Which Good Feelings Come Most Easily to You?
Joy, contentment, love, amusement and awe are not the same thing
Personality research used to treat 'positive emotion' as a single dial: some people are simply happier than others. Work from Berkeley took that apart and found that the good feelings come in distinct kinds, each linked to different traits and relationships. Someone can laugh at everything and rarely feel settled; someone else can be deeply content and almost never giddy. This test shows which of five good feelings visit you most often - and which ones you might be missing.
Before you start There are no right answers. Pick what is usually true for you, not what sounds best.
Answer about how you have usually felt over the past year or two, not about this week. Everyone has flat weeks.
What it measures
Five of the seven positive emotion dispositions from the Dispositional Positive Emotion Scales: joy, contentment, love, amusement and awe - how often and how readily each one arises in you. It is about feelings, not beliefs: optimism is what you expect from the future and gratitude has its own test on this site, while amusement here is the feeling of finding things funny, not the way you use humour with other people.
Based on: Dispositional Positive Emotion Scales (Shiota, Keltner & John, 2006)
Possible results
Joy
Bright, energetic happiness when good things happen.
Contentment
The calm sense that what you have is enough.
Love
Warmth and affection towards the people in your life.
Amusement
How easily you find things funny and laugh.
Awe
Being moved by something vast, beautiful or hard to grasp.
Common questions
Are positive emotions just the opposite of negative ones?
No. People can feel a lot of both, or little of either, and the two are only moderately related. Someone can be anxious and still laugh easily, or calm and rarely joyful. That is why this test asks about good feelings directly rather than inferring them from the absence of bad ones.
Why do positive emotions matter?
The best-known theory, broaden-and-build, proposes that good feelings widen attention and thinking in the moment, and over time help people build lasting resources such as skills and relationships. Parts of the theory have been debated, but the basic idea - that positive emotions do more than feel nice - is widely shared in the field.
Can I feel more of a particular positive emotion?
To some extent, mostly by changing what you expose yourself to. Awe responds to nature, art and big ideas; amusement to people who make you laugh; contentment to pausing after things go well. Temperament sets a range, but where you sit inside it depends a good deal on how you spend your time.
Sources
- Shiota, M. N., Keltner, D., & John, O. P. (2006). Positive emotion dispositions differentially associated with Big Five personality and attachment style. The Journal of Positive Psychology. doi:10.1080/17439760500510833
- Fredrickson, B. L. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.56.3.218
An honest note The statements are Quinthea's own wording, adapted from the Dispositional Positive Emotion Scales, so scores are not comparable with its published norms. The original has seven scales; this test uses five. Most of the evidence comes from American university samples, and cultures differ in which good feelings they value - calm or excitement - which shapes how people answer. Everyone scores lower in hard periods. This is not a mood assessment: if little has felt good for weeks, talk to a doctor or psychologist.
Try one of these next
What Kind of Pride Do You Feel?
The pride of having done something, and the pride of being someone
Accelerator or Brake: What Moves You?
How strongly you react to the chance of a reward - and to the chance of trouble
How Clearly Do You Know Yourself?
Not whether you like yourself - whether the picture is in focus