Positive Psychology

Harold Andrew Patrick

Professor OB & HRM
Christ University Institute of
Management
 The power of positive
psychology
“A positive attitude may not solve
all your problems, but it will
annoy enough people to make it
worth the effort.”

“Of all the judgments we make

through life, none are more
important than the estimate we
place on ourselves according to
our own internal standards.”
Real world, popular motivational
bestsellers
 Norman Vincent Peale’s – The Power of Positive
Thinking
 Steven Covey’s – Seven Habits of Highly
Effective People
 Spencer Johnson – Who Moved My Cheese
 Antony Robbins – Wake up the Giant within you
 Buckingham & Coffman – Break All the Rules

 Buckingham & Clifton – Discover Your

Strengths
 Positive Psychology
Being positive is driven by theory and
research which focuses on people’s
strengths and psychological abilities.
Study and application of positively
oriented human resource strengths and
Psychological capacities that can be
measured, developed and affectively
managed for performance improvement.
What contributes to being positive?

 Confidence / self-
efficacy
 Hope
 Optimism
 Subjective well
being / happiness
 Emotional
intelligence
1. Confidence or Self Efficacy

 Albert Bandura strongly emphasizes that self

efficacy is the most pervasive & important of the
psychological mechanics for positivity.

 “Unless people believe that they can produce

desired effects and forestall undesired ones by
their actions, they have little incentive to act.
Whatever other factors may operate as
motivators, they are rooted in the core believe
that one has the power to produce desired
results.”
 A positive evaluation

 Positive choices. Developed through

 Mastery experiences or
performance attainments
 Motivational efforts.
through hard work.
 Perseverance.  2) Vicarious positive
experiences or modeling.
 Positive thought  3) Positively oriented
patterns. persuasion.
 Resistance to stress.  4) Psychological and
physiological arousal
 2. HOPE - It involves willpower
and way power.

Hope not only reflects the individuals’

determinations that goals can be achieved
but also the person’s belief that successful
plans can be formulated and pathways
identified in order to attain the goals.
•-Believing you can set goals
•- Figure out how to achieve them
•- motivate yourself to accomplish them
 How to develop hope?

obtain goal acceptance and commitment

clarify goals
develop action plans to goals
develop the skill of regoaling, i.e.,
avoid false hope
conduct mental rehearsals
 3. OPTMISM

 OPTMISM is both motivated and motivating

 Martin Seligman- attribution explanation-
individual attributes the causes of failure,
misfortune or bad events as follows
 Pessimists- Internal (their fault) , Stable (will
last a long time), Global (they undermine
everything they do).
 Optimists- External (not their fault), Unstable
(temporary set backs.), Specific (problem only
in situation).
4. HAPPINESS or SUBJECTIVE
WELL BEING (SWB)
It involves peoples affective (moods and
emotions) and cognitive evaluations of
their lives- their life satisfaction. It is not
necessarily what in reality happens to
people that determines their state of
happiness or SWB, but instead how they
emotionally interpret and cognitively
process what happens to them that is the
key.
5. Emotional intelligence (EI). Daniel
Golman psychologist/ journalist

 EI (1995) EI has the

capacity for recognizing
one’s own emotions and
those of others
 Dimensions
 Self awareness
 Self management
 Self motivation
 Empathy
 Social skills
Emotional intelligence (EI).

 Learning and growing emotional maturity play an

important role in EI development.
 It is largely learned and it continues to develop as
we go through life and learn from our
experiences - our competence in it can keep
growing.
 People get better and better in these capabilities
as they grow more adept at handling their
empathy and social adroitness (skills).
 EI is a better predictor of life success (economic
well being, satisfaction with life, family life,
friendship), including occupational attainments.
 To Conclude

Being Positive are fruits that are the

result of strong lasting roots in self.

Faith can move mountains

Thank you very much

haroldpatrick@christuniversity.in