Joy—so-called "woo-hoo" experiences—is widespread among diverse animals, and researchers from many different disciplines want to know how it is felt and expressed and why. In a previous post, I covered various aspects of joy, and I received many emails and texts asking me to say more, so I'm thrilled that Dr. Colin Allen, a major player in the study of joy, was able to further the discussion and answer a few questions about the evolution of joy, why it is an important adaptation across diverse species, and what causes individuals to express it.

Marc Bekoff: How do you define joy and why? Why is it important to delve deep into these “woo-hoo” states that so many nonhumans and humans experience?

Colin Allen: Joy refers to rather different things in different contexts. To some, it’s a long-lasting, transcendent state that frames many aspects of life. This is the definition the late primatologist Frans de Waal favored, and it’s sometimes associated with a sense of spiritual fulfillment.

But there’s another notion of joy in which it’s a fast rush of positive emotion that comes when something good happens, often (but not always) when one wasn’t expecting it. For instance, a surfer’s joy in the woo-hoo moment of catching that perfect wave, the sudden rush of feeling when a loved one appears, or when you learn that you got the job, the award, or won the lottery. Joy in this sense is a rapid-onset state that is sustained for a few seconds or minutes at most (although it may resurge sporadically after the initial event that caused it).

In our TWCF [Templeton World Charity Foundation]-funded “Joyful by Nature” project, my colleagues and I decided to focus on the short-term notion of joy. These bursts of joy seem to have a profound effect on overall mood that can last for much........

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