Positive Psychology

1. APPLICATIONS OF POSITIVE
PSYCHOLOGY: WORK, EDUCATION
DSE HONS SEM V

2. POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
• The study of what constitutes the pleasant life, the engaged life, and the meaningful
life. – Marty Seligman.
• The study of positive subjective experiences, positive individual traits, and positive
institutions promises to improve the quality of life.
• Obviously, the field of positive psychology is still emerging, yet its growth has been
quite rapid.
• It posits that more attention needs to be paid to the positive aspects of human life
rather than negative and pathology orientated understandings.

3. • One of the most important challenges related to positive psychology is the
assumption that if there is a positive psychology, then the rest of psychology must
be negative psychology.
• Positive psychology is the science of the positive aspects of human life such as
wellbeing, happiness, and life thriving.

4. THREE LEVELS OF POSITIVE ASPECT
SUBJECTIVE LEVEL
• Positive emotions such as life
satisfaction, happiness and
joyfulness. At this level, the main
focus of such a study does not seek
to explain how people act in order
to become a good person.
• Rather, greater emphasis is placed
on the person’s positive feeling
itself.
INDIVIDUAL LEVEL
• The focus of a study is to explain
what to do to become a good
person.
• Thus, much study on this level
focuses on human being’s virtues
and character strengths such as
forgiveness, courage, wisdom, and
so on.
GROUP LEVEL
• The focus is on how civic virtues
such as altruism, tolerance, and
social responsibility can contribute
to the development of better
citizenship and communities

5. APPLICATIONS OF POSITIVE
PSYCHOLOGY
• Work
• Education

6. WORK
• Positive psychology can be used to increase happiness and satisfaction within the
workforce.
• Over the last 15 years, Positive Psychology, pioneered by Professor Martin Seligman,
has developed an evidence-based model for the active ingredients of well-being.

7. 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.

8. 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.

10. • 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.

11. • 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.

13. 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:
• Skills variety: do tasks vary, and are they challenging? Or are they monotonous and too
easy?
• Task identity: do tasks have a defined beginning, middle and end? Without this, it’s hard to
achieve the satisfaction of an attained goal.
• Task significance: does the employee feel that their role has meaning?
• Task autonomy: can individuals have a say in how they carry out their work?
• Job feedback: are employees receiving feedback on their performance?
• They are identified in order to capture the general content and structure of jobs.

14. • The presence of these core job dimensions leads to three psychological states—
• Meaningfulness of work
• That labour has meaning to you, something that you can relate to, and does not occur just
as a set of movements to be repeated.
• This is fundamental to intrinsic motivation, i.e. that work is motivating in an of itself (as
opposed to motivating only as a means to an end).
• Responsibility
• That you have been given the opportunity to be a success or failure at your job because
sufficient freedom of action has given you. This would include the ability to make changes
and incorporate the learning you gain whilst doing the job.

15. • Knowledge of outcomes
• This is important for two reasons. Firstly to provide the person knowledge on how
successful their work has been, which in turn enables them to learn from mistakes.
• The second is to connect them emotionally to the customer of their outputs, thus
giving further purpose to the work (e.g. I may only work on a production line, but I
know that the food rations I produce are used to help people in disaster areas,
saving many lives).

16. • 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)

17. TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP
• Emphasizing the role of transformational leadership in promoting healthy work.

19. • 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).

21. POSITIVE EMOTIONS
• People thrive when they are happier. When mood becomes brighter, we set higher
goals and persist longer towards them. We experience less stress and fatigue and
show better team cooperation and problem-solving.

22. ENGAGEMENT
• The formula for building staff engagement is to maximize the extent to which people
are using and applying their strengths.
• Most of us are often stuck in our failings, focusing on trying to “fix” parts of
ourselves, and neglecting those parts of us that are flourishing.
• Martin Seligman and other researchers have noted that when work demands our
engagement, such as using our strengths in new and innovative ways, we
experience higher levels of happiness and lower levels of depression.

23. POSITIVE RELATIONSHIPS
• Evolution has wired us to connect with others for survival. These connections have
the power to affect how we feel. According to research on happiness, our moods are
literally contagious. This happens because of mirror neurons in our brains.
• We are wired to connect with others, and that we are neurologically affected by
watching others, it seems obvious that workplaces would be designed to foster
connection.

24. MEANING
• In this context, meaning refers to a purposeful existence. In the work environment,
when there is a shared sense of purpose, staff are more likely to feel satisfied with
their job.

25. ACCOMPLISHMENT
• Accomplishment is often the result of realistic goals that are supported by specific
actions. Having accomplishments at work is critical to push ourselves to thrive and
flourish.
• Coaching your staff can be as simple as taking an interest in their strengths and
exploring more ways to apply them toward agreed goals or professional
development challenges. It helps build trust between you and your employees and
promotes a collaborative culture of sharing experiences and learning.

26. EDUCATION
• Considered one of the most recent approaches in psychology, positive psychology is
science of positive aspects of human life, such as happiness, well-being and
flourishing.
• While psychology traditionally focused on mental illness and human weaknesses,
positive psychology has shifted in emphasis from preoccupation only with repairing
the deficiencies to also building positive qualities, and from treating of disorders to
the effort of highlighting individual and collective positive experiences, strengths
and virtues.

27. • The main focus of the positive psychology progress is how to facilitate flourishing
lives that promote individual and organizational well-being.
• Seligman (2000) suggested there are three pillars of positive psychology: positive
emotions, positive individual characteristics, and positive institutions.
• Positive psychology has an explicit concern for building individual strengths and life
skills and improving well-being in young people, direction where schools have an
important role.

28. • Ensuring support for positive mental health prevention and promotion in children
and youth has been achieving through designing and implementing of educational
programs centered on positive feelings, qualities and skills so that children and
youth become happy and responsible adults as members of healthy communities.
• School can provide a supportive environment of applying the positive psychology
core concepts and principles to develop students into healthier individuals who
positively contribute to the society.

29. • Positive psychology interventions in schools aim to implement undertakings of
increase life quality and well-being and promote self-development in pupils,
teachers, parents, educators.
• These interventions carry on through training programs of positive feelings,
personality traits and characteristics, skills and competencies for successful
adaptation.
• These positive psychology interventions (PPI’s) as programs, practices, treatment
methods or activities “aimed at cultivating positive feelings, positive behaviors, or
positive cognitions”.

30. WATERS (2011) POINTS OUT THAT THE APPLICATION OF THE POSITIVE
PSYCHOLOGY IN SCHOOL AIMS THE FOLLOWING DIRECTIONS:
including
positive
psychology
topics into
traditional
academic
disciplines;
using a school-
wide approach of
positive
education;
implementing a
strategic
framework of
guiding positive
psychology
applications in
schools;
interventions on
the traditional
educational
systems

31. WHAT IS POSITIVE EDUCATION?
• Positive Education is a viewpoint of positive psychology that is growing in
schools, colleges and universities. In essence, positive psychology is the study of
what makes life worth living, how people flourish and become successful.
• On this course we will learn practical ways to gain an understanding of
Positive Education and its application in the classroom. This will include learning
about the benefits of applying strengths, promoting well-being/positive emotions
within your educational establishment, increase resilience amongst your staff and
learners, in order to persist and succeed at goals.

32. • Benefits of Positive Education:
• Lots of studies have been done on positive education and its potential impacts.
Here are some summaries of research findings on the benefits of positive education.
• Promoting Human Development
• Sheila M. Clonan and colleagues (2004) found that the incorporation of positive
psychology in learning environments helped foster individual strengths.

33. • Teaching Students How to Make Themselves Happy
• Through positive education, the students become able to gain a full understanding
of what factors helped them thrive and flourish.
• In practice, students are better equipped to improve their subjective wellbeing in
the longer-term through greater control over their positive emotional experiences
(Fredrickson, 2001; 2011).
• Decreasing Depression
• Positive psychology interventions that are used in positive education include
identifying and developing strengths, cultivating gratitude, and visualizing best
possible selves (Seligman et al., 2005; Sheldon & Lyubomirsky, 2006; Liau et al.,
2016).

34. • Facilitating Academic Performance
• Compared to unhappy students, happier students pay better attention, are more
creative, and have greater levels of community involvement (Fisher, 2015). The
emphasis on positive psychology interventions in education increases engagement,
creates more curious students and helps develop an overall love of learning (Fisher,
2015).
• Offering Easier Systems for Teachers
• Positive education benefits teachers, too. It makes it easier for teachers to engage
with students and persist in the work they need to do master their academic
material (Fisher, 2015).

35. • Increasing Motivation Among Students
• Positive education also offers a fresh model of pedagogy that emphasizes
personalized motivation in education to promote learning (Seligman et al., 2009).
• Boosting Resilience(ability to recover quickly from difficult situations)
• Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania developed the Penn Resiliency
Program. Results from 19 controlled studies of the Penn Resiliency Program found
that students in the program were more optimistic, resilient, and hopeful.