DSE A-01: Positive

Psychology

Unit 4: Application of Positive

Psychology : Work
Presented by
Sujata Saha
Surendranath College
 Positive psychology at work
Implementing positive psychology in the
workplace means creating an environment that is
relatively enjoyable and productive. This also means
creating a work schedule that does not lead to
emotional and physical distress.

•Promotion of both psychological and physical

well-being .

•There must be a commitment from both the individual

and the organization to improve the quality of work life.
On the one hand, managers must design the
organization in a way that allows employees to do
meaningful work in a healthy way; on the other hand,
employees must embrace opportunities that make the
most of unstable situations.
 APPLICATION OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY AT WORK
Applying positive psychology at workplace is termed as positive
organizational behavior. This was coined by Luthans as “ the study and
application of positive oriented human resource strengths and
psychological capacities that can be measured ,developed and
effectively ,managed for performance improvement in today’s
workplace”.
In order to promote wellbeing at workplace we aim to show how
employment practices and processes can make work positive and
enjoyable.

We then begin to outline our Model of Healthy Work (e.g., Barling &
Zacharatos, 2000; Pfeffer, 1998)—one that includes organizational,
group, dyadic, and individual perspectives on job-related well-being.

Firstly , we examine how organizational-level work processes, such as work

redesign, can promote positive psychological development.

Secondly, we should complements the benefits of team working (a group-level

process).

Thirdly, a need for transformational leadership (a dyadic-level process).

Fourthly, we should examine high-quality work (e.g., jobs with high levels of
control and social support to match job demands).
This model summarizes how healthy work can contribute to a
more positive organizational experience and to positive
psychology more generally.

In this model high quality work (i.e., work that offers employees
autonomy), in conjunction with transformational leadership in
a team-based context, is likely to result in greater trust in
management, organizational commitment, perceptions of
fairness, perceived control, and belongingness and to
contribute to the development of flexible employee role
orientations.

In turn, these positive psychological processes and mechanisms

will result in healthy outcomes, such as job satisfaction, higher
levels of psychological well-being, physical safety, a greater
sense of mastery and role breadth self-efficacy and other
opportunities for growth.

This state of health and well-being represents an ideal target for

organizational interventions, offers employees a context in
which they can excel, and is a worthy objective for both
organizational research and practice. In our estimation, these
ideas are at the very heart of promoting healthy and positive
work in the 21st century.
❑Work Practices:
▪Work design
The most important ways of
improving the experience of work is
to design jobs so as to encourage
workers to engage actively with
their tasks and work
environment.

By providing workers with :

autonomy in performing their

jobs.
challenging work, and
the opportunity for social
interaction.
we encourage workers to
exert choice and to feel
competent.

It is this form of work redesign

that maximizes employee
effectiveness and well-being.
 Now in order to focus on the key aspects of work design research,

Now in order to focus on the key aspects of work

design research, there are

Two influential approaches:

❖The job characteristics model and

❖The demand/control model.

Both approaches also help to show how the way

work is designed can affect the way people perceive
their work roles.
❖ The Job Characteristics Model (JCM)s one of the
most influential theories of work design (Hackman & Oldham, 1980;
Oldham, 1996).

In the JCM, five characteristics:

❖skill variety,
❖task identity,
❖task significance,
❖ task autonomy, and
❖task feedback
They are identified in order to capture the general content and structure of jobs.

The presence of these core job dimensions leads to three psychological

states—

▪perceived meaningfulness of work,

▪felt responsibility for outcomes, and
▪knowledge of results.

In turn, it is argued that employees with a need for personal growth and
development, as well as knowledge and skill, will display a range of
positive personal and work outcomes, including greater work
motivation, performance, satisfaction with work, and lower
absenteeism and turnover as a result of job quality (Hackman & Oldham,
1980; Oldham, 1996)
❖Demand/Control Model
Researchers and
practitioners also have used
the demand/control model
(Karasek, 1979; Karasek &
Theorell, 1990) to design jobs
that enhance psychological
and physical well-being.

According to this model,

healthy work environments
are those in which
appropriate demands (e.g.,
production goals) are made
of workers who are given
correspondingly suitable
amounts of decision latitude
(e.g., the ability to control the
pace or method of work).
 Explanation of Demand/Control Model:
→ An “active” jobs in the demand/control model( high demands and high
control) can inhibit strain by promoting both employee confidence and
active learning. Stated differently, workers with active jobs are more
likely to apply coping strategies and seek challenging situations that
promote mastery, thereby further encouraging skill and knowledge
acquisition.

→A “relaxed” job (low demands and high control) does not provide
employees with such intrinsic motivation.

→ A “high strain” jobs (high demands and low control) are likely to
overwhelm employees and encourage a form of helplessness that can
undermine employees’ sense of mastery and dissuade them from
developing and using skills.

→A “passive” job (low demands and low control) does not encourage
skill development and can result in employee helplessness, similar to that
found in a higher strain job (Karasek & Theorell,1990)Theorell, 1990).
 ▪Role Clarity, Role Agreement, and Role
Load
We will focus on three job characteristics that relate to how work is
experienced (Weick, 1979) –
Role clarity Role agreement Role load

Employees should have challenging jobs designed with

considerable latitude, as typically a job that is perceived by the
incumbent to be clearly defined and of an appropriate load is the
most beneficial to both the worker and the organization.

These conditions can sometimes make it difficult for employees to

feel comfortable and confident in their roles.

In the longer term, a clear fit between employees and their roles is
critical for employees’ sense of commitment to the organization
and indirectly their ability to work toward organizational goals.
 ▪Teams and Work Groups
Guzzo and Dickson’s (1996) review of team effectiveness, we
define a work group as an entity comprising individuals who
perform tasks in an interdependent fashion to meet the goals of
an organization, and who can readily distinguish themselves
from other work groups. Promoting healthy work through teams
involves the employees’ emotional reactions toward their work
groups and their organization.
Four Factor model underpinning work team climate.
 There are a number
of benefits from
teamwork:

❑Working with a group of

people provides a social
network.

❑Group members can provide

companionship, as well as
the emotional and practical
assistance that can help
themselves and others cope
successfully with task and
interpersonal demands.

❑Carter and West (1999)

found that higher levels of
team clarity and team
commitment to group goals,
and otherwise positive
processes such as task
reflexivity and task
orientation, predicted better
team-level well-being.
 ▪Transformational Leadership
Emphasizing the role of transformational leadership in promoting
healthy work.
Barling, Slater, and Kelloway (2000) have shown that there
is considerable overlap between emotional intelligence and
three of the components of transformational leadership
(namely, idealized influence, inspirational motivation, and
individualized consideration) but not with the fourth (i.e.,
intellectual stimulation). The clear differentiating factor is
that the former three components of transformational
leadership are substantially more emotive than cognitive,
whereas intellectual stimulation is more cognitive than
emotive.
▪Emotion Intelligence:
Emotional Intelligence is the ability to recognize, and interpret emotions that
can be used to regulate emotions and assist cognitive processes which promote
emotional and intellectual growth.
Due to the social nature of the interactions of the employees, emotional
intelligence is essential in order to work well with co-workers. When
employees work well together by coordinating their efforts, their task
performance improves and as a result the business benefit. With emotional
intelligence, employees are better able to perceive others needing help and are
more willing to help for intrinsic benefits.
▪Positive Affect
Isen & Reeve (2005) proposed
that positive affect led to
positive intrinsic
motivation for completing a
task. As a result of the intrinsic
motivation, the employees
enjoyed the task more and were
more optimistic when having to
complete more uninteresting
task. The combination of having
the freedom to choose tasks and
maintaining positive affect
results in better task
performance. Positive affect
promotes self-control to
remain focused on any task and
forward-looking thinking that
motivates workers to
look-forward to more enjoyable
tasks
▪Hope :
•Youssef & Luthans (2007) examine the concepts of positive psychology like
hope provide a positive work environment that influences the moods and
attitudes of workers.

•Hope: “A positive motivational state that is based on an interactively derived

sense of successful (a) agency (goal-directed energy), and (b) pathways
(planning to meet goals).” More simply, this meaning of hope consists of both
the “willpower” (agency) and the “way power” (pathways)..

•Hope allows employees to be better at creating more realistic plans for

completing task so as not to focus on the failure that accompanies an
incomplete task.
▪Altruism : Helping others at work or Altruism, can contribute to
one’s own well-being at work. Positive psychology has found that
those who have the mindset of ‘organizational citizenship’ –
thereby helping others, or going the extra mile always are
much happier at work, than those who don’t prioritize helping
others. However, the key here is to help without the expectation of
reciprocity… you may think, this is work, and not charity…and yes,
that’s true…we don’t have to spend ALL our time helping others.
 ▪ Resilience at
workplace:
•In positive psychology, resiliency is
defined as “a class of phenomena
characterized by patterns of
positive adaptation in the context
of significant adversity or risk.”

•As a component of positive

organizational behavior, resiliency
is viewed “as the capacity to
rebound or bounce back from
adversity, conflict, failure or even
positive events, progress and
increased responsibility.”

•This “bouncing back” capacity

involves flexibility, adjustment,
adaptability, and continuous
responsiveness to change and
uncertainty that can otherwise
represent a source of psychological
strain and challenge one’s
well-being over the long term.
▪Implications for Self Efficacy in the Workplace
Self-Efficacy more recently has provided a focused review of the growing
research literature with a direct and indirect impact that self-efficacy has
on work-related personal and organizational effectiveness.

Impact of self-efficacy includes a wide range of organizational behavior

topics such as
career choice and development:

new employee training,

work design/job enrichment,
supportive communication,
teams (i.e., collective efficacy),
innovation,
entrepreneurship,
leadership, and
stress.

A considerable attention to the strategies and principles for developing

and strengthening beliefs of personal efficacy in the workplace.
In hiring for a particular job, making an assignment to a specific project, or
promoting someone into an identifiable area of responsibility, assessing the
person’s present magnitude and strength of self-efficacy could be valuable
input into the selection decision.
Magnitude measures the level of task difficulty that a person believes he
or she is capable of executing, and strength indicates whether the
magnitude is strong and likely to produce perseverance when difficulties
are encountered.

Bandura recently categorized his approach to training and development

into three areas.

First is what he calls guided mastery, which includes instructive

modeling to acquire a skill or competency, guided skill perfection, and
then transferring the training back to the job to ensure self-directed
success.

Second is for the more complex—but increasingly common for all levels
in the modern workplace—ways to enhance efficacy for decision making
and problem solving. He calls this cognitive mastery modeling to learn
thinking skills and how to apply them by observing the decision rules and
reasoning strategies successful models use as they arrive at solutions to
problems and make effective decisions.

Finally, he suggests the development of self-regulatory competencies

(i.e., self-motivation or self-management)
▪Optimism : Optimism is both motivated and motivating; has the desirable
characteristics of perseverance, achievement, and health; makes external,
unstable, and specific attributions of personal bad events; and is linked with
positive outcomes such as occupational success. Obviously by extrapolating
this profile, optimism could be a very positive force in the workplace.

At workplace employees who are optimists may be motivated to work harder;

be more satisfied and have high morale; have high levels of aspiration and set
stretch goals; persevere in the face of obstacles and difficulties; make
attributions of personal failures and setbacks as temporary, not as personal
inadequacy, and view them as a one-time unique circumstance; and tend to feel
good and invigorated both physically and mentally
▪Happiness / Subjective Wellbeing

Research evidence that happiness or SWB leads to desired

outcomes beyond just job satisfaction in the workplace. Not only
have happy employees been found to be more effective and
productive, but after a search of the research literature it was also
concluded that “on average, happy workers make more money,
receive more promotions and better supervisor ratings, and are
better citizens at work.” An increasing number of organizations are
recognizing and using this value of happiness with their employees
and customers
▪Safety
In order to protect the physical and mental
health of workers, the demands of the job must
be balanced by easily accessible job resources in
order to prevent burnout in employees yet
encourage employee engagement . Engagement
signifies a positive employee who is committed
to the safety within the workplace for self and
others. Engagement increases as job resources
like knowledge of safety are present.
▪Fun :
Chan (2010) studied fun
activities in the workplace that
created a positive work
environment that could retain
and attract employees and
encourage employee
well-being. Activities must be
enjoyable, encourage
responsibility, and help
employees become team
players. These qualities
empower employees to become
more engaged with their work,
take on more leadership roles,
and experience less stress.
Making the work place fun
promotes positive, happy
moods in employees that in
turn increase job satisfaction
and organizational
commitment.
The psychological literature has reinforced the importance of
positive interpersonal relationship and employment.

The role of one’s job in producing a healthy life it had captured the
essence of many benefits that can flow from work .

Many people awaken only to dread getting up and going to work ,

gainfully employed people actually look forward to it.
 ▪Capital at Work
In the spirit of positive psychology and applications
(Luthans and Youssef ,2004,p143) begins with the
traditional view of economic capital and then expands
into new frontiers of positive psychological thinking.
▪ Developing Proactive Role Orientations and
Behaviors
Employees may be able to conceive the importance of
more proactive behaviors (what Parker and
colleagues call a “strategic orientation”);but, with
insufficient autonomy, they will be unlikely to
accept these broader tasks as an important part of
their roles (a “flexible role orientation”).

Using a longitudinal design, Parker (1998) found that

employees who had high amounts of task control in
an environment with high-quality communication
exhibit greater confidence in their ability to
undertake a more proactive set of work tasks than
do employees with fewer of these job
characteristics.
The Dark Side : Workers who may be most in need
of the benefits of positive psychology at
workplace.

Workaholics : Workaholics becomes obsessed by

their work – so much so that they cannot attend to the
responsibilities of their family and friends. They also
entails staying late on the job long after others have
departed and working much harder then others almost
to the point of seeking perfectionism (McMillan
,O’Driscoll ,Marsh & Brady ,2001).
Burnout :
Burn out is cyclical. Initially the
employees has a high level of
energy, but begins to wane over
time.

The employee encounters severe

time constrains in getting the work
done , there are barriers to the
work goals.

The employee becomes totally

exhausted in both mind and body
and the burnout truly undermines
the employee’s ability to carry out
the necessary duties of the job.

When the employee total energy

is depleted the employee needs
time to recover and recharge
(Baumeister and Wallace’s 1999)
Losing the Job :
Unfortunately , an all too
common reality is that
people lose their jobs,
particularly in today’s
troubled economy. Being
out of work is a very
serious matter both
psychologically and
physically.
Conclusions :
Various viewpoints about the application of
positive psychology at work provide a sense of how
healthy work can contribute to the positive
psychology ethic, and to motivate researchers in
the field to keep positive psychology in mind when
considering their own research agendas. the
growing recognition of occupational health
psychology as a unique discipline can only reinforce
the role that understanding healthy work can play
in building a positive psychology (Sauter, Hurrell,
Fox, Tetrick, & Barling, 1999).
As a community of researchers, we need to
explore how different work practices and processes
can help to create more positive workplaces.
References:
THANK YOU