...and consequences of happiness at work, drawing also on insights from the expanding positive psychology literature on happiness in general. A comprehensive measure of individual-level happiness at work might include work engagement, job satisfaction, and affective organizational commitment. Aspects of happiness have been (and should be) conceptualized and measured at multiple levels, including transient experiences, stable person-level attitudes, and collective attitudes, and with respect to multiple foci, such as discrete events, the job, and the organization. At all levels, there is evidence that happiness has important consequences for both individuals and organizations. Past research has tended to underestimate the importance of happiness at work. Critical analysis: happiness has been found to be a highly valued goal in most societies (Diener 2000). The rise of positive psychology in the past decade (Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi 2000) has legitimized attention to happiness and other positive states as opposed to the previously dominant disease model which directed attention disproportionately to illness, depression, stress and similar negative experiences and outcomes. three sets of questions about happiness are addressed: (1) How has happiness been defined and measured? (2) What are the antecedents of happiness? (3) What are the consequences of happiness? Defineing happiness: In contrast to the hedonic view of happiness as involving pleasant...
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...Work Culture Results Expert * varied and ground breaking work * high emphasis on specialist expertise and lots of specialist roles * high engagement - people encouraged to express opinions * innovative, creative atmosphere * control your own work schedule and organization * dynamic and changing environment Supportive * secure, stable environment * clearly defined jobs, goals and expectations * no conflicting demands * considerate management * focus on employee welfare * lots of personal development and feedback * lots of recognition and celebration of success * fun place to work Well resourced * safe place to work * comfortable, well-designed work place * all the necessary resources to do high standard work I found the Career Interest Profiler, Competencies, and Work Culture Preferences activities all very interesting and insightful. All three taught me a little bit about myself and also what I should be looking for in a future employer to find both success and happiness at work. For example the Interest exercise let me know that I am Enterprising, and that means that I look to be involved in starting up and carrying out projects. I enjoy leading people and making decisions. This is interesting because that is what I have done most of my life. I have been a Store manager in retail for over 8 years, and have had to manage many different project and employees. The work culture showed me that I want a place...
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...The Pursuit for Happiness Pablo Pereira Concha LDS Business College Pablo Concha Professor Rice ENG 101 3/17/2015 The Pursuit for Happiness Aristotle, the great philosopher, once said: “Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” When asked about what they really want in life, most people include the word happiness on the list. Today happiness is viewed in many different ways. Everyone defines happiness according to their personal perspective. Whatever it is that makes you happy is determined by you, and only you. This difference is what makes the world interesting. Like everything else in life, happiness is most commonly discussed in three different aspects of life, personal, professional, and spiritual. There are several simple things can be done to increase happiness in each aspect of life. Even though different goals and actions are set for each aspect, analyzing them make us conclude that somehow they can connect and affect each other. Analyzing them makes us also conclude that if there’s one aspect that can affect all the others, that would be the spiritual. We live in a world that is progressing at such a fast pace that sometimes we wonder if we can catch up. But yet, when it comes to understanding ourselves and our surroundings, we seem to be trapped in the shallow. Being trapped in the shallow can create a sense that something is missing, an inner hole. We search and search for filling up that empty spot...
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...emotions at work. Moreover, those who experience negative emotions in life and at work are more likely to engage in counterproductive behaviors with customers, clients, or fellow employees. Increasingly, organizations such as American Express, UBS, and KPMG are turning to happiness coaches to address this spillover from personal unhappiness to work emotions and behaviors. Srikumar Rao is a former college professor who has the nickname, “the happiness guru.” Rao teaches people to analyze negative emotions to prevent them from becoming overwhelming. If your job is restructured, for example, Rao suggests avoiding negative thoughts and feelings about it. Instead, he advises, tell yourself it could turn out well in the long run, and there is no way to know at present. Beyond reframing the emotional impact of work situations, some happiness coaches attack the negative emotional spillover from life to work (and from work to life). A working mother found that a happiness talk by Shawn Actor helped her stop focusing on her stressed-out life and instead look for chances to smile, laugh, and be grateful. In some cases, the claims made by happiness coaches seem a bit trite. Jim Smith, who labels himself “The Executive Happiness Coach,” asks: “What if I told you that there are secrets nobody told you as a kid—or as an adult, for that matter—that can unlock for you all sorts of positive emotional experiences? What if the only thing that gets in the way of you feeling more happiness is—YOU?! What...
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...Mahatma Gandhi one defined happiness as “when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” Barring any better definition of happiness from either positive psychologists, self-help gurus, or any other academic source, I tend to think this is a great summation of the definition of happiness. Gandhi doesn’t say anything about how these things make you feel, rather looks at it from a point of view of harmony between thoughts, expressions, and actions. Since one single accepted definition of happiness doesn’t seem to exist, and happiness is different for everyone, this begs the question; how can you increase your own personal level of happiness? Since WW II psychologist have been studying our brains as they pertain to our mental health. Approximately 30% of people in the USA suffer from some sort of mental disorder (Seligman, Parks, and Steen 418). After we figured out how to treat these 30% of people, psychologists then turned to the remaining 70% of the population with the thinking that “although these people may not be experiencing severe pathology, there is good evidence to indicate the absence of maladies does not constitute happiness” (Seligman, Parks, and Steen 418). The conclusion these psychologists came to was that “…we believe “happiness” is a condition over and above the absence of unhappiness… A review [of the literature] led us to identify three constituents of happiness: (i) pleasure (or positive emotion); (ii) engagement; and (iii) meaning”...
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...Tugas Personal ke-2 Minggu 3 Happiness Coaches for Employees We know there is considerable spillover from personal unhappiness to negative emotions at work. Moreover, those who experience negative emotions in life and at work are more likely to engage in counterproductive behavior with customers, clients, or felloe employees. Increasingly, organizations such as American Express, UBS, KPMG are turning to happiness coaches to address this spillover from personal unhappiness to work emotions and behaviors. Srikumar Rao is a former college professor who has the nickname, “the happiness guru”. Rao teaches people to analyze negative emotions to prevent them from becoming overwhelming. If your job is restructured, for example, Rao suggest avoiding negative thoughts and feelings about it. Instead, he advises, tell yourself it could turn out well in the long run, and there is no way to know at present. Beyond reframing the emotional impact of work situations, some happiness coaches attack the negative emotional spillover from life to work (and from work to life). A working mother found that a happiness talk by Shawn Actor helped her stop focusing on her stressed-out life and instead look for chances to smile. Laugh, and be grateful. In some cases, the claims made by happiness coaches seem a bit trite. Jim Smith, who labels himself “The Executive Happiness Coach”, asks: “What if I told you that there are secrets nobody told you as a kid – or as an adult...
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...There are many ways to the keys of happiness. People might choose a long difficult road to pursue their happiness, or some people might choose an unethical easy short way to pursue their dreams. Either way, people chose to do what they want for themselves or what they deserve. The movie The Pursuit of Happyness had deliberate how people seek for their happiness wether it is decent or not. In the article: “Never Fear Never Quit,” written by Joe Tye; article “The Four Attitudes of Happiness,” written by Raj Raghunathan; article “The Rules For Success,” written by Farouk Radwan; article “The Money-Happiness Connection,” written by Susie Poppickthe; article “Does Success Lead to Happiness,” written by Christy Matta, the authors state that the keys to happiness is perseverance, attitude, passion, money and success....
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...own personal happiness. Some people consider the pursuit of happiness a challenge, others a source of trouble and suffering. While, some strive all their lives to seize happiness by overcoming all kinds of roadblocks, by giving away something close to the heart or by accepting a situation that might violate their comfort zone. Three reasons people crave happiness are that they want to have a life free of discomfort, they want to feel integrated in society, and they want what they cannot always get. One reason people crave happiness is they want to have a life free of trouble. Whenever people are asked about their main goal in life, happiness is the response a majority gives. It is commonly known for people to strive for happiness, a natural instinct everybody is born with, in order to stay far away from a life submerged in unhappiness and discomfort. Craving happiness is mainly considered as a way to cope with real life, full of stress, anxiety and responsibility, to reach the impression of living an ideal and happy life, away from all kinds of roadblocks. For instance, fresh graduates are typically excited about their new career lives and are ready to work extra hard because they see their happiness in a higher position and a long lasting career. This craving of happiness gives the grads the strength to fight and eases the hard work invested. Another reason people crave happiness is that they want to feel integrated in today’s changing society. For many, happiness is a vital...
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...30/04/2013 Workplace Happiness Lecture Key Questions • What is happiness? • Why is happiness important? • Cognitive Lens: How do we understand/misunderstand what will make us happy at work? • Situational Lens: When are people happy at work? • Trait Lens: Who is happy at work? What is Happiness? 1 30/04/2013 What is Happiness? • Happiness: – an emotional state. – how you feel about yourself and the world. • Satisfaction with Life: – more global judgment about your acceptance with your life conditions. – more of a cognitive assessment. What is Happiness? 2 pathways to well‐being Removing negative states • Depression • Anxiety • Insecurity • Addiction • Violence Promoting positive states • Hope • Optimism • Empathy • Courage • Gratitude ‐5 0 +5 Taking away obstacles Bringing in enablers 2 30/04/2013 Happiness as Flourishing Elevated levels of Emotional functioning Psychological functioning Social functioning PERMA & flourishing Worker Well-Being Positive Emotion Engagement Relationships Meaning Accomplishment Positive Relationships 7 Is being happy and satisfied the same thing? How happy are workers? • • • • • • • Time magazine poll (12/2004) “Would you say that so far you have lived ‐‐the best possible life you could have. ‐‐a very good life ‐‐a good life ‐‐a fair life ‐‐a poor life 3 30/04/2013 How happy are workers? • • • • • • • Time magazine poll (12/2004)...
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...Measures of Happiness and the Secret behind Smile In his article, “The Science behind the Smile”, Daniel Gilbert focuses on the various aspects, reasons and measures of happiness. Happiness, as he explains has now become a part of science which was previously studied only by psychologists. Giving it a scientific view, an economist studies happiness to coincide it with the theory of ‘wants’. When he gets to know the ‘wants’, he’ll be able to assume the demand which in turn will also help him in assuming the supply and overall managing of microeconomics and macroeconomics. Then there are neuroscientists studying happiness from a medical attitude, helping themselves to come up with conclusions; but how every discipline measures happiness varies. Happiness might be measured on a rating scale or any modern technology such as electromyography that measures the activity of smile muscles in the face. But I personally think this kind of technology might end up in biased results. Smiling doesn’t always reflect happiness; it might be forcefully done, people might be forced to smile because it is part of their daily work to be gracious and pleasant, so we can’t base our results on one such factor as smile muscles rather there should be more than one factor taken into consideration while measuring happiness. Studies also report how forceful smiling led employees to distress and eventually quitting work. A research paper was published in the Academy of Management Journal, in which...
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...describes happiness as a fulfilment of a person who is unhappy. The text is about a person who was sixteen year old when he won the Israeli national squash championship. At that time, he felt that winning the championship is necessary for fulfilment and fulfilment was necessary for happiness. When he was going to sleep, he especially felt the happiness. Later he began to lose his happiness since all worked perfectly. He would not become happy if he wins the next championship. Therefore, he began to seek answers of how to find happiness. He wanted a life where he could be both successful and happy. He read topics from Aristotle to Confucius. In the end, he did not know exactly what happiness was so he tried to figure it out. He did not know about was it an emotion, pleasure, absence of pain or bliss he asked himself. 2. Give an outline of what makes people happy and what does not, a expresses in the three texts. The Question of Happiness I think that this text wants to point out that that you cannot achieve happiness if you want to do it the same way as you did before. By winning, the same championship repeatedly does not bring happiness to a person. A person should try to win another championship or try to win something completely different. For instance if the coming days is different from the past few days then the concerned person would become happier than if all his days are the same. Therefore, if a person wants happiness then have seek it. Happiness While the...
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...What Brings about Happiness? Rodney Sanders Mrs. Bledsoe Arkansas Baptist College Fall, 2013 Abstract There are numerous ways to define the word happiness; however, according to Webster dictionary, the word happiness in best defined as enjoying, showing, or marked by pleasure, satisfaction, or joy. People generally associate happiness with simply having a good feeling inside whether it is from monetary or financial gain, finding a potential soul mate, getting a promotion at work, self employed, the birth of children, and so on. These are all different ways in which people generally associate the happy feeling with. Many people express their happiness in different ways; therefore, it can be said that happiness is something that you can't just buy or gain because it comes form deep within. It is also known that happiness changes as circumstances change around each individual's everyday life. This paper will discuss happiness based on scientific studies, how Aristotle relates happiness, and occasions associated with a happy person. Happiness related to Studies and Psychologist There are many scholars, specialist, neurologist, and more who study the brain. They often relate happiness to different levels of dopamine and and serotonin levels in the brain, which is a known transmitter in the brain that controls the nervous system causing the feelings of happiness and sadness (Inglehart, & Klingemann, 2000). According to other researchers...
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...What Brings about Happiness? Rodney Sanders Mrs. Bledsoe Arkansas Baptist College Fall, 2013 Abstract There are numerous ways to define the word happiness; however, according to Webster dictionary, the word happiness in best defined as enjoying, showing, or marked by pleasure, satisfaction, or joy. People generally associate happiness with simply having a good feeling inside whether it is from monetary or financial gain, finding a potential soul mate, getting a promotion at work, self employed, the birth of children, and so on. These are all different ways in which people generally associate the happy feeling with. Many people express their happiness in different ways; therefore, it can be said that happiness is something that you can't just buy or gain because it comes form deep within. It is also known that happiness changes as circumstances change around each individual's everyday life. This paper will discuss happiness based on scientific studies, how Aristotle relates happiness, and occasions associated with a happy person. Happiness related to Studies and Psychologist There are many scholars, specialist, neurologist, and more who study the brain. They often relate happiness to different levels of dopamine and and serotonin levels in the brain, which is a known transmitter in the brain that controls the nervous system causing the feelings of happiness and sadness (Inglehart, & Klingemann, 2000). According to other researchers...
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...People will spend most of their lives looking and waiting for happiness. We convince ourselves that the right career, the right life choices, and the right relationships will open the gates to happiness. Most people are misled, and they do not know what actually will bring them real happiness until they experience it first-hand. Happiness does not just happen with no work; you have to work towards it. It is something that has to be pursued on a constant level throughout our lives. After reading the articles on happiness, choices in life, and experienced well-being I have come to realize a few significant points that could point towards being happier and coming closer to actual happiness. Happiness can reached in a number of ways, and there are many steps that people can take to increase happiness in their own lives regardless of their background or the situations they find themselves in. In the first article we read named “The Smiling Professor”, Claudia Dreifus is interviewing a psychologist named Dan Gilbert. Dan Gilbert has spent his career studying the nature of human happiness. To many people Dan Gilbert is known as “Professor Happiness”. Throughout this interview Gilbert tends to refer to happiness as something that will happen to our future selves. When asked how predicting our feelings of future events could relate to understanding happiness Gilbert states “Because if we can’t predict how we’d react in the future, we can’t set realistic goals for ourselves or figure...
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...The offering for today, a short essay. *** What is life, but the pursuit of happiness? It’s written into any human rights document and has a place in every democratic state’s declaration of state. “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” is a well known and used phrase today. A happy human being is a productive human and if we are all to get along in this world we all need to chip in somehow. Contributing so that we might all have a happy and fulfilling life. Sadly, though happiness is seen as a basic human right by many, it is one thing to write something down and quite another thing to see it happen in practice. Though the comparison might not be the best, it is somewhat the same with communism. On paper it is a wonderful idea, but it has never been fully and successfully applied in our lifetime. Same thing with the idea of happiness for all. Sometimes I wonder, if happiness has not become a harder thing to achieve in our modern society, where we want to do so much, so many different things, achieve so much and contribute to society…While also feeling happy and fulfilled with our lives. Some might feel that happiness is tied to love. Tied to having someone special in your life, to share your long years with. From that we get the stress created by hunting for that special someone and the disappointment when you come up short in the dating game. With a much larger pool of people to chose from, it somehow becomes worse. Back in the old days, we stayed put in one city...
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