Positive Psychology at Work » Meaning & Purpose

Daniel Pink on Motivation: Why PRP Doesn’t Work!

admin — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 08:54:38 +0000

Here’s a great animated video supporting Daniel Pink’s presentation on intrinsic motivation and why profit-related pay (PRP) doesn’t actually motivate people to work harder.

According to Pink, psychology research shows that economists have got it all wrong. If you want to motivate and engage people, and get them work harder, they need to experience the following 3 things at work:

1) AUTONOMY (i.e. being able to choose what you do and how you do it)
2) MASTERY (i.e. being able to get better at whatever you do – so there needs to be some challenge in the job), and
3) PURPOSE (i.e. being able to make a meaningful contribution. A profit motive is OK as long as it’s linked to a ‘purpose motive’).

Organisations which fit the bill include Skype (now owned by private investment company Silver Lake, and Ebay) and Apple.

Pink’s theory is that if we treat people like people, we can make organisations better off and make the world a better place.

Sounds like ‘making business human‘ to me!

Thanks to GL7 Productions for the link.

FREE Positive Psychology Journal

bridget — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 22:22:09 +0000

It’s not often that you get something for nothing, particularly top quality scientific papers. However, you can now download ten Dec 2009 papers from some of the best-known Positive Psychology researchers including Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Ed Diener, Antonella Della Fave and the UK’s Stephen Joseph. See the Table of Contents below. Thanks to Ingrid Brdar for the link.

Table of contents	Full text
Ingrid Brdar Editorial pp.201-201	pdf
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi The Promise of Positive Psychology pp.203-211	pdf
Ed Diener & William Tow Well-Being on Planet Earth pp.213-219	pdf
Ruut Veenhoven World Database of Happiness Tool for Dealing with the ‘Data-Deluge’ pp.221-246	pdf
Randy Larsen The Contributions of Positive and Negative Affect to Emotional Well-Being pp.247-266	pdf
Kennon M. Sheldon Providing the Scientific Backbone for Positive Psychology: A Multi-Level Conception of Human Thriving pp.267-284	pdf
Antonella Delle Fave Optimal Experience and Meaning: Which Relationship? pp.285-302	pdf
Todd B. Kashdan &, Patrick E. McKnight Origins of Purpose in Life: Refining our Understanding of a Life Well Lived pp.303-313	pdf
Ingrid Brdar, Majda Rijavec & Dubravka Miljkovic Life Goals and Well-Being: Are Extrinsic Aspirations Always Detrimental to Well-Being? pp. 317-334p	pdf
Stephen Joseph Growth Following Adversity: Positive Psychological Perspectives on Posttraumatic Stress pp.335-344	pdf
Márta Fülöp Happy and Unhappy Competitors: What Makes the Difference? pp.345-367	pdf

Which comes first, the inspiration or the well-being?

bridget — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 11:04:25 +0000

Some fantastic new (2010) research from Todd Thrash and colleagues suggests that inspiration leads to well-being (but not the other way round), and that purpose in life and gratitude are mediators. For the full story see my Positive Psychology News Daily posting here.

As always, you can post your comments here and on the PPND website.

Image: thanks to PVBroadz