Visual Representations of Happiness in Portuguese Adolescents ^†

Abstract

Background/Objectives: Happiness is a main topic of psychological research, and as a catalyst for transformative change, it is capable of inspiring growth and well-being. This study aims to identify and understand the themes that compose visual representations of happiness in adolescents, while using an innovative qualitative methodology centered on visual research. Methods: Applying the ‘draw-and-write’ technique, Portuguese adolescents were asked to ‘Draw happiness’, generating a visual data set of 330 drawings, coined hSquares. Results: By order of prevalence, the thematic analysis identified eight key themes: ‘people’, ‘hobbies’, ‘love’, ‘smile’, ‘sports’, ‘basic needs’, ‘inner harmony’, and ‘human rights and equality’. The findings highlight the significance of social contexts, such as family and peer relationships, as central to adolescents’ happiness, while also emphasizing the importance of self-selected activities. Visual representations associated with basic needs and human rights emerged as novel contributions to the literature. Differences emerged by age, with younger adolescents often depicting single themes, whereas older adolescents integrated multiple themes in their drawings. Conclusions: This study provides a visual complement to the rich textual conversation about happiness and demonstrates the potential of visual methodologies in psychological research.

1. Introduction

Happiness, a multi-faceted construct that defies simple definition, has long been the subject of study and debate in the scientific community. There are different ways of looking at it. Some consider it a force that shapes human evolution and perception; others see it as a sensory phenomenon that influences our daily experiences; and some argue that it is embedded in social structures. Despite these perspectives, happiness is recognized as a catalyst for transformative change that can inspire growth and well-being [1], remaining a fundamental goal sought by both individuals and societies. However, an essential yet often overlooked factor in these views is the role of culture norms and values in shaping people’s experiences of happiness, leading to diverse understandings of well-being. Most studies focus on a limited range of nationalities, which limits the global generalization and applicability of this construct [2]. To address this gap, this study explores Portuguese adolescents, whose socio-cultural environment may reveal novel insights into the experience and representation of happiness.

Given these variations, scholars have been defining Happiness as subjective well-being [3,4], life satisfaction [5], and the prevalence of positive rather than negative emotions [6]. Considering that happiness is one of the most important goals to be achieved in life [7], the possibility of increasing it makes other goals more desirable [8]. In the context of examining well-being, we encounter two distinct viewpoints: subjective well-being, often referred to as hedonia, and psychological well-being, known as eudaimonia [9,10]. These two perspectives enable a well-rounded exploration, each making distinct and complementary contributions to its overall composition [11].

In a preliminary exploration, the concept of subjective well-being (SWB) delves into how individuals experience positivity in their lives, encompassing both cognitive evaluations and emotional responses. It goes beyond merely the absence of negative factors or emotions. SWB includes various related concepts such as happiness [3]. SWB is rooted in a hedonic perspective, focusing on immediate pleasure, avoidance of pain, and overall life satisfaction [12].

However, some scholars argue that this perspective falls short of capturing the full spectrum of well-being, leading to the emergence of another dimension known as psychological well-being (PWB). According to Ryff and Keyes [9], PWB refers to how individuals perceive meaning in their lives, whether they are realizing their potential, the quality of their relationships, and their sense of control. PWB includes aspects of positive functioning which are often overlooked, such as flourishing, personal growth, self-awareness, and purposeful engagement in life [13]. PWB aligns with an eudaemonic perspective, envisioning well-being as a long-term process of personal development and self-actualization tied to the creation of meaning [11].

The main focus of current research is knowing how these processes support the construction of individuals’ happiness and how assessments of happiness can effectively measure this construct. As a fact, happiness relates to better mental and physical health, with significant consequences in the short- and long-term becoming a significant source of well-being and satisfaction. Considering both the hedonic and eudaimonic perspectives, several factors underline the representation and behavioral dimensions of happiness [11].

While these theoretical perspectives provide a foundational understanding of happiness, psychological assessments on happiness have predominantly employed quantitative methods, using questionnaires and scales, based on predetermined assumptions and expectations [14], with studies mostly using adult populations. A review of current scientific literature shows some points to consider about happiness as the way of measuring that could bias data, especially quantitative data [15]. Therefore, researchers should also use qualitative investigation since multiple factors influence subjective happiness, and quantitative studies can only reveal part of the phenomena throughout written information [14]. In this sense (within the qualitative methods), it could provide a chance to examine other factors that influence representations on happiness but are ‘hard to put in words’, shedding light on aspects that might otherwise go unnoticed in verbal discussions, e.g., interviews [16]. By allowing adolescents to express their happiness through drawings rather than predefined categories, visual research could provide richer insights into how happiness is conceptualized at this developmental stage. This is an area lacking in research. To the best of current knowledge, this study is the first to investigate ‘happiness’ through visual methodologies, particularly drawings, following an innovative qualitative methodology centered on visual research, authored by Hartel [17]. This methodology will be strictly applied to understand adolescents’ visual representations of happiness, expanding our understanding of happiness by evaluating what people consider happiness to be without imposing any point of view in a democratic way [18].

1.1. Happiness and Adolescents

Currently, and within the positive psychological approach, several factors have been studied to understand positive human functioning that can relate perceptions of happiness and the life consequences of being happy. Compared to adult conceptions, happiness is more unstable in adolescence and young adulthood due to constant changes in environment, uncertainty about the future, and less crystallized opinions about life [19]. Inside this age group, there are variations in happiness levels, showing that happiness in adolescents tend to decrease up to 16 years old and a minimal recovery until 18 [20]. Age is a significant predictor of happiness in adolescence, showing that younger adolescents are usually happier than older adolescents [21]. This result informs us that older adolescents experience higher levels of conflict primarily associated with identity problems [20]. According to López-Pérez and colleagues [22] and Freire and colleagues [23], adolescents tend to consider, in their happiness conceptualizations, familial and social relationships as the main contexts associated with happiness, and emotions and harmony, as internal or psychological variables associated with happiness.

Increased rates of depression in adolescents around 15 years old [24] have been documented as coinciding with a decrease in happiness [20]. Although many studies demonstrate that happiness is not the opposite of depression, the literature states that depression and anxiety are the main manifestations of unhappiness [25]. The findings with unhappier adolescents show less supportive relationships due to the interdependence between subjective well-being and social relationships [26]. This relation is evident because happiness is strongly related to a more extroverted lifestyle, thereby, a happy person usually has higher levels of sociability and higher quality of social interactions [21,26]. This effect is even more evident in adolescents whose friendships become more important as they grow older [27].

1.2. Arts-Informed/Creative Methods and Visual Research

Arts-informed methods take inspiration from artistic practices and adapt them to the social scientific research process [28]. They are gaining popularity. They are also called creative methods [29]. Visual research is a form of qualitative investigation which uses images to understand more about the social world [30,31]. Every day, images are present in the ongoing flow of experience, helping to understand and give meaning to individuals’ lives. Images are powerful forms of communication, and individuals perceive images through personal and/or collective life experiences, and from a variety of cultural and social contexts [32]. Visual research through drawings, challenges passive roles by actively involving and acknowledging youth as capable of creating meaning and representations of the world around them [33]. Understanding a concept through images produced by participants is one of many ways to use visual approaches in investigations on happiness. It can be an alternative and/or complementary method equally as effective as ‘words and numbers’ [16]. When navigating through social media, listening to music or performing other common tasks, images serve as the medium of how the information being conveyed is experienced, and how the individuals engaged or interact with it [32]. The visual part has been viewed as naïve and adequate for children with difficulties in communicating thoughts and feelings, yet the role of visuals in psychology reveals their instrumental effects in establishing a context for the ‘psychological’ to become observable, and consequently measurable and more scientific. This elevates the accuracy of observations and accessibility of findings to the public [32].

1.3. Draw-and-Write Technique

One modality of arts-informed/creative approaches employ drawing [34]. The ‘draw-and-write’ technique is a specific method to gather data through a drawing activity and a writing exercise [35,36]. Especially with abstract concepts, the draw-and-write technique seems beneficial because abstract words do not exist in space-time dimension, and it is not easy to quickly process and recognize their meaning [37]. The draw-and-write technique was originally developed for studies of children’s health, being mostly applied by teachers or researchers in the classroom. Although some adaptations of this technique have been employed with adults, proving to be effective in providing a rich visual data set [17,38], it remains commonly utilized in scientific research targeting the child age group [39,40,41], and preadolescents [42,43,44], exploring diverse representations such as the natural environment, health professionals and recess experiences. Visual representations have been studied within the field of astronomy [45], medicine [46], mathematics teaching [47,48], scientific communication [49,50], science education [51], information science [52], and engineering [53]. They also have proved to be useful as a metacognitive strategy to learn [54], and as a way to better access and comprehend the narratives and worldviews of children and youth affected by global adversities [33]. Regarding the construct of happiness, visual representations have studied it through stock photography [55], Instagram posts [56], and metaphoric collage [57]. Thus, this study is innovative both with the technique being used (hSquare protocol) and age group being targeted (adolescents).

1.4. The iSquare Protocol

The iSquare protocol was developed by Hartel [17], using a novel formulation of the draw-and-write technique to study the information. Participants were asked to answer ‘What is information?’ by drawing with a black pen on a 4.25″ by 4.25″ square of white paper. On the reverse side of the square, the participants were prompted to ‘Please say a few words about your drawing’ [58]. The task occurs for ten minutes (2 min to explain and distribute the materials, 7 min to fill the iSquare, and 1 min to thank). It produces a compact piece of visual and textual data—the ‘Information Square’ or ‘iSquare’ for short—that contributes to information studies through an alternative visual conception of information [52,58]. Through this formulation of the draw-and-write technique, which is relatively low-cost and straightforward to implement, it is now possible to study almost any concept that has been difficult to grasp with conventional methods and words, alone [52].

Thus, the present study aims to understand: (i) how adolescents visualize “happiness” and (ii) how adolescents express their visual conceptions of happiness according to age.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Participants

The sample was constituted by 330 adolescents aged between 11 and 18 years old (M = 14.89, SD = 1.80) from different schools in the North of Portugal. The participants consisted of 7th to 12th grades, and there were 164 females (M = 15.03, SD = 1.74), 154 males (M = 14.76, SD = 1.86), and 12 participants preferred not to identify their gender.

Participants were also characterized according to their levels of Subjective Happiness, collected by the Subjective Happiness Scale [59] (see Section 2.2). A total of 272 adolescents scored above the average (M = 5.96, SD = 0.81), indicating they considered themselves happy, while 58 adolescents scored below the average (M = 3.64, SD = 0.64). When comparing themselves with people of their age, 212 participants scored above average (M = 5.82, SD = 0.71), meaning they perceived themselves as happier, while 117 participants scored below average (M = 3.75, SD = 0.52).

To address differences between older and younger adolescents, this study divided them into two groups (ages 11–14 and 15–18), based on the distinction between early and middle adolescence [60].

2.2. Instruments

hSquare Protocol: To study visual representations of happiness, this study produced the ‘Happiness Square’ protocol or ‘hSquare’ for short, following the iSquare protocol [58]. The main characteristics and criteria of the iSquare protocol were maintained, including the distribution of 4.25″ by 4.25″ squares of white paper, black pens, and the instruction to describe the drawing using the prompt “Please say a few words about your drawing” [58]. However, some adaptations were made. A sociodemographic questionnaire and the Subjective Happiness Scale were included on the reverse side. Due to these additions, the task duration was extended to 10 min to allow time for responses, while the original 7 min to drawing period was maintained.

Subjective Happiness Scale: In order to describe the sample, bellow the written portion of the hSquare, the participant had to fill the two items of the Subjective Happiness Scale [61], validated for Portuguese adolescents [59]. The Subjective Happiness Scale evaluates subjective happiness, which is a subjective evaluation that individuals perform to understand if they are happy or unhappy [61]. It is composed of 4 items, on a 7-point Likert scale, but only two items are integrated into the present study. The items are as follows: “In general, I consider myself: (1) not a very happy person, (7) a very happy person” and “In comparison with most people of my age, I think I am: (1) unhappier, (7) happier” [59]. The validated for Portuguese adolescents version of the scale has good internal consistency, and it is considered a good measure with similar psychometric properties to the original version [59]. This conjunction of techniques is allowed in the iSquare technique protocol, which aims to adapt the technique to the interest construct and field in study [58].

Sociodemographic questionnaire: The sociodemographic questions included in this study were related to gender and age, integrating the back portion of the hSquare.

2.3. Procedure

This study received the approval of the Ethics Committee for Research in Social and Human Sciences (CEICSH 050/2021) of the University of Minho on 31 May 2021.

Participants in this study responded to the prompt: ‘Draw happiness’. To determine the phrasing of this question, a pilot test was conducted using the ‘thinking aloud’ method. In the pilot, 10 adolescents were asked, ‘What is happiness for you?’ while another 10 were instructed to ‘Draw happiness’. The latter approach proved to generate a better understanding of the concept.

To implement the study, schools were contacted to obtain permission, with the aims and procedures explained. Upon approval, students were invited to voluntarily participate in the investigation. Exclusion criteria were related to age range and language barriers that could prevent the correct interpretation of the activity. All participation was voluntary, and students were free to withdraw from the task at any point. To ensure consistency across multiple data collection sessions and locations, a standardized procedure was followed. All participants were given the same set of instructions, and researchers adhered to a structured script when introducing the task. Data collection took place in classrooms, with each session monitored by two researchers to maintain procedural fidelity. All researchers received prior training on how to administer the hSquare protocol to minimize variability in data collection. Each participant was provided with the same materials and given ten minutes to complete the task.

After a brief and partial explanation of the study that lasted two minutes, as the protocol indicates, the participants who agreed with the stipulated terms signed the informed consent form to start the task. Notably, the participants were not informed in advance of the drawing activity; that way, more spontaneous responses were obtained [58]. The time taken to fill the hSquares had to be increased to ten minutes instead of 7 (as defined by the iSquare protocol), due to the insertion of the sociodemographic variables and the two items from the Subjective Happiness Scale [59]. After that time, participants submitted their hSquare and were given documentation to share with their guardians (approximately two minutes).

The collected hSquares were assigned unique identification numbers, and all drawings were scanned to create digital versions. The text statements (responses to ‘Please say a few words about your drawing’) were entered into an Excel database, while demographic information was entered into IBM-SPSS for analysis. All these elements (visual, textual, numerical) constituted the complete data set used in the analysis.

2.4. Data Analysis

The images were subjected to inductive thematic analysis [62], following analytical precedents employed in the iSquare study. This approach does not begin with predetermined codes or a coding framework; rather, preconceptions are put aside. Then, relying upon the researcher’s intimacy with the data, themes are allowed to organically surface.

The process unfolded in these steps: (i) familiarization with the data, (ii) initial code generation, (iii) search for themes, (iv) review of themes, naming themes, and producing the report [62]. All steps were reported by two researchers of the Research Group and subsequently validated by two other researchers. The researchers were experts in thematic analysis and all the rules were objectively implemented. A PI researcher was called when discordance emerged, giving the final decision. Drawings were analyzed based on their visual elements, with written descriptions on the reverse side consulted as needed to complement and clarify the drawings.

After the identification of the general themes, an additional consideration was implemented to compare participants between ages.

3. Results

3.1. Qualitative Analysis: Thematic Analysis

In this analysis, all the squares were studied according to the visual themes and motifs appearing in the drawing, in team work to achieve consensus. The themes that emerged from data were: ‘people’, ‘hobbies’, ‘love’, ‘smile’, ‘sports’, ‘basic needs’, ‘inner harmony’, and ‘human rights and equality’. Notably, the fact that, in several cases, one drawing fitted more than one theme, showing that the themes were not discrete. According to protocol procedures, we prioritized the most prominent element depicted in each drawing when categorizing them into themes.

Happiness as people (n = 196). Groupings of people were the main image that emerged through the drawings—see Figure 1. In this theme, the drawings came in three forms, as clarified through the written component: ‘family’, ‘friends’ and the majority focused on ‘family and friends’.

When the intention was to draw ‘family’ (n = 56), all the squares had at least two people. These varied according to simpler drawings including only faces and bodies, but the majority were more complex, including faces smiling in some scenarios (e.g., family at the table). When drawing people as ‘friends’ (n = 68), also at least two people were drawn. Some of these were holding hands, had smiley faces, and social interactions associated with them (e.g., balloons were sometimes drawn, and these were mostly balloons that represent talking). The squares characterized by the two previous factors (n = 72) showed that even though at least four people were drawn, a good portion of the drawings had a lot of people. Most of the people were smiling and most of the squares had other elements (e.g., a sun, a house, animals).

Happiness as hobbies (n = 88). This theme has a lot of distinct characteristics, all representing an activity, except sports, whose number was enough to create one independent theme, discussed shortly—see Figure 2. The images representing hobbies had three essentials’ subthemes: ‘outdoors activities’, ‘technologies’, and ‘music and reading’. The ‘outdoors activities’ (n = 40) were mainly characterized by nature (e.g., mountain, beach scenario), with a lot of elements (e.g., sun, trees). The images representing ‘technologies’ (n = 21) were composed of PlayStations, games, computers, and Netflix. When it comes to ‘music and reading’ (n = 27), a lot of times these two activities were grouped in one image, but reading never appeared alone.

Happiness as smile (n = 76). ‘Smile’ is constituted by the simpler images, which always had the elements of two eyes and a single smile—see Figure 3. Some drew only a face, and others had more complex features such as a nose, eyebrows, eyelashes, hair, ears, and freckles.

Happiness as love (n = 79). This theme included hearts drawn in the images—see Figure 4. Sometimes, only a simple heart was drawn, and other times the heart was accompanied by other hearts or elements (e.g., the Earth, sun, stars).

Happiness as sports (n = 44). In this theme, the focus was a person or a group of people performing a sportive activity—see Figure 5. Although the characteristics named in the themes ‘people’ and ‘smile’ were also presented, sports were given more emphasis. Soccer was the main sport drawn (n = 30). Most participants drew a group of two or three people with a ball on the ground, and some complexified the drawing with a scenario (e.g., sun, goal). Other sports were mentioned (n = 14) but usually only by one person (e.g., swimming, skating, cycling), except for basketball, which was characterized by two people.

Happiness as basic needs (n = 36). When it comes to basic needs, different contents emerged—see Figure 6—such as money, time, clothing, food, drinks, health, and a house. Money was represented by coins and bills, and time was represented by a clock. Food and drink were drawn as a food plate and a cup. Clothing was drawn as pieces of clothing such as pants and a shirt. Health was represented by a cross and sometimes by a hospital, and the houses with walls, doors, and windows.

Happiness as inner harmony (n = 25). This theme focused on psychological variables such as self-realization, accomplishing goals, self-esteem, and mental sanity—see Figure 7. Self-realization and achieving goals were represented through having a job and a home, accomplishing a dream job (e.g., becoming a veterinarian and a doctor), having hands up in the air, gaining trophies and medals, climbing stairs, and a road with obstacles. Self-love and self-esteem were drawn through smiling whilst looking in the mirror and a heart in the chest. Mental sanity was constituted by elements such as a brain, with emphasis given by an arrow.

Unspecific hSquares (n = 16). This number of squares did not fill the criteria to belong to a theme (e.g., only a flower, the sun). Others were just blank, and some only had the word ‘happiness’ written on them (Figure 8).

3.2. Thematic Analysis According to Age

For the thematic analysis by age, the sample was divided into two age groups: younger adolescents (11 to 14 years old) and older adolescents (15 to 18 years old). In relation to age, younger adolescents tended to represent only one theme in their images, compared to older adolescents who usually focused on two or more themes. As seen in

Table 1. Themes mentioned across ages (%).

Themes	11 n = 1	12 n = 46	13 n = 34	14 n = 60	15 n = 44	16 n = 68	17 n = 64	18 n = 13
People	0.51	11.73	8.67	14.80	14.29	20.41	23.98	5.61
Hobbies	0	6.82	6.82	11.36	13.64	19.32	37.50	4.55
Love	1.27	3.80	8.86	22.78	12.66	25.32	24.05	1.27
Smile	0	15.79	11.84	26.32	13.16	21.05	9.21	2.63
Sports	0	22.83	4.55	11.36	6.82	25.00	29.55	0
Basic Needs	0	5.56	8.33	22.22	8.33	22.22	30.56	2.78
Inner Harmony	0	0	4.00	16.00	12.00	32.00	36.00	0
Human Rights and Equality	6.25	12.50	25.00	6.25	12.50	18.75	18.75	0
Remaining	0	0	6.25	25.00	18.75	31.25	12.50	6.25

, it appears that only the ‘smile’ theme was more mentioned in younger ages. The 17-year-old participants represented more variables in their images. The ‘people’ and ‘hobbies’ themes seemed to be represented more as age increased, showing that, although mentioned in all ages, later adolescents lean more to these two contextual factors. When observed, the ‘people’ subthemes shows that only ‘family’ tend to disappear from the ages 14 and 15, being substituted by only ‘friends’ and ‘family and friends’. The hobbies subthemes showed that ‘outdoor activities’ and ‘music and reading’ were rarely expressed in the under 15-year-old adolescents, and ‘technologies’ were constantly mentioned across ages. ‘Inner harmony’ did not appear until participants were 13-years-old but when it did, the frequency of its representation increased as adolescents grew older, exceptionally with the age of 15.

4. Discussion

This study intended to identify the definitions of happiness among adolescents through their mental images translated into drawings. All the images were categorized into themes to proceed with the analysis to explore differences according to their age.

4.1. Contents and Meanings of the Happiness Drawings

Adolescents in this study associated happiness with the following visual motifs: family/friends, hobbies, love, smile, sports, basic needs, inner harmony, and human rights and equality. These specific themes and visual representations showed the importance of family and/or related social contexts in adolescents’ happiness. When family relationships are positive, adolescents tend to report higher happiness levels, compared to positive peer experiences [63]. This aligns with Freire and colleagues’ study, where most adolescents defined happiness through relationships [23]. Additionally, cross-cultural research shows that family and social connections are commonly cited as key components of happiness [14]. On the other hand, autonomy from parents increases the importance of social relationships, verifying a positive relation between relationships with peers and happiness [64]. The association of happiness with familial and social support demonstrated by the drawings shows that adolescents recognize the contribution of these two settings to their happiness, facilitating and strongly influencing their creation of happiness images.

Images also highlighted the importance of hobbies through outdoor activities, technologies, music, and reading. This sort of activity was the second most illustrated theme. The images portraying hobbies showed the importance of self-selected activities to the perception of adolescent’s happiness [65], demonstrating the role of individuality and preferences in choosing a pleasurable activity. The ‘happiness as hobbies’ representations allowed an image to be created where adolescents picture themselves doing what they like in their free time, such as being engaged with nature, spending time on the computer, reading a book, or/and listening to music.

The ‘happiness as love’ concept was also a primary representation showing that adolescents attribute a fundamental role to love when imaging their happiness [12]. These particular images present evidence of the strong association between happiness and love in adolescents, with happiness being drawn as the concrete image of love—a heart.

The images portraying happiness as a smile were associated with positive emotions and feelings. As smiling is the behavioral manifestation of happiness, the demonstration of positive affect is a central concrete element for its conceptualization in adolescents [66].

The prominence of sports, especially soccer, in the drawings showed its role in adolescents’ happiness for the Portuguese adolescents. The literature shows the positive effect of playing a sport, not only regarding physical and mental health but also in terms of developing specific social skills like leadership and communication [67]. A more recent study showed that positive attitudes towards sports directly and negatively correlate with loneliness in adolescence [67]. It appears that this positive influence of sports is perceived by this sample of adolescents, considering their favorite sport as an image of their happiness.

The right to happiness of children is a significant manifestation of human rights in the contemporary era [68], and this was reflected in the drawings, where happiness was depicted through human rights and the fulfillment of basic needs. The images focused on physiological needs (e.g., food, drink) and security needs (e.g., health, money, house), highlighting that some adolescents associate happiness with the assurance of these primary needs. The connection between basic needs and happiness is not systematically supported in the literature, making it an innovative emerging theme. Research more commonly links psychological needs with well-being [69,70] and mental health [71,72]. Our findings suggest that material security remains a crucial factor in adolescents’ perception of happiness, even in developed contexts.

Regarding human rights, the literature states that adolescents view community service or political engagement as citizens’ responsibilities, even if they are not actively involved [73]. The images associated with human rights and equality were portrayed as something beyond themselves, representing altruistic emotions. As they grow, young children tend to change from self-centered hedonistic reasoning to a more perspective-driven reasoning during preadolescence. By adolescence, they begin to apply internalized, abstract principles when reasoning about prosocial behavior. Adolescents’ civic development may be connected to the evolution of their prosocial reasoning [73], and, by extension, to their understanding of human rights. While this study presents novel findings, they align with existing research on adolescent social engagement, which positively impacts mental health and overall well-being. Emotional well-being appears to be a predictor of civic engagement, with happier and more satisfied youth being more likely to participate in such activities [74].

The images of inner harmony represented some positive intrapersonal variables, such as self-esteem, self-love, success, accomplishing goals, and self-realization, appearing in the drawings through various analogies. Self-realization serves as a pathway for personal growth and development, forming the foundation for an individual’s sustainability as a complex yet holistic, self-organized, and self-determined psychological system [75]. Inner harmony can be seen as an expression of sustainable well-being [76] and as a sense of being tuned with the world, feeling inner peace and life balance [11]. This aligns with Delle Fave and colleagues’ study [14], who explored people’s conceptualization of happiness in a cross-cultural study where inner harmony prevailed among psychological definitions. Navarro and colleagues [77] also found an association between happiness and the themes ‘feelings towards yourself’ and ‘life aspirations’. Furthermore, investigation shows that when these factors are positive, happiness tends to increase and is perceived more by adolescents [78]. Inner harmony plays a vital role in well-being, particularly in challenging circumstances [79], which is especially relevant during adolescence—a period marked by significant psychological, emotional, and social transitions [80]. It seems that the visual association between happiness and human rights was facilitated using drawings, showing happiness as something bigger and more focused on a collective level of happiness. In both individualistic and collectivistic countries with differing value orientations, harmony serves as the central aspect of happiness, manifesting in both personal and social dimensions by fostering connections and relationships [14]. Accordingly, adolescents tend to represent happiness associated with self-improvement and self-accomplishment.

The presence of drawings falling into multiple categories can unveil the complexity of the happiness construct. Thus, we can acknowledge that happiness is not a static or unidimensional construct, but rather something that can be experimented on and expressed in many ways.

4.2. Older Versus Younger Adolescent’s Drawings

In terms of variations across age, our study showed that younger adolescents usually represent only one theme while older adolescents tend to represent two or more themes. The literature shows that more complex concepts of happiness emerge throughout adolescence, progressing to more eudaimonic conceptions [22].

This aligns with cognitive development theories, which suggest that as adolescents mature, their thinking becomes more complex [81]. According to Piaget, adolescents transition from the concrete operational stage to the formal operational stage [82,83], allowing abstract reasoning, hypothetical thinking, and the integration of multiple perspectives [77]. This cognitive shift may explain why older adolescents portray a more nuanced understanding of happiness, incorporating multiple factors rather than a singular theme [84]. Vygotsky adds to this by emphasizing the fundamental role of social interaction and community in cognitive development [85]. This suggests that as adolescents grow, exposure to diverse viewpoints and life experiences likely contributes to their ability to conceptualize happiness in a more multidimensional way.

Emotional development may also play an important role in this finding. As adolescents mature, their emotional regulation and experiences also become more complex [86].

Neurophysiological changes heighten emotional sensitivity, while shifting social roles influence their interactions [87]. This emotional growth fosters a deeper understanding of basic emotions and interpretations of emotional experiences [88]. This may explain why younger adolescents depict happiness in simple forms, like smiling faces, whereas older adolescents express more nuanced emotional awareness through diverse themes.

5. Conclusions, Limitations, and Future Research Studies

This study shows how the new draw-and-write technique can be used successfully with psychological concepts and measures, providing different and additional information to previous and traditional studies sustained through well-known approaches and models on happiness and its assessment. Integrating visual methodologies and quantitative methods may offer insights combining statistical rigor with qualitative human experience. For instance, visual data can be coded and quantified, allowing for the statistical analysis of recurring themes.

This technique proved to be appropriate and suitable to explore the complex concept of happiness, bringing new perspectives to understand this concept and/or reasserting old understandings of factors related to happiness. Indeed, this technique proves to be quite valuable, since complex and abstract concepts are usually difficult to put in words. As stated in the literature, the benefits of drawing as a facilitator of expressing ideas and representations were evident, looking to the diversity of themes associated with the drawings. It seems that the limitation of a possible difficulty of drawing when fewer artistic skills exist was overcome, not compromising imagery outputs. As expected, some participants attached subtitles to their drawings.

Using this drawing technique, two main themes or images (the more frequent among these Portuguese adolescents) were associated with happiness: on one hand, family and friends; and on the other, hobbies. Our findings demonstrated that happiness is much more of an omnibus than we had previously realized. This technique allowed us to explore several different and rich conceptualizations, making the research much more comprehensive and innovative. Thus, it is notable that using new types of data is possible to know more about happiness besides traditional written self-report measures, in this case relating to visual representations on happiness. As for themes, it could be intriguing for future studies to explore whether the fulfillment of basic needs would alter the conceptualization of happiness. It would also be worth considering the types of family activities that most elicit happiness to see if any patterns emerge.

Although research is still needed, another benefit of this new technique could be its capacity to embrace a broader spectrum of individuals (e.g., those with varying levels of education or literacy), enabling them to express their thoughts, feelings, and overall, contribute to more holistic research. Since happiness is part of a broader concept of well-being, it would be interesting in future studies to examine the visual representations of well-being.

Besides these contributions, this study also presents a few limitations. In terms of the procedure with the hSquare, we verified that the written part (on the backside of the square) included more about full descriptions of happiness than the drawing itself (as suggested by instructions). The need to clarify this written part’s purpose during the task description should be present in future studies. Concerning the content analysis of the drawings, we only used the thematic analysis. Still, other complex qualitative analysis can be used to deeply explore the information presented in the drawings. Like this, it will be possible to expand the analysis of happiness and its components, even from a visual and cognitive representation of the concept. Complementing the drawings’ information with the written descriptions about them in a more detailed analysis is also a new avenue for future studies.

Another limitation was social desirability bias, which may have influenced students’ drawings. To mitigate this, the study followed an established protocol, emphasizing that the focus was on the content of the drawings rather than artistic skill. Additionally, ensuring anonymity and confidentiality may have helped reduce potential bias. Adhering to an established protocol helped mitigate the influence of individual and interpretation biases in coding visual data.

This study’s findings are limited by its convenient sample of 330 adolescents from northern Portugal, representing only a small fraction of the country’s 1,340,413 primary and upper secondary students [89]. In the northern region, 18% of children (ages 0–17) are at risk of poverty, and 11.1% experience material and social deprivation [89], factors that may have influenced the emergence of the theme ‘basic needs’. The sample also excludes private school students, further restricting its representativeness. To enhance external validity, future research should incorporate a more diverse and representative sample.

Furthermore, while the study focused on the overall representations of happiness, it did not explore potential gender differences in these representations. Future research could address this gap by investigating whether male and female adolescents or different gender expressions are represented differently in the visual data, and how these differences might influence the visualization of happiness.

Lastly, we underline the role of innovative methods to achieve new levels of scientific understanding and knowledge when reporting the study of complex concepts, such as happiness. The draw-and-write technique makes relevant the cognitive components associated with adolescents’ visual representations, and how these components became articulated with emotions, or behaviors, to produce mental pictures of complex concepts throughout daily scenarios. To know how these images or representations influence, in turn, behavior or emotions in terms of individuals’ engagement or involvement with life scenarios, is a new open research line for behavioral sciences.