When the job is a calling: The role of applying one's signature strengths at work

Abstract

Familial aggregation and the effect of parenting styles on three dispositions toward ridicule and being laughed at were tested. Nearly 100 families (parents, their adult children, and their siblings) completed subjective questionnaires to assess the presence of gelotophobia (the fear of being laughed at), gelotophilia (the joy of being laughed at), and katagelasticism (the joy of laughing at others). A positive relationship between fear of being laughed at in children and their parents was found. Results for gelotophilia were similar but numerically lower; if split by gender of the adult child, correlations to the mother's gelotophilia exceeded those of the father. Katagelasticism arose independently from the scores in the parents but was robustly related to greater katagelasticism in the children's siblings. Gelotophobes remembered punishment (espe-cially from the mother), lower warmth and higher control from their parents (this was also found in the parents' recollections of their parenting style). The incidence of gelotophilia was unrelated to specific parenting styles, and katagelasticism exhibited only weak relations with pun-ishment. The study suggests a specific pattern in the rela-tion of the three dispositions within families and argues for a strong impact of parenting styles on gelotophobia but less so for gelotophilia and katagelasticism. Strengths at WorkThe present study investigates the role of applying the individual signature strengths at work for positive experiences at work (i.e., job satisfaction, pleasure, engagement, meaning) and calling. A sample of 111 employees from various occupations completed measures on character strengths, positive experiences at work, and calling. Co-workers (N = 111) rated the applicability of character strengths at work. Correlations between applicability of character strengths and positive experiences at work decreased with intra-individual centrality of strengths (ranked strengths from the highest to the lowest). Level of positive experiences and calling were higher when four to seven signature strengths were applied at work compared to less than four. Positive experiences partially mediated the effect of the number of applied signature strengths on calling.Implications for further research and practice will be discussed.

The Application of Salutogenesis to Work

“…Fredrickson, 2001;Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000) and positive occupational health psychology (cf. Bakker & Derks, 2010), individual-level interventions strengthen the awareness and competency of proactively building a resourceful environment and applying one's strengths and virtues to enhance positive well-being and health-see for example the self-tuning approach in this chapter (Vinje, 2007), the values in action (VIA) (Harzer & Ruch, 2012;Peterson & Seligman, 2004), job crafting (Tims & Bakker, 2010;Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001), psychological capital development (Luthans, Avey, Avolio, Norman, & Combs, 2006), mindfulness training (Hülsheger, Alberts, Feinholdt, & Lang, 2013), and positive psychology at work in general (Bono, Glomb, Shen, Kim, & Koch, 2013;Mills, Fleck, & Kozikowski, 2013).…”

Investigating strengths and deficits to increase work engagement: A longitudinal study in the mining industry

“…This movement fuelled various other research studies on the application and use of strengths within the workplace and, subsequently, positive organisational outcomes have been attributed to the strengths approach. Various studies have shown that work engagement is one of the positive outcomes of the use of strengths (Botha & Mostert, 2014;Harter, Schidt & Hayes, 2002;Harzer & Ruch, 2012Keenan & Mostert, 2013;Stander, Mostert & De Beer, 2014;Van Woerkom, Oerlemans & Bakker, 2015). In addition, Clifton and Harter (2003) have indicated that productivity increases for employees who use their strengths.…”

Investigating the impact of a combined approach of perceived organisational support for strengths use and deficit correction on employee outcomes

“…Previous research has found that strengths use is related to higher levels of self-efficacy (Falender & Shafranske, 2004;Van Woerkom, Oerlemans & Bakker, 2015b), increased happiness and vitality (Govindji & Linley, 2007), subjective well-being (Proctor, Maltby & Linley, 2011), increased work engagement (Harzer & Ruch, 2012, 2013, goal attainment (Linley, Nielsen, Wood, Gillett & Biswas-Diener, 2010), increased in-role and out-role performance and lower levels of sick leave (Van Woerkom, Bakker & Nishii, 2015a). Recently, however, some scholars have objected that the positive psychology movement has again created an imbalance by focusing almost exclusively on employee strengths while failing to pay an equal amount of attention to employee deficits (Rust, Diessner & Reade, 2009;Sirmon, Hitt, Arregle & Campbell, 2010).…”