of disapproval, there can be no
joy in forgiveness. Without the pain of captivity, there is
no joy in exodus’ (2008, p. 131). In the current studies, we
tested these notions by including items in our joy meas-
ures related to enduring joy and also experiencing joy in
dicult circumstances.
The relationship of gratitude to joy
If joy is indeed a discrete positive aect important to the
good life, it is important to explore factors that might be
conducive to joy. We suggest that the disposition for grati-
tude should be conducive to joy. Grateful people – people
high in the disposition of gratitude – see all of life as a gift
(Watkins, Woodward, Stone, & Kolts, 2003). This implies
that they engage in psychological processes that may be
important to the experience of joy. For example, people
disposed to gratitude should look for the good in their
life. In order to experience joy, one must of course notice
the good that might bring them joy. Second, grateful peo-
ple should interpret the good in their life in a benevolent
fashion. Grateful people see positive things as good gifts;
benets given intentionally for their well-being. Although
one may feel grateful for a benet not intentionally given,
research shows that when individuals interpret benets as
given intentionally for their well-being, a grateful response
is more likely (see McCullough, Kilpatrick, Emmons, &
Larson, 2001 for a review). When people tend to interpret
benets in a positive fashion, this should also enhance
their experience of joy. For example, a grateful person
should be more likely to notice benets, and they should
also be more likely to appraise them as valuable and as
given from altruistic motives. All of these cognitive ten-
dencies should also promote experiences of joy. Earlier we
argued that people experience joy when their life is well
lived: when they live in accordance to their true nature.
Grateful people live in gratitude in a way that continually
acknowledges that they are contingent beings: dependent
on others and the earth’s resources. Because we are indeed
contingent beings, gratitude helps us live in accordance to
our true nature, and thus helps us live well in attunement
with the world, which should result in joy.
One goal of the current studies is to test whether grat-
itude is foundational for joy. However, there is also good
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THE JOURNAL OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 5
to evaluate the construct validity of the SJS. In order to
assess emotional state, we administered the short form of
the PANAS (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988). Participants
completed the PANAS with reference to the previous week.
The PANAS is one of the most commonly used and well
validated assessments of emotion. However, there are no
items related to gratitude in the PANAS, so we included the
three adjectives of the GAS (grateful, thankful, and appre-
ciative; McCullough, Emmons, & Tsang, 2002). Because the
PANAS has been criticized for only including adjectives for
high activation emotional states, we also included several
items related to positive and negative low activation states
(sad, contented). We also added items that should be more
directly related to joy, as indicated by our earlier analyses
of the PANAS-X (joyful, happy, delighted, lively). Finally,
we added two items related to Roberts (2007) idea of the
spiritual nature of joy (pleasurable sensations, unpleasant
sensations). If Roberts is correct, these items should show
small to negligible correlations with the joy items.
For our eudaimonic well-being measure we used a
short psychological well-being measure that has good
psychometric characteristics: the Flourishing Scale (FS,
Diener et al., 2010). Eudiamonic well-being refers to hap-
piness as dened by ancient Greek philosophers. In brief,
eudaimonic happiness relates to fullling one’s true nature
– fullling one’s authentic human needs and capacities
(Watkins, 2016). The FS provides for an assessment of the
fulllment of basic psychological needs, as well as other
factors important to eudaimonic well-being. Participants
respond to items such as ‘I actively contribute to the hap-
piness and well-being of others’ on a 7-point agree/disa-
gree scale. We also administered one of the most utilized
measures of SWB: the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS;
Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Grin, 1985). We also included
a spiritual well-being measure derived from Kashdan and
Nezlek (2012). This measure included two items: ‘This
week, the spiritual part of my life was very important to
me’, and ‘This week, my relationship with a power greater
than myself was important to me.’ Participants responded
to these items on a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from
‘very uncharacteristic of me’ to ‘very characteristic of
me.’ This scale had excellent internal reliability (α= .940,
r=.887). We also included two items related to gratitude
toward God that we have found to reliably assess this con
-
struct (Scheibe et al., 2017): ‘This week, I felt very grateful
toward God’, and ‘This week, I felt very appreciative of God.’
Participants responded to these items with the same scale
as the spiritual well-being items, and this scale also showed
excellent internal consistency (α=.989, r=.979).
In order to asses trait gratitude, we administered
two of the most used and validated measures of dispo-
sitional gratitude, the Gratitude Questionnaire (GQ-6;
McCullough et al., 2002), and the Gratitude, Resentment,
participants would be unlikely to have just encountered
this ‘good news’ immediately prior to taking the measure,
thus we chose to use a one-week time frame rather than
immediate momentary joy reports. First, we based several
of our items on factor analyses of the PANAS-X from previ-
ous data sets (McCurrach, 2015; e.g. ‘In the past week, how
often have you felt joyful?,’ ‘In the past week, how often
have you felt enthusiastic?,’ ‘I felt exuberant this week’).
Second, we created several items related to theoretical
appraisal aspects of joy (e.g. ‘This week, good things hap-
pened to me I did not expect’, ‘This week, my life went well’,
‘This week, life just made sense to me’), and theoretical
subjective and thought/action tendencies of joy (e.g. ‘In
the past week, how often have you felt like celebrating?,’
‘This week, I felt playful’, ‘This week, I felt the presence of
something much bigger than myself’).
Method
Participants and procedure
We administered the initial joy measure along with other
measures at three time points. Time 1 and 2 were admin-
istered one week apart, and we administered the meas-
ures at Time 3 four weeks after Time 2. Following are the
demographics for the participants who completed the
measures at all three time points: 33.33% were male,
64% were female, and 2.67% endorsed ‘other’ for gender.
The age range for our participants was between 18 and
43years old, with a mean of 22.38. At Time 1, 185 partici-
pants completed the measures, 189 and 190 participants
completed the measures at Time 2 and Time 3 respectively.
All measures were administered in paper and pencil form
in a group format. Participants were all university students
in psychology courses, and received partial course credit in
exchange for their involvement in the study. This study fol-
lowed the ethical guidelines of the American Psychological
Association (APA), and was approved by the IRB of Eastern
Washington University.
Measures
Our primary measure was the SJS, the purpose of which was
to provide a valid assessment of state joy, the frequency of
the emotional experience of joy. The original instrument
contained 35 items to which participants responded on a
7-point Likert-type scale. The rst eight items referred to
frequency of experience and thus were anchored ranging
from ‘not at all’ to ‘frequently.’ The remaining items were in
a agree/disagree format. Examples of these items may be
found in the appendix which includes the nal SJS.
We also included a number of questionnaires that
served to investigate various theoretical proposals and
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6 P. C. WATKINS ET AL.
theoretical components of joy tend to cluster together.
Exploratory factor analysis using PCA showed that one
dominant factor emerged explaining 52.8% of the vari-
ance. Although four other factors achieved eigenvalues
greater than 1.0, none of these factors explained more
than seven percent of the item variance. This suggests
however, that a number of items were not loading highly
on the primary joy factor. From the original 35 items, we
retained items that loaded highly on the primary factor
and also appeared to provide a unique contribution to the
assessment of state joy. Thus, after eliminating statistically
and conceptually redundant items, we retained 11 items
(see Table 1). Exploratory factor analysis of these 11 items
revealed only one factor with an eigenvalue greater than
one. This factor explained 65.17% of the variance and no
other factor explained more than 6% of the variance. Thus,
we submit that a one-factor solution best explains the 11
item nal version of the SJS. Internal consistency of this
version of the SJS was again quite good (α=.945). In Table
1 we present the items of the SJS along with factor weights
and corrected item-to-total gures. In order to test tem-
poral stability we conducted test-retest reliabilities across
the three administrations. We found that temporal stabil-
ity was what should be expected for a state measure that
might be expected to vary somewhat over time (rs=.58,
.53, .56). Finally, we also compared our shorter nal form to
the longer original form, and found that they were highly
correlated (rs=.976, .977, .979), so researchers will prob-
ably elect to use the shorter form.
Construct validity
Construct validity correlations with the SJS can be found in
Table 2. As can be seen from these relationships, in general
the pattern of correlations were as predicted. Specically
and most importantly, the strongest correlation was
between the SJS and the joy subscale of the PANAS, and
this association exceeded that of the general positive aect
scale and the attentiveness subscale of the PANAS. The
SJS was negatively related to PANAS negative aect. These
correlations provide preliminary evidence that joy may be
and Appreciation Test, Short Version (GRAT-S; Watkins et
al., 2003). The GQ-6 includes 6 items assessing one’s dis-
position to experience gratitude (e.g. ‘I have so much to be
thankful for’). Participants responded to these items on a
7-point Likert-type scale ranging from ‘strongly disagree’ to
‘strongly agree.’ The GRAT-S contains 16 items that theoret-
ically assess an individual’s appreciation for the giftedness
of life (e.g. ‘I think it’s important to appreciate each day that
you are alive’). Participants responded to these items on a
9-point Likert-type scale ranging from ‘I strongly disagree’
to ‘I strongly agree with the statement.’
Finally, all participants completed the Cynicism and Lack
of Trust Scale (CLOT; Floberg, Sestrap, Bart and Watkins,
2014). We reasoned that if one consistently questions the
motives of those who provide them with social benets, it
would be dicult for them to respond with joy to benets
provided by others because rather than seeing favors from
others as an indication of increased connection, cynical
individuals may even see these benets as further evi-
dence of their disconnection with others. The CLOT was
developed to assess local cynicism, i.e. how cynical indi-
viduals feel recently about their immediate social circle.
This instrument contains 23 items (e.g. ‘Lately, I’ve noticed
that when others do something for me they often have
ulterior motives’), and participants respond to the items
on a 9-point agree/disagree format. The CLOT appears to
have good psychometric properties supporting its use
(Floberg et al., 2014). At all three assessments, the above
questionnaires were administered in the following order:
PANAS, FS, spiritual well-being, gratitude to God, SWLS,
GRAT-S, GQ-6, CLOT, SJS.
Results and discussion
Development and reliability of the SJS
In the development of the SJS, our primary purpose was
to develop a unifactorial measure of state joy. We rst ana-
lyzed the internal reliability of the 35 items and found that
the measure was indeed internally consistent (α=.971).
The fact that all items achieved a corrected item-total
correlation above .40 provides some evidence that the
Table 1.Final Items and statistics for the State Joy Scale (SJS).
Item Factor loading Corrected item-total
1. In the past week, how often have you felt joyful? .811 .766
2. In the past week, how often have you felt enthusiastic? .858 .820
3. Because of the joy I experienced this week, time just seemed to fly .828 .788
4. This week I found myself enjoying something so much that I lost track of time .741 .690
5. This week I felt free .780 .730
6. This week, I felt ready to enjoy whatever opportunity presented itself .837 .795
7. Something happened this week that made me feel like celebrating .765 .713
8. This week, the reality of my life was the way I feel it should be .803 .755
9. This week, I felt free to play .795 .748
10. This week, my life went well .813 .767
11. This week, life just made sense to me .842 .797
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THE JOURNAL OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 7
for religious individuals. However, the evidence did not
support Robert’s (2007) idea of joy as a spiritual emotion.
Because joy is spiritual emotion, Roberts reasoned that joy
would not be associated with material pleasures. We found
strong positive correlations between reports of pleasura-
ble physical sensations and joy, contradicting this idea of
a spiritual emotion. We believe that the spirituality of joy
is likely to be incarnational, and thus will be experienced
in a variety of pleasures, including physical pleasures.
Whatever the case, these results call for more research on
the spirituality of joy. In sum, we conclude that the SJS
shows adequate validity for assessing the emotion of joy
and researchers may nd this to be a useful tool in joy
research.
Study 2
The purpose of Study 2 was to develop a valid measure of
trait or dispositional joy: the Dispositional Joy Scale (DJS).
As clearly explained by Rosenberg (1998), emotion can
be described at several dierent levels of analysis: emo-
tional state, mood state, and aective trait. In Study 1 we
developed an instrument that appears to be an accurate
assessment of the emotional state of joy, and in Study 2 we
attempted to develop a measure of trait joy. An aective
trait refers to a person’s disposition for a particular emo-
tional state. Thus, people high in the trait of joy should
have a low threshold for joy; they should experience joy
more frequently across a wider variety of circumstances.
We are aware of only one measure designed to assess dis-
positional joy, the joy subscale of the Dispositional Positive
Emotions Scale (DPES; Shiota, Keltner, & John, 2006). The
DPES attempts to measure seven dierent positive emo-
tion dispositions, but questions have been raised regard-
ing this measure about whether the subscales actually
assess distinct emotional dispositions. Thus, it appears that
a measure of dispositional joy is needed. Based on theoreti-
cal propositions of joy and on preliminary analyses from six
studies using the PANAS-X (McCurrach, 2015), we created
31 items we thought would assess the disposition of joy.
These items were interspersed with items from the DPES,
which was administered with other measures to assess the
construct validity of the DJS. In addition to descriptions
from the DPES that would obviously tap into trait joy (e.g. ‘I
often feel bursts of joy’), we included items related to vari-
ous facets of a theory of the joyful disposition (Volf & Crisp,
2015). For example, we included items relating to the the-
ory that life is going well (e.g. ‘I consistently feel like my life
is going well’), appraising positive events as blessings (e.g.
‘I often feel blessed’), the idea that joy may be experienced
even in dicult circumstances (‘Even when things aren’t
going well, I can still fell joy’), the notion that the objects of
joy are ‘unowed’ (e.g. ‘I consistently receive blessings that
important to well-being. The SJS was strongly correlated
with hedonic well-being (as indicated by the SWLS and the
CES-D), but was also strongly associated with eudaimonic
well-being (as indicated by the relationship with the FS).
Also as predicted, we found that grateful emotion was
strongly associated with joy. Although this was a strong
relationship, it still appears that gratitude and joy may be
viewed as distinct aects. In Table 2, we show correlations
of the validity variables with the GAS as well as the SJS.
These correlations support the theory that although grat-
itude and joy are related, they are distinct positive aects.
Whereas joy is more strongly correlated with the joy sub-
scale of the PANAS, the GAS was more strongly correlated
with both trait gratitude measures, and gratitude to God.
Somewhat surprisingly, the SJS was somewhat less strongly
correlated with grateful emotion as assessed by the GAS
than attentiveness and pride. But we should note that the
SJS was more strongly correlated with the GAS at T2 and
T3, supporting the idea that gratitude and joy may have a
unique relationship. Both of our trait gratitude measures
showed strong relationships with the SJS, supporting the
idea that dispositional gratitude may provide an important
mindset for experiencing joy. Of course, cross-sectional
correlations such as this leave open a number of alterna-
tive explanations. It could be that the correlation is the
result of joy promoting gratitude, a reciprocal relationship
between gratitude and joy, or some third variable (such as
a positive self-report bias) that explains this relationship.
Correlations with the measures of spirituality pro-
vided preliminary evidence that joy may be an impor-
tant spiritual emotion. Consistent with our predictions,
gratitude to God may be important to experiencing joy
Table 2.Construct validity correlations with the SJS and GAS in
Study 1.
Note: All correlations, p<.001. SJS: State Joy Scale. GAS: Gratitude Adjectives
Scale.
Scale SJS GAS
Aect and well-being scales
SJS – .527
PANAS joy .767 .673
PANAS positive affect .667 .657
PANAS attentiveness .551 .526
PANAS ‘Proud’ .543 .520
‘Pleasant Sensations’ .542 .446
Gratitude adjectives scale (GAS) .527 –
Flourishing scale .599 .452
Satisfaction with life scale .561 .479
Spiritual well-being .303 .384
Gratitude to God .284 .385
PANAS negative affect −.443 −.276
PANAS ‘Sad’ −.434 −.168
‘Unpleasant Sensations’ −.386 −.216
CES-D −.450 −.260
Personality variables
GQ-6 .424 .507
GRAT-S .437 .502
Cynicism and Lack of Trust Scale (CLOT) −.576 −.368
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8 P. C. WATKINS ET AL.
and are rated on a 5-point disagree/agree scale (Hendin
& Cheek, 1997). Because narcissism involves an orienta-
tion to the self and joy often involves reconnection with
others, we predicted negative relationships between joy
and narcissism. We hypothesized that the self-orientation
of vulnerable narcissism would be most strongly related
to dispositional joy. Relatedly, we predicted that disposi-
tional envy would be inversely associated with disposi-
tional joy because when one consistently envies others,
it should be dicult to experience joy in response to an
increased connection with others. We assessed envy with
the Dispositional Envy Scale (DES, Smith, Parrott, Diener,
Hoyle, & Kim, 1999), which showed good internal consist-
ency (α = .89). To investigate relationships with self-es-
teem we used the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSE:
Rosenberg, 1965), which demonstrated strong internal
consistency (α=.91). Although joyful people should not
be preoccupied with the self, we predicted that they would
have a positive view of themselves. We also included a
measure of humility (General Humility Scale, Hill, Laney, &
Edwards, 2014) that showed adequate internal consistency
(α=.725), and was signicantly related to the narcissism
measures in the predicted direction (Grandiose Narcissism:
r=−.37, p<.001; Vulnerable Narcissism: r=−.32, P=.001).
For our measure of cynicism we used the CLOT, as in Study
1.
Results
We followed the approach we took in Study 1 in an attempt
to develop a unifactorial measure of trait joy. First, consist-
ent with past studies, both exploratory and conrmatory
factor analyses testing several dierent rotations failed to
conrm the structural validity of the DPES. This suggests
that more development of this measure is needed. As
would be expected because of the number of joy items
in this questionnaire, the rst and strongest factor that
emerged was a factor related to joy. After eliminating
ineective items, the long version of the DJS contained
27 items and had excellent internal consistency (α=.973).
In order to develop a shorter more unidimensional
measure, we eliminated statistically and conceptually
redundant items and only used items that loaded highly
on the joy factor. This resulted in 16 items and the internal
consistency of the short version of the DJS was excellent
(α=.954). Table 3 includes the nal DJS items along with
item statistics. Factor analysis showed that one factor
best explained the variance and this factor accounted for
59.81% of the variance. Items that loaded most strongly
on this factor were ‘I consistently feel a subtle but enduring
feeling of joy’, ‘I am an intensely cheerful person’, and ‘In
a typical day, things often happen that tell me my life is
working out the way it should.’ This provides some support
seem undeserved’), and that joy can be experienced as a
more subtle but enduring state (‘I consistently feel a subtle
but enduring feeling of joy’).
Method
Participants and procedure
In this study, 106 participants completed the measures
in exchange for partial course credit. Participants com-
pleted measures in two separate sessions, one to two
days apart. In session 1, participants were administered
questionnaires in the following order: modied PANAS (as
in Study 1), a general humility scale, social cynicism, dispo-
sitional envy, vulnerable narcissism, trait gratitude (GQ-6,
α=.66), self-esteem, trait gratitude as measured by the
GRAT-S (α=.87), the DPES – which included our additional
items in an attempt to develop the DJS, the CLOT (α=.93),
and nally a measure of grandiose narcissism. In the sec-
ond session, participants rst completed a mood induction
procedure. Participants were randomly assigned to one
of three mood induction conditions: gratitude, pride, or
neutral. For the gratitude condition, they were asked to
‘recall an event where someone did something important
and valuable for you.’ For the pride condition, participants
were asked to ‘recall an event where you accomplished
something important and valuable for yourself.’ The neu-
tral condition merely requested that participants ‘recall the
last day nothing truly notable happened: you completed
your daily routine without interruption, were about as pro-
ductive as average, and spent your afternoon doing what
you most often do.’ Participants were then asked to write
about their assigned event for 5 min. Following the induc-
tion participants completed the PANAS. We predicted that
the DJS scores in Session 1 would predict increases in joy
in Session 2. This study was completed according to the
ethical standards of the APA and was approved by the IRB
of Eastern Washington University.
Measures
For the Narcissism measures, we used the Narcissistic
Personality Inventory (NPI), as well as the 10-item
Hypersensitive Narcissism Scale (HSNS; Hendin & Cheek,
1997). The 40-item Narcissistic Personality Inventory is
the most frequently used measure in narcissism research,
used in this case as our grandiose narcissism measure, and
demonstrated satisfactory internal consistency, (α=.86).
The HSNS was used to measure vulnerable narcissism. It
demonstrated high internal consistency (α=.95) and was
not redundant with the NPI, showing no correlation with
the NPI (r=.02). Items on the scale include statements such
as ‘I often interpret the remarks of others in a personal way’,
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THE JOURNAL OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 9
predicted, the DJS was inversely associated with envy
(r=−.53), vulnerable narcissism (r=−.51), global cynicism
(r=−.39), and local cynicism (r=−.63).1
The disposition of joy implies that people high in this
trait should experience more joy in relevant situations
than those low in the trait. Thus, the DJS should be able
to predict levels of joy after a positive mood induction.
Indeed, the DJS scores in Session 1 were reliably corre-
lated with the PANAS joy subscale (see Study 1) in ses-
sion 2 after our mood induction (r= .44, p<.001). More
importantly, we found that the DJS scores in Session
1 predicted signicant increases in joy after a positive
mood induction in Session 2. We conducted hierarchical
regressions predicting Session 2 state joy scores for the
positive and neutral mood induction conditions. In step 1
we included Session 1 state joy, and in step 2 we entered
Session 1 DJS scores. For the positive mood induction
condition, Model 1 was signicant, F= 11.913, p=.001,
as was Model 2, F=10.11, p<.001. Importantly, the DJS
signicantly predicted Session 2 joy after controlling for
Session 1 joy (ΔR
2
=.093, F
change
=7.027, p=.01, DJS stand-
ardized β=.013). Hierarchical regression analysis for the
neutral mood induction condition showed that the DJS
did not signicantly predict Session 2 joy after controlling
for Session 1 state joy (p=.77). Thus, as expected, the DJS
predicted signicantly enhanced joy, only after a positive
mood induction.
In sum, the short DJS showed good construct validity,
and results provided preliminary evidence that disposi-
tional joy may be important to emotional well-being.
Further validation of both the SJS and the DJS could be
provided if they were included in one study. Furthermore,
if trait gratitude is an important disposition for experienc-
ing joy, this should be investigated in a prospective design.
In Study 3 we sought to deal with these issues.
for the idea that joy involves both intense pleasant feelings
and more subtle long-term emotions. This also supports
the idea that joy results from the perception that one’s
life is being ‘well lived.’ Because items such as ‘Even when
things aren’t going well, I can still feel joy’ were retained
in the nal DJS, this supports the proposal that joy can be
experienced in aversive situations. The appraisal that the
object of joy is ‘excessive’ and beyond expectations was
supported, as items such as ‘I often feel blessed’, and ‘I often
nd myself amazed at all the good things I have received’
were retained. The short DJS related very well to the longer
measure (r=.99), and thus researchers will probably elect
to use the shorter version.
Some results did not support proposals about joy. In
particular, the proposition that joy results from benets
that are perceived to be ‘un-owed’ was not supported
(Volf, 2015). In our initial factor analyses of the modied
DPES the item ‘I consistently receive blessings that seem
undeserved’ loaded on a separate factor that seemed to
be related to gratitude. This provides some evidence that
joy and gratitude are distinct but related constructs. As in
Study 1, we did not nd support for Roberts (2007, 2014)
theory that joy should not involve pleasant physical sen-
sations. Items such as ‘I really enjoy physical pleasure’ and
‘I frequently experience pleasurable sensations’ loaded
most strongly on the joy factor in our initial factor analyses
(however, these items were not loaded strongly enough on
this factor to be included on a unidimensional measure).
The short DJS showed good construct and predictive
validity. As expected, the short DJS was related to imme-
diate state joy (r=.68) and state joy 2days later (r=.41).
The short DJS was also positively associated with state
gratitude (r=.58) and state attention (r=.45), trait grat-
itude as measured by the GRAT-S and GQ-6 (rs=.68 and
.53), self-esteem (r=.64), and humility (r=.24). Also as
Table 3.Final items and statistics for the Dispositional Joy Scale (DJS).
Item Factor loading Corrected item-total
1. I often feel bursts of joy .783 .742
2. I consistently feel like my life is going well .718 .679
3. I can find joy in almost any occasion .828 .719
4. I would say that most of the occasions in my life bring me joy .817 .787
5. My life is always improving .703 .662
6. Many things bring me delight .771 .734
7. I would say that I am an enthusiastic person .756 .726
8. Good things happen to me all the time .733 .696
9. I often feel blessed .754 .711
10. Even when things aren’t going well, I can still feel joy .802 .766
11. I often find myself amazed at all the good things I have received .743 .706
12. I am an intensely cheerful person .834 .800
13. Even in the midst of bad situations, I can usually find something to rejoice about .779 .747
14. In a typical day, things often happen that tell me my life is working out the way it should .834 .802
15. I consistently feel a subtle but enduring feeling of joy .843 .808
16. I often feel overjoyed when something good happens .710 .662
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10 P. C. WATKINS ET AL.
occurring in succession. In order to achieve a general per-
sonality prole for joy participants then completed the Big
Five Inventory (BFI; John, Donahue, & Kentle, 1991; John,
Naumann, & Soto, 2008). This measure provides an assess-
ment of the Big Five personality characteristics: extrover-
sion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and
openness. After completing two scales not relevant to
the purpose of this study, participants were administered
the Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (BIDR,
Paulhus, 1991). This questionnaire was used to control
for response bias and contains two subscales: impression
management (α=.74) and self-deceit (α=.67). In order to
continue our interest in the spirituality of joy, participants
then completed the Gratitude toward God scale (GTG:
Uhder, Webber, & Watkins, 2010; Watkins, Uhder, Webber,
Pichinevenskiy, & Sparrow, 2011). This scale adapted items
from the GQ-6 and the GRAT by changing the wording so
as to be directed toward a divine benefactor, and appears
to have good reliability and validity (α=.95; .95). Finally,
participants completed a demographics form.
Results and discussion
Factor analysis of the PANAS-X
In order to further investigate the discrete nature of joy, we
conducted an exploratory factor analysis on the positive
aect items of the PANAS-X, current state form.2 Because
the PANAS-X contains a number of additional positive
adjectives from the PANAS and because we added the
adjectives from the GAS, this allowed us to investigate
the distinct nature of joy and whether joy and gratitude
are separate aects. For this analysis we used a PCA with
a Varimax rotation. Six factors emerged with Eigen val-
ues greater than 1.0 explaining 68.72% of the variance.
The strongest factor was clearly related to joy, and items
loading stronger than .60 included cheerful, joyful, happy,
delighted, enthusiastic, and excited (respectively in order
of load strength). The second factor related to boldness
and strength (e.g. bold, fearless, strong), and the third
factor contained the 3 items of the GAS – all loading on
this factor above .80. The fourth factor related to surprise/
astonished, and the fth factor was related to calm states
(calm, relaxed, at ease). Finally, the sixth factor was related
to attentiveness (attentiveness, concentrating, alert, inter-
ested). These results correspond to the positive aect fac-
ets as initially identied by Watson and Clark (1994), with
the caveat that the addition of the items from the GAS
clearly added a gratitude factor. The important conclusion
from this analysis is that consistent with our past studies
(McCurrach, 2015), joy clearly emerged as a discrete posi-
tive emotion and was distinct from other positive aects,
including gratitude.
Study 3
In Study 3 we used a prospective design to investigate
the relationship of gratitude to joy, and further investigate
the validity of our joy measures. Participants completed
our joy measures along with other relevant questionnaires
seven to nine weeks apart.
Method
Participants and procedure
Participants completed all measures at two points in time,
seven to nine weeks apart. Students were awarded partial
course credit for completing the study. At T1, 215 students
completed the measures, and 176 completed the ques-
tionnaires at T2. Because not all students participating at
T1 completed the measures at T2, 153 participants com-
pleted the measures at both time points. At T1, 27.3% were
males, 53.1% were females, 0.8% reported ‘other’, and 4
participants did not report gender. For T2, 20.8% were
males, 44.2% were females, and 0.4% reported ‘other.’ Six
participants did not report their gender. Ages at T1 ranged
between 18 and 51 with mean age of 21.15 (SD=4.16). At
T2, ages ranged between 18 and 52 with a mean age of
21.11 (SD=4.21). At T1, 55.0% reported ‘white’ ethnicity,
2.7% African American, 1.9% Asian, 9.6% Hispanic, and the
remainder reported either other ethnicities, mixed ethnic-
ity or did not report. At T2, 46.2% reported ‘white’ ethnicity,
1.5% African American, 2.7% Asian, 9.6% Hispanic, and the
remainder reported either other ethnicities, mixed ethnic-
ity or did not report. This study was approved by the IRB of
Eastern Washington University and was conducted accord-
ing to the ethical principals of the APA.
Measures
In order to have a more complete assessment of emotional
state, participants completed two forms of the PANAS-X,
one for how they were feeling right now, and one for ‘the
past few weeks.’ The PANAS-X is the expanded form of the
PANAS, containing 60 adjectives describing positive and
negative emotional states (Watson & Clark, 1994). As in
Studies 1 and 2 we included the three items of the GAS
interspersed with the original items. Using the PANAS-X
for ‘the past few weeks’, we subtracted scores from the
10-item negative aect scale from the 10-item positive
aect scale as a measure of hedonic well-being. Following
the two forms of the PANAS-X, participants completed the
SJS (α=.95, .96), the DJS (α=.96, .97), the GRAT-S (α=.84,
.90), and the GQ-6 (α=.81, .87). Because of the importance
of these measures to our hypotheses and the possibility
of order eects, we created four dierent orders of these
measures, with the two forms of the PANAS-X always
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THE JOURNAL OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 11
DJS (r=.714, p<.001), which is the expected relationship
between a state and trait emotion measure.
We would also like to highlight the strong associa-
tion between our joy measures and the measure of SWB.
We further tested the relationship of joy to SWB by con-
trolling for the Big-5 personality traits. We conducted a
hierarchical regression predicting SWB where we entered
scores from each Big-5 personality trait in step 1, and then
entered DJS scores in step 2. Model 1 was signicant,
F(4,205)=35.33, p<.001, R2=.463. Model 2 was also sig-
nicant, F(6,146)=16.71, p<.001. The Fchange for Model 2
was signicant, F(1,204)=29.42, p<.001, and the ΔR2 was
.068. Standardized β for the DJS=.369. Thus, dispositional
joy predicted SWB above and beyond the Big-5 personality
traits. This is a promising preliminary result supporting the
theory that joy is an important facet of the good life.
Correlations of joy with personality traits provided fur-
ther support for the validity of the SJS and DJS. The per-
sonality measures showed stronger associations with the
DJS than the SJS, supporting the validity of the DJS as a
measure of an aective trait. Of the Big-5 traits, extraver-
sion and neuroticism showed the strongest correlations
with our joy measures. This provides a personality por-
trait of the joyful person: they tend to be extraverted but
emotionally stable. If extraversion is indeed reective of
the Behavioral Activation System that purportedly medi-
ates positive aect in the brain (Gray, 1986) and joy is an
important emotion to positive aectivity, then the strong
correlation of dispositional joy with extraversion would
seem to follow. The strong negative association of trait
joy with neuroticism suggests that joy may counteract
negative aectivity. Alternatively, negative aectivity may
inhibit joy, and future research on this relationship should
be revealing.
As predicted, we also found strong correlations between
joy and trait gratitude. To further examine whether joy
has a unique relationship to gratitude, we conducted a
hierarchical regression where we investigated if trait joy
predicted trait gratitude after controlling for the Big-
5. For simplicity, we created a trait gratitude composite
score by combining the z scores for the GRAT-S and the
GQ-6 (α=.88).3 Model 1 was signicant, F(5,207)=16.37,
p < .001, and more importantly, the Fchange for Model 2
was signicant, F(1,206)=75.44, p<.001, ΔR2=.192, DJS
standardized β = .621. Thus, after controlling for Big-5
personality traits, dispositional joy strongly predicted trait
gratitude. This provides more evidence for the important
relationship of joy to gratitude.
Finally, we note the relationship of joy to gratitude to
God. As seen in Table 4, although both measures of joy
showed signicant relationships with the GTG, clearly
the relationship is much stronger with dispositional joy.
As with our other analyses, we sought to further examine
Reliability and validity of the SJS and DJS
Because of the importance of cross-validation, we again
conducted reliability and validity analyses for our joy
measures from the data gathered in this study. Again the
internal consistency of the SJS was quite good, both for the
long (α=.950; .965), and shorter versions (α=.935; .955).
Similarly, the DJS showed excellent internal consistency
for the long (α=.964; .972) and short (α=.942; .955) ver-
sions. Test-retest reliability was also good for the SJS (short:
r=.60, long: r=.56) and the DJS (short: r=.64, long: r=.66).
As expected, temporal stability was somewhat stronger for
the trait than for the state joy measure.
We evaluated structural validity by conducting fac-
tor analyses on the short measures of the SJS and DJS.
For the SJS, in both administrations only one factor
had an Eigenvalue greater than one and this factor
explained greater than 61% of the variance (T1=61.10%;
T2=69.69%). All items loaded above .7 on the factor. The
short DJS also showed good factorial validity. One factor
explained 54.18 and 60.32% of the variance, and no other
factor explained more than 7% of the variance. On both
administrations of the DJS, only one item fell below the
factor loading of .60 (‘I often feel blessed’), and this item
was still strongly loaded on the primary factor (.59 and .58).
Construct validity correlations are shown on Table 4. We
present only correlations from T1 because T2 results were
similar. PANAS-X results are from the form instructing par-
ticipants to respond ‘for the last several weeks.’ Observation
of this table shows that in general, results support the
construct validity of our joy measures. In particular, the
highest correlations were found between our joy measures
and the joy subscale of the PANAS-X. We should also note
that we found a strong relationship between the SJS and
Table 4. Construct validity Correlations for the SJS and DJS in
Study 3.
Notes: *p=.01; All other correlations, p<.001.
PANAS subjective well-being=PANAS PA – PANAS NA.
Construct Validity Scale
Joy scale
SJS DJS
Aect and well-being scales
PANAS-X Joy .637 .749
PANAS-X Gratitude .342 .530
PANAS-X Bold/Strength .488 .498
PANAS-X Surprised/Astonished .398 .364
PANAS-X Calm .470 .377
PANAS-X Attentiveness .319 .338
PANAS-X Subjective Well-being .616 .643
Personality scales
Extraversion .388 .532
Agreeableness .291 .369
Conscientiousness .320 .364
Neuroticism −.467 −.547
Openness .286 .297
GRAT-S .538 .606
GQ-6 .489 .603
Gratitude to God (GTG) .184* .331
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12 P. C. WATKINS ET AL.
SWB. Model 1 was signicant, F(1,151)=128.81, p<.001,
as was model 2, F(2,150)=67.86, p<.001. Crucially for
our prediction, Fchange(1,150)=4.18, p=.04, ΔR2=.015,
standardized DJS β=.159. Thus, dispositional joy predicted
increased SWB over time, supporting the theory that joy
may be important to human ourishing.
In summary, Study 3 provided additional evidence for
the construct validity of our state and trait joy measures,
and also provided evidence that the disposition of joy may
be important to SWB. Furthermore, results supported a
model of an interesting upward spiral where gratitude
promotes joy and joy in turn enhances gratitude.
General discussion
In three studies, we sought to develop valid measures of
state and trait joy, and investigate the relationship of joy to
gratitude and well-being. We believe our ndings oer four
main contributions to the literature. First, results from all
three studies support our claim that joy is indeed a discrete
positive emotion. Second, joy can be reliably measured by
self-report. Third, joy is related to, but distinct from grat-
itude. Moreover, evidence from our studies supports the
supposition that gratitude is important for experiences of
joy. Finally, our studies present promising evidence that joy
is important to overall SWB. We elaborate on each of these
contributions below, discuss the theoretical implications of
our ndings, and suggest future directions for joy research.
Both as a state and as a trait, in all of our factor analy-
ses joy emerged as a separate and distinct factor from the
other positive aects. This is consistent with analyses of six
past studies with the PANAS-X (McCurrach, 2015; see also
Watson & Clark, 1994). These results suggest that joy is
not a diuse, general positive response, but rather, joy has
its own distinct phenomenological and appraisal prole.
Our results provided evidence for the validity of two
measures of joy. First, in Study 1 we developed a unidimen-
sional measure of the joyful state: the SJS. This measure
showed good reliability and construct validity and should
be useful to researchers interested in investigating joy
(see Appendix 1). Because we felt that joy may not be a
frequent emotional experience, this measure was devel-
oped by asking respondents to refer to the ‘past week.’ This
form is probably most useful to personality and well-be-
ing researchers, but may not be as useful to those who
are interested in experimental designs and would pre-
fer to have an assessment of an individual’s momentary
experience of joy. In future research, we are interested
in modifying the SJS so as to provide an assessment of
momentary joy, but evidence from our analyses of the
PANAS provides another option. Across studies, several
items from the PANAS-X loaded strongly on the joy factor:
joyful, delighted, and enthusiastic. Thus, we suggest that
this relationship by controlling for the Big-5 personality
characteristics. Thus, in step 1 we entered the Big-5 per-
sonality traits, and this model was signicant in predict-
ing the GTG, F(5,205)=3.43, p=.005. More importantly,
the F change of Model 2 was signicant, F(1,204)=18.73,
p<.001, ΔR2=.078, standardized β for the DJS=.394. Thus,
dispositional joy predicted gratitude to God above and
beyond the Big-5 personality traits. This provides some evi-
dence for the spiritual dimensions of joy, but clearly, there
are many other spiritual variables that call for investigation.
Prospective analyses
Cross-sectional correlations have provided evidence for
the importance of gratitude to joy, and that joy might be a
signicant contributor to SWB. However, a much stronger
case could be made for these relationships in prospective
analyses. First, we investigated the relationship of trait
gratitude to joy using hierarchical regression analyses. In
order to provide a strong test of this relationship, in step
1 we entered T1 SJS scores along with the scores from the
two response bias scales from the BID-R for predicting T2
SJS scores. We then entered T1 composite trait gratitude
scores in step 2. Model 1 was signicant, F(3,133)=20.28,
p<.001, but importantly, the Fchange of Model 2 was also
signicant, F(1,132)=8.24, p=.005, ΔR2=.040, trait grat-
itude standardized β=.241. Thus, after controlling for T1
state joy and response bias, T1 trait gratitude predicted
increased T2 joy, supporting the theory that the disposi-
tion of gratitude is important to joy.
It is also possible however, that dispositional joy may
prepare the way for increased gratitude. In order to test
this idea we conducted a hierarchical regression where
we entered T1 response bias and grateful emotion scores
(GAS) in step 1, and then entered T1 DJS scores in step
2, for predicting T2 gratitude states. Model 1 was signi-
cant, F(3,148)=15.18, p<.001, but importantly, the Fchange
for model 2 was also signicant, F(1,147)=6.49, p=.01,
ΔR2=.032, DJS standardized β=.230. Thus, dispositional
joy predicted increased state gratitude over time. Perhaps
this is simply the result of positive emotions tending to
activate each other, but when we conducted prospective
partial correlations with the other positive aect subscales
of the PANAS-X, none were found to predict signicant
increases in joy or gratitude. Thus, gratitude and joy may
have a particularly unique relationship among the pos-
itive emotions, where gratitude supports future joy and
joy enhances future gratitude; providing evidence for an
interesting upward spiral that may be important to SWB.
The design of this study also allowed us to investigate
the prospective relationship of joy to well-being. In step
one of our regression analysis we entered T1 SWB scores,
and in step 2 we entered the DJS scores for predicting T2
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THE JOURNAL OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 13
We also found promising evidence that joy might be
important to SWB. In our cross-sectional correlations, joy
correlated strongly with SWB and ourishing. More impor-
tantly, in Study 3 we found that joy prospectively predicted
increases in hedonic well-being. Our understanding of joy
and well-being would be advanced by exploring this rela-
tionship with experimental designs. For example, future
research could use experimental designs to see if joy inter-
ventions enhance SWB. What might a joy intervention look
like? One way to promote joy would be to use interven-
tions similar to those designed to encourage trait gratitude
(e.g. Froh et al., 2014). Another approach would be to use
an experimental design to investigate a joy adaptation of
grateful recounting. For example, one could ask partici-
pants to daily recall three events that brought them joy.
Careful thought would need to go into the planning of
these interventions – particularly to insure they are not
simply versions of gratitude treatments – but this research
should prove to have both practical and theoretical value.
The results from our studies have several implications
for theories of joy. First, as suggested by the recent inte-
grative joy project (Volf & Crisp, 2015), joy is clearly a very
pleasant hedonic response to a positive object. Various
authors in this project (e.g. Volf, 2015) also suggested that
joy is the result of the perception that life is going well and
life is being lived well. Psychometric analyses of our meas-
ures provided some support for this idea in that items such
as ‘This week, my life went well’, ‘This week, life just made
sense to me’, and ‘In a typical day, things often happen
that tell me my life is working out the way it should’ were
retained in our nal measures. Also, our nding that joy
was strongly related to a measure of eudaimonic well-be-
ing (the FS), supports this notion.
Theories of joy have also emphasized that although joy
may be experienced as an intense short-lived emotion, it
can also be experienced as a more subtle enduring state.
Somewhat surprisingly, the item that loaded most strongly
on the DJS was ‘I consistently feel a subtle but enduring
feeling of joy’, despite the fact that items such as ‘Many
things bring me delight’ and ‘I am an intensely cheerful
person’ were also retained on this measure. Results also
supported the idea that joyful people are able to experi-
ence joy even in the midst of dicult situations. The items
‘Even when things aren’t going well, I can still feel joy’ and
‘Even in the midst of bad situations, I can usually nd some-
thing to rejoice about’ were retained in the nal DJS. This
is an intriguing aspect joy, and more research should be
devoted to investigating how joy might be experienced
in dicult situations.
Although several theoretical propositions of joy were
supported, several were not supported. For example, the
proposal that the good object causing joy is perceived as
‘unowed’ (Volf, 2015) was not supported. Perhaps it is not
these three adjectives may provide for a good measure of
momentary joy. Indeed, in Study 3, the internal reliability
of this short scale was quite good (α=.901; .890). The dis-
advantage of this scale is that because it is so short, it may
not provide an assessment of the full experience of joy.
We were also able to develop a measure of the joyful
disposition (DJS), and this showed good reliability and
construct validity. Correlations of the well-being measures
with the SJS and DJS suggested that the disposition of joy
is more important to ourishing than isolated joyful expe
-
riences. If the disposition of joy proves to be important
to well-being, the DJS may be valuable for investigating
aspects of a joyful lifestyle that are important to the good
life.
Our studies also provided evidence that joy is related
to, but distinct from, gratitude. First, consistent with
McCurrach (2015), in factor analyses gratitude and joy
always emerged as distinct factors. Indeed, even though
the DPES does not have an explicit gratitude factor, one
seemed to emerge that was distinct from the joy factor,
and the item ‘I consistently receive blessings that seem
undeserved’ (designed to tap the ‘unowed’ aspect of joy),
loaded strongly on this factor. These ndings contra-
dict theories maintaining that gratitude is a form of joy.
Nevertheless, although our results showed that joy and
gratitude are distinct, they are clearly related. Indeed, joy
was strongly related to trait gratitude (correlations ranged
from .42 to .54), supporting the idea that the disposition
of gratitude may prepare one for experiences of joy. Our
prospective study (Study 3) provided the strongest results
supporting this theory. We found that trait gratitude pre-
dicted increases in joy over time. Why would the disposi-
tion of gratitude prepare the way for experiences of joy?
Grateful people have been found to have several cognitive
biases that should also promote joy. Research has found
that trait gratitude is associated with positive biases in the
encoding and interpretation of events (Scheibe, Watkins,
McCurrach, & Mathews, 2016; Watkins & McCurrach, 2016).
When one has an inclination to notice and arm events as
good, this should enhance the likelihood of joyful experi-
ences. One implication of these ndings is that the culti-
vation of gratitude should result in enhanced joy, and we
explore this possibility below.
Not only does gratitude promote joy, in Study 3 we
found that over time dispositional joy predicted enhanced
gratitude. This suggests an intriguing upward spiral
between gratitude and joy: as one cultivates the disposi-
tion for gratitude, this increases the frequency of experi-
ences of joy, which in turn should foster the disposition of
joy, thus increasing gratitude. More research should inves-
tigate this cycle of virtue, but if future research conrms
this relationship, it would seem that this upward spiral
might be important to SWB.
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14 P. C. WATKINS ET AL.
interesting to compare our measures to non-self-report
measures, such as life events recall bias and valenced judg-
ment of neutral words. One of the most notable problems
with self-report measures of positive constructs is with
social desirability: people like to present themselves in a
positive fashion. Although this is still a clear limitation of
these studies, in Study 3 we used the BID-R, which allowed
us to control for self-presentation biases. We look forward
to research that validates these instruments using inform-
ant reports. Finally, the correlational nature of these stud-
ies limits the strength of conclusions that can be made, and
we encourage the use of experimental designs to investi-
gate the contribution of joy to well-being. Although our
prospective design in Study 3 provided more conclusive
results supporting the contribution of joy to well-being,
experimental designs would strengthen our understand-
ing of this relationship. Experimental designs using exer-
cises to induce joy should provide more denitive results.
In summary, results from these studies provide evi-
dence that joy is a discrete positive emotion, it can be
measured reliably with self-report instruments, gratitude
promotes joy and joy promotes gratitude, and joy pro-
spectively predicts increases in SWB. If joy is important to
a ourishing life, it behooves us to continue to advance
our understanding of joy. In particular, we believe inves-
tigations that shed light on the appraisal structure of joy
are needed. Indeed, joy research may have lagged behind
the other positive emotions because previously, a clear
appraisal structure has not been proposed. In this regard
we believe that Vaillant’s (2008) approach may be espe-
cially insightful. In brief, Vaillant argues that we experience
joy when we appraise an event as bringing us back to, or
increasing our connection with, something that we deeply
value as good. Usually, these good things are reconnec-
tions with other people we deem important in our life, but
it can be an increased connection with anything that we
hold in high value. For Cubs fans, it was something that
for 108years they had been apart from, and when the
wait was nally over, when they were nally once again
reunited with baseball’s summit, there was nothing but
‘joy in Wrigleyville.’
Author note
Jerey Froh served as action editor for this manuscript.
Notes
1. All ps<.001.
2. Results with the PANAS-X ‘last few weeks’ form were
similar.
3. Separate analyses with the GQ-6 and the GRAT-S were
similar to the analysis with the composite measure.
so much that the benets that produce joy are viewed as
undeserved, but rather that the benets are in some way
seen as excessive – they exceed one’s expectations. Items
such as ‘I often feel blessed’ and ‘I often nd myself amazed
at all the good things I have received’ were retained in the
nal DJS, which seems to support the idea that the objects
of joy are perceived as going above and beyond what one
could expect.
Our studies also provided evidence as to the spiritual
nature of joy. Some authors have argued that joy is a
spiritual emotion in that it is an enjoyment that is not asso-
ciated with physical sensations of pleasure (Roberts, 2007).
We actually found strong positive correlations between
items measuring the experience of physical pleasure and
joy, which appears to contradict this theory. Perhaps this
is the wrong approach to joy as a spiritual emotion. We
propose that pleasurable physical sensations often result
in joy, but that one’s experience of joy is enhanced in these
situations when there is a spiritual dimension to these
experiences. For example, one is more likely to experience
joy in a sexual encounter when one sees the transcend-
ent giftedness of the interaction. When enjoying a glass
of wine, one is more likely to experience joy when one
sees the wine as a divine blessing. Of course, these ideas
are highly speculative at this point, and demand further
investigation.
We have seen that joy is not constrained to non-material
pleasures. But what is the spiritual dynamic of joy? Much
work remains to be done on this front, but in our studies
we found small to moderate relationships between joy
and spiritual well-being and gratitude to God. Thus, there
is clearly a spiritual dimension to joy, in the words of C.S.
Lewis, ‘Joy is the serious business of Heaven’ (1963, p. 93).
The correlations between gratitude to God and joy support
our suggestion that when a good object is experienced as
a divine gift, joy is more likely, but clearly our results are far
from denitive on this issue. We propose, along with Lewis
(1955) and Nietzsche, that the spiritual dimension of joy
may be in that it promotes spiritual longing – a longing
for the transcendent. In Nietzsche’s words (2006, p. 264):
Yet all joy wants eternity –
– Wants deep, deep, eternity.
In sum, we propose that the experience of joy is enhanced
when there is a perceived spiritual purpose to the joy
object, and that a spiritual thought/action tendency of
joy is that it promotes a desire for the transcendent.
As with most research, these studies have limitations
and perhaps raise more questions than they answer. Our
use of college students seriously limits the external validity
of our conclusions, and we look forward to research that
uses more diverse populations with these measures. Also,
all of the measures used were self-report, and it would be
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THE JOURNAL OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 15
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Disclosure statement
No potential conict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
This research was funded by a grant from the John Templeton
Foundation [grant number ID60876].
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Appendix 1
SJS
Your Experiences Last Week
For the following items we would like you to indicate your opinions and experience for the last week, as honestly as you can. For each
item, please circle the number that is associated with your response. Please note that the scale changes at item 3.
1. In the past week, how often have you felt joyful?
1 2 34567
Not at all Hardly at all A few times Several times A number of
times
Fairly Often Frequently
2. In the past week, how often have you felt enthusiastic?
1 2 34567
Not at all Hardly at all A few times Several times A number of
times
Fairly Often Frequently
3. Because of the joy I experienced this week, time just seemed to fly.
1 2 34567
Completely
Disagree
Neither agree or
disagree
Strongly Agree
4. This week I found myself enjoying something so much that I lost track of time.
1 2 34567
Completely
Disagree
Neither agree or
disagree
Strongly Agree
5. This week I felt free.
1 2 34567
Completely
Disagree
Neither agree or
disagree
Strongly Agree
6. This week, I felt ready to enjoy whatever opportunity presented itself.
1 2 34567
Completely
Disagree
Neither agree or
disagree
Strongly Agree
7. Something happened this week that made me feel like celebrating.
1 2 34567
Completely
Disagree
Neither agree or
disagree
Strongly Agree
8. This week, the reality of my life was the way I feel it should be.
1 2 34567
Completely
Disagree
Neither agree or
disagree
Strongly Agree
9. This week, I felt free to play.
1 2 34567
Completely
Disagree
Neither agree or
disagree
Strongly Agree
10. This week, my life went well.
1 2 34567
Completely
Disagree
Neither agree or
disagree
Strongly Agree
11. This week, life just made sense to me.
1 2 34567
Completely
Disagree
Neither agree or
disagree
Strongly Agree
Downloaded by [174.31.75.138] at 10:31 19 December 2017
18 P. C. WATKINS ET AL.
DJS
Please respond to the following items in terms of how much you agree or disagree with each statement. With each item, please use
the following scale:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree
1.___I often feel bursts of joy.
2.___I consistently feel like my life is going well.
3.___I can find joy in almost any occasion.
4.___I would say that most of the occasions in my life bring me joy.
5.___My life is always improving.
6.___Many things bring me delight.
7.___I would say that I am an enthusiastic person.
8.___Good things happen to me all the time.
9.___I often feel blessed.
10.___Even when things aren’t going well, I can still feel joy.
11.___I often find myself amazed at all the good things I have received.
12.___I am an intensely cheerful person.
13.___Even in the midst of bad situations, I can usually find something to rejoice about.
14.___In a typical day, things often happen that tell me my life is working out the way it should.
15.___I consistently feel a subtle but enduring feeling of joy.
16.___I often feel overjoyed when something good happens.
Downloaded by [174.31.75.138] at 10:31 19 December 2017
