Positive Psychology looks at what’s going right and strengthens it, as opposed to looking at what is not working and fixing it. Psychological Capital (PsyCap) is one positive psychology tool that businesses use to help employees succeed.
“PsyCap is concerned with ‘who you are’ now and, . . . ‘who you are capable of becoming’ in the future” (Luthans et al., 2015, p. 6)
PsyCap is a combination of hope, efficacy, resiliency, and optimism, sometimes referred to as HERO. Our HERO is a reservoir of resources that can be drained and filled depending on life experiences and opportunities. These resources are “renewable, complementary, and synergistic”. (Luthans, et al., 2015, p. 35)
In PsyCap, hope, efficacy, resiliency, and optimism are thought of as flexible, changeable, and open to development. (Dello Russo & Stoykova, 2015; Luthans, Avey, Avolio, Norman, 2007; Luthans et al., 2010; Luthans & Youssef-Morgan, 2017; Newman, Ucbasaran, Zhu, & Hirst, 2014)
Our HERO creates a unique interplay depending on a person’s reservoir and situation.
Like in a string quartet, one component resource of PsyCap might be present, but has no notes to play in the music of that moment, like a rest. In music, an instrument that doesn’t play is not suddenly considered absent from the quartet. It is performing a vital part in the arrangement by keeping silent. So it is with HERO – one of the four might seem silent in a given moment of life, but that does not mean it is not present.
Or, like the phases of the moon. . . just because you cannot see the full moon, does not mean that portion of the moon is missing. Our HERO is always present, but the amount of each resource might not be as interactive or visible. All four resources are present, even if they all do not have an equal role to play.
This is true in life and in grief.
So, what is hope, efficacy, resiliency, and optimism?
Hope is an “emotional strength” and a “belief that things can change” (Froman, 2010, pg 60). It involves both willpower and waypower. Willpower is an individual’s determination to achieve the goals they create or adopt for themselves (Avey, Luthans, Jensen, 2009, p 680). Waypower is “being able to devise alternative pathways and contingency plans to achieve a goal in the face of obstacles” (Avey, Luthans, Jensen, 2009, p. 680). Having the will and finding the way are both integral components of hope.
Efficacy is a person’s “beliefs about their capabilities” “to mobilize their motivation, cognitive resources, and courses of action in order to successfully execute a specific task within a given context” (Bandura, 1994, p. 71 and Stajkovic and Luthans, 1998, p. 66). Efficacy is the belief that you can do it. Or in the modern vernacular, “You’ve got this!” Someone with healthy efficacy understands their strengths and knows how to use them to keep moving forward amid life’s circumstances.
Resiliency is the “capacity to rebound, to ‘bounce back’ (Luthans, 2002a, p. 702). People with high resiliency adapt quickly to changing situations in life. When they are in the “presence of adversity,” they adapt and grow (Luthans et al., 2015, p. 145). “Resilience is being strong against challenges and being able to pull oneself together” (Gautam & Pradhan, 2018, p. 26).
“PsyCap optimism differs from traditional optimism, however, in that it has the caveats of being both realistic and flexible” (Culbertson, et al., 2010, p. 423). An optimistic person does not ignore the negative, they simply interpret their experiences through a positive lens. In other words, negativity is not dismissed in PsyCap optimism; it is simply held in tandem, analyzed, and then seen as realistically optimistic.
“When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.” -Kahlil Gibran, Lebanese-American writer, poet, and visual artist in the late 19th and early 20th century
