THE 5 TYPES OF HAPPINESS IN PSYCHOLOGY (WITH EXAMPLES) - GEOGRAFÍA - 2025

The types of happiness, according to the famous psychologist Seligman, are the pleasant life, the committed life, relationships, the meaningful life and the sense of achievement. Each one has its defining traits and there are different ways to achieve them.

We could understand happiness as a state of fulfillment where life is valued in a positive way. If we are happy we love life and we achieve our goals and we enjoy them not perceiving mistakes as frustrations, but in a constructive and positive way.

A person who is happy is one who smiles in all its splendor and enjoys the life he has permanently. Depending on how life is understood, each person will find happiness in one way or another. Here we explain the different types of happiness according to Seligman.

What types of happiness are there?

Although there is some other discrepancy in the classifications of the types of happiness, we have decided to explain it to you because it is clearer than the others, the one made by the author Seligman.

This distinguishes first in three aspects or three types of happiness, to which he later adds another two that are incorporated into the concept of happiness.

Positive emotions or pleasant life

This type of happiness would be one of the most basic and focuses solely on being happy because the person only wants to experience emotions that are not negative, but positive.

That is, in both sensory and emotional pleasures, which can be for a short period of time or even fleeting, governed by external circumstances.

Some examples of this type of happiness would be: tasting delicious food, taking a hot shower, being in the company of people we like…

As we can see, people who are governed by feeling positive emotions can become controlled by external circumstances and by the fleeting and variable pleasures that come from the outside.

Commitment or committed life

We could say that this type of happiness incorporates the first, the "pleasant life." In this case, the person would not only focus on enjoying the pleasures that are given to him from the outside.

In addition, your inner being would be involved with all its strength in that activity that you are doing paying attention to your internal attitudes and not based only on external circumstances. So it is the result of using personal strengths to obtain numerous rewards in the main areas of existence.

People who are on this level of happiness could find it by putting their inner life at stake, and taking into account that the important thing is not only what happens but how it is interpreted and dealt with.

Some examples would be: playing sports, reading a book, playing a musical instrument, painting a picture, teaching something to another person…

Relations

If we are able to enjoy outer pleasures and in addition to developing our personal strengths, we can place ourselves at level three on this scale of happiness. There are people who only feel happy when they share their time with others, either helping them or doing any other activity.

Maintaining positive relationships with the people around us is another requirement to achieve happiness. All human beings need to participate in our life in community and feel loved and supported to be happy, so we have to dedicate our time to it.

Meaning or significant life

This type of happiness is characterized by the fact that the person uses his virtues and strengths at the service of something that is outside of him and that gives meaning to his life. Therefore, depending on each person and their characteristics, they will carry out some activities or others.

Some, for example, find their level of extreme happiness when they find meaning in their life by establishing a series of goals such as: helping to make this world fairer, facilitating education for disadvantaged people, volunteering for an organization…

Success and sense of accomplishment

And finally, we come to the fifth type of happiness according to Seligman. If we have overcome the previous ones, we can reach the fullness of happiness. As we already know, we need to feel competent and be autonomous in our life, for this, we usually set goals with which we can develop and pursue our successes.

These goals help us to continue growing as individuals and also on a professional level. Confidence will be essential to achieve this type of happiness since it is what makes us feel competent with what we do.

On the other hand, everything we do in our life must be accompanied by motivation. This will give meaning to our life and will allow us to make plans and feel fulfilled to find ourselves at the last level of happiness.

Is happiness made up of factors?

Lyubomirsky, Sheldon and Schkade have synthesized the three most important factors that determine happiness:

Reference value

The reference values ​​are those biological characteristics that we have inherited genetically and that determine our temperament.

According to some research that has been carried out with both univitelino and bivitelino twins, there are 50% of factors that have to do with genetic inheritance that cannot be modified and that therefore determine our temperament and therefore, our way of reacting to events.

Circumstances

In addition to the previous cause, we also find that the circumstances that we can live in certain moments can also condition our happiness by 10%.

They are not usually as decisive as they seem, although it is true that they can limit our well-being and consequently our happiness. They tend to be, for example: what we believe, our income, health…

Deliberate activity

The last of the factors that cause happiness refers to our deliberate activity. In other words, with a value of 40% the causes of our happiness depend on ourselves, on what we do in our daily lives and on our way of thinking.

From what has been said, there are three factors that determine our happiness: the biological, the social circumstances and what we decide to do with our life.

However, although 50% of us genetically predispose and limit our happiness, the other 40% is still ours. Therefore, we have to be aware of this since being more or less happy depends on ourselves by 40% out of 100.

Conclusions

As we have seen throughout the article, for Seligman there are five types of happiness or five ways to achieve it. We cannot understand them as something separate since it is difficult to conceive it in this way since some activities can correspond to each and every one of them depending on their level of complexity or how we understand them.

Although it is true that they are found in a staggered way, people grow and develop so that different types of happiness may occur simultaneously, one more than the others appearing.

Finding full happiness is something quite complicated since it depends on many factors: the circumstances, the reference value and our deliberate activity; But as we have been able to verify, 40% depends on ourselves and I would even dare to say that the other 10% destined to the circumstances as well.

For this reason, we have to be aware that our happiness depends on ourselves and that if we want to be happy, a good way to do it is by beginning to internalize the types of happiness that exist and climb until reaching the fifth level.

References

1. Arguís, R., Bolsas, AP, Hernández, S., & Salvador, MM (2010). "Happy Classrooms" Program. Zaragoza.
2. Flourish, a Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being- Dr. Martin Seligman.
3. Lyubomirsky, S., Sheldon, K, M. and Schkade, D. (2005): Pursuing Happiness: The Architecture of Sustainable Change. Review of General Psychology, 9, no. 2, 111 131.
4. Lyubomirsky, Sonja (2008): The science of happiness. Barcelona: Uranus.
5. Seligman, Martin EP (2002): The real happiness. Barcelona: Editions B (2003).
6. Seligman, Martin EP (2011): Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well – being. New York: Free Press.