HAPPINESS
Happiness involves our deepest strivings and concerns. Though happiness can be seen as a pleasant feeling like joy, it also entails evaluation of our situation and things around us as basically right and good. Happiness is not the same as joy, although the two are closely linked. Evans (2001) distinguished between joy and happiness; joy is a basic emotion, and, like the other basic emotions, a single episode of joy lasts only a few seconds or minutes, whereas, happiness is a mood that lasts from several minutes to several hours. Moods are background states that raise or lower our susceptibility to emotional stimuli. In a happy mood, for example, we will be more likely to react joyfully to good news, while in not so happy mood we might not react to it so intensely.
Happiness is not measured by the outward expression of joyous behaviours. For example, a person who is in a grieving period over the death of a parent may appear sad, but this person may be very grateful for having this parent live lovingly so long or for granting a peaceful death. The inner experience of this person is happiness and gratitude which is fulfilling. In this sense, it is important to see through the spectrum of behaviours of the candidate to assess deeper happiness.