Psychological capital:
Many organizations are all for employee well being, engagement and positive interventions.
However, the bottom line for many of these organizations is are we making profit?
Thats why Luthans and his associates started developing Psychological Capital. Their mission
was to create a collection of positive capacities, using several constructs from psychology, which
are trainable and have significant effects on results, and so PsyCap was born.
PsyCap is composed of four positive capacities:
1. Hope
2. Optimism
3. Self efficacy
4. Resilience
Research has shown that these four capacities stand out as independent and malleable to change
and development. Higher PsyCap is associated with higher performance, lower stress levels and
better well-being.
1. Hope:
Rick Snyder described a positive motivational state that is based on an interactively
derived sense of successful agency (goal-directed energy) and pathways (planning to
meet goals). You score high in hope if you have both the will (agency) to reach a certain
goal, and ideas of how to attain it. In order for you to be hopeful you have to aim for a
goal which is both inspiring (slightly challenging) and realistic.
2. Optimism:
Optimism is defined as not only expecting good things to come but reacting to problems
with a sense of confidence and high personal ability.
You score high in optimism if you interpret positive events to be internal, permanent and
pervasive whilst regarding negative events as external, temporary and situation-specific.
In short, optimism is about having faith in your own ability to improve a situation.
3. Self-efficacy
A concept borrowed from Albert Bandura and is often defined as task-specific self-
confidence, the belief that you are able to accomplish something effectively. More
generalized self-efficacy also exists as Role Breadth Self-Efficacy presented by Parker
(1998) in her study researching employees confidence in performing broader, more
proactive roles in the workplace.
4. Resilience
Resilience is based on the work of Ann Masten and is seen as the ability to bounce back
and beyond when faced with adversity. That is, returning to a former level of functioning
and learning from the experience. Thats not to say that you should go looking for
trouble, merely that with resilience you can develop your ability to cope and thrive with
obstacles.
Psychological Capital in Practice:
One of the powers of PsyCap is the training of these four capacities in four micro-interventions
(2 hour training sessions). Several studies have shown that even this relatively short training time
leads to higher PsyCap, lowered stress and better performance.
We studied the effects of our own PsyCap training in the Netherlands and discovered that stress
was lowered and PsyCap raised in a group of students, even 6 weeks after the micro
interventions were completed and in a group of 20 employees, the training produced similar
results.
An exercise to improve your psychological capital:
1- Write down a specific goal you want to accomplish
2- Rewrite this goal as a desirable approach-goal. What is it you do want, instead of
what you dont want?
E.g. dont say you want less stress, say you want more relaxation time, confidence,
etc.
3- Brainstorm about all the kinds of actions you can take to accomplish your goal.
4- Ask others to brainstorm with you. These actions may be anything its about
quantity, not quality.
5- Choose your best 3 ideas and write down all their potential obstacles. For each
obstacle, write down what you could do to overcome it (e.g. ask for help, try a
different approach, sacrifice, persevere etc.)
6- Now execute the first step towards your goal.
