Some background information

A new branch of psychology was born when the American psychologist Martin Seligman declared in 1998 that psychology should be something and more than a science that was primarily about why we get sick and how we can cure illness. Positive psychology therefore tries to do away with psychology's negative focus on illness. For every 100 articles in professional journals about sadness, depression and suffering, there was only one about joy, positive emotions and (re)constructive human factors. Positive psychology will correct this bias, and it is about being positive in your approach to the outside world.

Psychology must be for everyone, and we must learn to use it actively in our work. Psychology must also address purposes that are about making ordinary people stronger and more productive, and about identifying and promoting great potential. Positive psychology is therefore about topics such as:

• Occupation
• Education
• Love
• Development
• The good society
• Creativity and play.

Positive psychology must give us insight into how we best unfold and handle challenges at the various levels. The division of levels has also led to a new way of leading, and to a different way of thinking when challenges arise.

Positive psychology for companies

Positive psychology has a particularly sharp focus on human strengths, optimal states, positive emotions and resilience. One of the most important aspects in positive psychology is that positive emotions make us more energetic, give us a wider repertoire of actions and contribute to creating an increased sense of belonging to the company, greater job satisfaction and, not least, better performance. The negative emotions have the opposite effect.

For example, what do you remember best?

You will most likely remember the red boxes best. However, the bad or problematic is not always better remembered at the expense of the good and positive. Then it would look pretty sad. But it takes more good experiences to offset the psychological effect that the bad experiences create. So if you remembered the loss of an important customer as well as the arrival of the new customer, the psychological impact of the loss of a customer will still outweigh the arrival of the new customer.

With that realization, it makes good sense that the research into positive and negative emotions finds that it takes three positive emotions to lift us out of a negative emotion. The research thus points to the fact that the bad takes up more space than the good, and that we must therefore compensate for this realization in our dealings with each other.

So what is the goal?

The goal is not that everyone in the organization is necessarily positive and happy. Praise is good, and it momentarily fills you with a positive feeling, but you don't necessarily learn that much from receiving praise. It's about going a little deeper than just praise and giving ourselves time to be as systematic about finding the reasons why we succeeded as we are when we have to find the reasons for failure. The most important thing is that employees and management get an experience of achieving some concrete goals faster, more efficiently, in a more fun way and with a better result by using elements from positive psychology and strength-based approaches.

See more

Positive Psychology Video >

Exercises for positive psychology >