The purpose of this article is to move beyond the vulnerability/deficit model of women and to focus on women's strengths and their ability to thrive in the face of adversity. Thriving is a dynamic process of adaptation, influenced by numerous individual and social factors; it emerges and changes over the life course and may be identified in behavioral, cognitive, or affective domains. The foundation of this concept comes from the literature on resilience, but it goes beyond the common view of resilience as homeostasis. It suggests, instead, a value-added construct whereby challenge provides an opportunity for change and growth. Understanding the concept and process of thriving can provide an important basis for theoretical development, empirical research, and clinical intervention. Thriving can provide a framework within which to examine the antecedents and consequences of differential reactions to health-related challenges. Knowledge of the factors that promote thriving can provide an important foundation for a paradigm shift away from a focus on illness and pathology toward one that understands, explains, and nurtures health.
This study utilizes a 3‐year longitudinal design to explore factors that promote thriving among Latinas facing multiple adversity: poverty and chronic illness (specifically, arthritis). From a thriving paradigm, focus is placed on understanding the positive growth and thriving experiences reported by respondents, as well as the social, cultural, and personal resources that promote thriving. In the baseline interview, we employed a qualitative methodology to understand women's experiences of thriving. Women reported a variety of such experiences, the most frequent being enhanced appreciation of life. In the follow‐up study, we created a thriving scale based on responses generated at the initial interview and prior research, then examined which of a number of social/cultural and personal factors predicted thriving 3 years after the initial assessment. Only measures of competence (self‐esteem and self‐ efficacy) and psychological well‐being were related to thriving. Path analyses testing the causal sequence of these variables revealed that negative affect contributed to decreased self‐efficacy and self‐esteem, but it did not have a direct or indirect effect on thriving. Greater self‐esteem positively predicted thriving. In contrast, positive affect did not contribute to either measure of competence, but had a direct effect on thriving. Results suggest that psychological well‐being (not ill‐being) promotes thriving.
Abstract We describe 'thriving' as an under-utilized construct that can add value to theory, research, and application in adolescent development. We draw on developmental systems theories to suggest that thriving represents the dynamic and bi-directional interplay of a young person intrinsically animated and energized by discovering his/her specialness, and the developmental contexts (people, places) that know, affirm, celebrate, encourage, and guide its expression. We note that thriving shares some conceptual space with positive psychology and constructs such as competence, developmental assets, and flourishing, but also note how thriving differs from each of these. On both conceptual and empirical grounds, we articulate a case for the unique contribution of thriving as a valid and useful addition to our understanding of human development. We end the paper by describing the exploratory factor analysis and descriptive results of a new survey to measure adolescent thriving that has grown out of the conceptual framework presented here. Keywords: thrivingadolescent developmentpositive youth developmentpositive psychologydevelopmental assets Notes Note 1. We used dichotomous scoring to judge whether young people experienced or did not experience sparks, despite describing earlier our preference for considering the broader thriving construct to be a continuous variable. We did so because, unlike the full thriving construct, the single marker of 'sparks' can be validly considered to be present or absent. Young people can either identify one or more interests that they care passionately about and that are important parts of their identity, or they cannot. They can either name three or more people who support those interests, or they cannot. Many of the other proposed markers of thriving writ large, however, such as spiritual development or prosocial orientation, do not seem to be either–or variables, but continua comprised of many more expressions of 'more' or 'less' than simply 'having' or 'not having' the construct.
Summary Emerging research evidence across multiple industries suggests that thriving at work is critically important for creating sustainable organizational performance. However, we possess little understanding of how factors across different organizational levels stimulate thriving at work. To address this gap, the current study proposes a multilevel model that simultaneously examines contextual and individual factors that facilitate thriving at work and how thriving relates to positive health and overall unit performance. Analysis of data collected from 275 employees, at multiple time periods, and their immediate supervisors, representing 94 work units, revealed that servant leadership and core self‐evaluations are 2 important contextual and individual factors that significantly relate to thriving at work. The results further indicated that thriving positively relates to positive health at the individual level, with this relationship partially mediated by affective commitment. Our results also showed that collective thriving at work positively relates to collective affective commitment, which in turn, positively relates to overall unit performance. Taken together, these findings suggest that work context and individual characteristics play significant roles in facilitating thriving at work and that thriving is an important means by which managers and their organizations can improve employees' positive health and unit performance.
Summary Thriving is defined as the psychological state in which individuals experience both a sense of vitality and learning. We developed and validated a measure of the construct of thriving at work. Additionally, we theoretically refined the construct by linking it to key outcomes, such as job performance, and by examining its contextual embeddedness. In Study 1, we conducted second‐order confirmatory factor analyses in two samples, demonstrating initial support for the two‐dimensional structure of thriving. We provided evidence for the convergent and discriminant validity of thriving in relation to theoretically related constructs, such as positive and negative affects, learning and performance goal orientations, proactive personality, and core self‐evaluations. In Study 2, across two different samples, we further assessed construct validity by establishing a relationship between thriving and career development initiative, burnout, health, and individual job performance, explaining significant variance beyond traditional attitudinal predictors, such as job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Finally, in Study 3, we focused on understanding the contextual embeddedness of thriving. We found differences in reports of thriving across two points in time, when substantial changes are occurring in peoples' work lives and across contexts (i.e., work and non‐work). Implications for theory and practice, as well as directions for future research, are discussed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Summary Thriving at work refers to a positive psychological state characterized by a joint sense of vitality and learning. On the basis of Spreitzer and colleagues' model, we present a comprehensive meta‐analysis of antecedents and outcomes of thriving at work ( K = 73 independent samples, N = 21,739 employees). Results showed that thriving at work is associated with individual characteristics, such as psychological capital ( r c = .47), proactive personality ( r c = .58), positive affect ( r c = .52), and work engagement ( r c = .64). Positive associations were also found between thriving at work and relational characteristics, including supportive coworker behavior ( r c = .42), supportive leadership behavior ( r c = .44), and perceived organizational support ( r c = .63). Moreover, thriving at work is related to important employee outcomes, including health‐related outcomes such as burnout ( r c = −.53), attitudinal outcomes such as commitment ( r c = .65), and performance‐related outcomes such as task performance ( r c = .35). The results of relative weights analyses suggest that thriving exhibits small, albeit incremental predictive validity above and beyond positive affect and work engagement, for task performance, job satisfaction, subjective health, and burnout. Overall, the findings of this meta‐analysis support Spreitzer and colleagues' model and underscore the importance of thriving in the work context.
Thriving describes an individual’s experience of vitality and learning. The primary goal of this paper is to develop a model that illuminates the social embeddedness of employees’ thriving at work. First, we explain why thriving is a useful theoretical construct, define thriving, and compare it to related constructs, including resilience, flourishing, subjective well-being, flow, and self-actualization. Second, we describe how work contexts facilitate agentic work behaviors, which in turn produce resources in the doing of work and serve as the engine of thriving. Third, we describe how thriving serves as a gauge to facilitate self-adaptation at work. We conclude by highlighting key theoretical contributions of the model and suggesting directions for future research.
This article addresses distinctions underlying concepts of resilience and thriving and issues in conceptualizing thriving. Thriving (physical or psychological) may reflect decreased reactivity to subsequent stressors, faster recovery from subsequent stressors, or a consistently higher level of functioning. Psychological thriving may reflect gains in skill, knowledge, confidence, or a sense of security in personal relationships. Psychological thriving resembles other instances of growth. It probably does not depend on the occurrence of a discrete traumatic event or longer term trauma, though such events may elicit it. An important question is why some people thrive, whereas others are impaired, given the same event. A potential answer rests on the idea that differences in confidence and mastery are self‐perpetuating and self‐intensifying. This idea suggests a number of variables whose role in thriving is worth closer study, including personality variables such as optimism, contextual variables such as social support, and situational variables such as the coping reactions elicited by the adverse event.
This article investigated the contribution of developmental assets to the prediction of thriving behaviors among adolescents. The study was based on a sample of 6,000 youth in Grades 6-12 evenly distributed across 6 ethnic groups. Investigated were the effects of gender, grade, and levels of youth assets on 7 thriving indicators: school success, leadership, valuing diversity, physical health, helping others, delay of gratification, and overcoming adversity. Developmental assets are identified that together contribute "over and above demographic variables" between 10% and 43% to the variance of the thriving indicators and between 47% and 54% of the variance in a composite index comprised of the separate thriving indicators. The results substantially reflect the relation of developmental assets and thriving outcomes suggested by the research literature, and provide evidence for the utility of the developmental assets framework.
This study examines how trust, connectivity and thriving drive employees' innovative behaviors in the workplace. Using a sample of one hundred and seventy two employees across a variety of jobs and industries, we investigated the relationship between trust, connectivity (both measured at Time 1), thriving and innovative work behaviors (both measured at Time 2). Trust and connectivity were hypothesized to create a nurturing environment that enables people to thrive and be innovative in their work. The results of structural equation modeling (SEM) indicate a sequential mediation model in which connectivity mediates the relationship between trust and thriving, and thriving mediates the relationship between connectivity and innovative behaviors. The theoretical and practical implications for employee thriving and innovative behaviors at work are discussed.
In the conceptualization of thriving at work, it is emphasized that employees' learning and vitality are two equally important components of thriving and that thriving is facilitated by contextual features and available resources. In this study, we examined the effects of two challenge stressors (time pressure and learning demands) on thriving at work. Based on the literature on challenge and hindrance stressors, we proposed that challenge stressors positively affect learning and negatively affect vitality. To uncover underlying mechanisms, we measured challenge appraisal and hindrance appraisal of work situations in a diary study. A sample of 124 knowledge workers responded to three daily surveys (before the lunch break, during the afternoon, and at the end of the workday) for a period of five workdays. Results indicate that the indirect effects of learning demands and time pressure on learning are mediated by challenge appraisal, whereas indirect effects of learning demands on vitality are mediated by hindrance appraisal. Overall, our study shows that challenge stressors have a positive total effect on learning but no total effect on vitality. These differential relationships call for a finer distinction between the two components of thriving at work in future research.
Theoretical issues pertinent to a dynamic, developmental systems understanding of positive youth development and the thriving process in such development are discussed. Thriving involves relative plasticity in human development and adaptive regulations of person-context relations. An integrated moral and civic identity and a commitment to society beyond the limits of one's own existence enable thriving youth to be agents both in their own, healthy development and in the positive enhancement of other people and of society. Thriving youth become generative adults through the progressive enhancement of behaviors that are valued in their specific culture and that reflect the universal structural value of contributing to civil society.
Summary Thriving at work is a positive psychological state characterized jointly by learning and vitality. Conventional wisdom and some initial research indicate that such thriving benefits both employees themselves and their organizations. This study specifically tests thriving at work by linking it to a theoretically important personal outcome variable (self‐development), refining its relationship with agentic work behaviors (task focus and heedful relating), and proposing and testing two new antecedent variables (psychological capital and supervisor support climate). Using structural equation modeling on a sample of 198 dyads (employees and their supervisors), strong support was found for the theory‐driven hypothesized relationships. The results contribute to a better understanding of positive organizational scholarship and behavior in general and specifically to the recently emerging positive construct of employees' thriving at work. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
In addition to the context of psychological health, thriving can be measured in the context of physical health. Moreover, thriving may be ope rationalized at a macro level (e.g., improved functional health status following acute illness or injury) or at a micro level (e.g., hormonal balance). The goal of this article is to examine physical thriving at the micro level, by investigating hormonal responses to stressful situations. In addition, we examine the role that psychological factors play in this relationship. Although stress‐induced arousal has traditionally been viewed as negative, certain endocrine responses to stress can be health enhancing. Specifically, we propose that physical thriving results when there is a greater amount of growth promoting or anabolic hormones (e.g., growth hormone) than catabolic hormones (e.g., Cortisol). Characteristics of the stressor (duration, frequency, and controllability) as well as psychological moderators such as one's cognitive appraisal of the stressor (threat versus challenge) play a role in determining the profile of response to stress. When an individual appraises intermittent stressors as controllable, she or he may display a resilient profile of stress hormone responding—rapid Cortisol responses with quick recovery, and more importantly, Cortisol adaptation when faced with similar stressors over time. This stress response is in turn related to better health. To substantiate some of these issues, we present data from a study examining women's Cortisol reactivity in response to a repeated laboratory stressor and their self‐reported growth from facing trauma. The results suggest that women who have grown psychologically from trauma may show quicker Cortisol habituation to other stressors. Cortisol adaptation to stress may serve as one potential marker of resilient psychological and physical functioning.
Abstract. Human beings have an inherent drive for self-improvement and growth ( Maslow, 1965 ; Ryan & Deci, 2002 ). In a quest to understand how human beings achieve fulfillment, researchers have sought to explain why some individuals thrive in certain situations, whereas others merely survive or succumb. The topic of thriving has become popular with scholars, resulting in a divergent body of literature and a lack of consensus on the key processes that underpin the construct. In view of such differences, the purpose of this paper is threefold: (i) to review a number of existing theoretical and conceptual debates, and to propose a conceptualization of thriving applicable across different populations and domains; (ii) to consolidate pertinent bodies of extant thriving research and identify key personal and contextual enablers to inform applied practice; and (iii) to identify noteworthy gaps within existing literature so as to make recommendations for future research and, ultimately, support the development of effective psychosocial interventions for thriving.
In this article we present the development and validation of two new measures of psychological well-being: the Comprehensive Inventory of Thriving (CIT) and the Brief Inventory of Thriving (BIT). These measures were developed with two specific goals in mind: (1) to measure a broad range of psychological well-being constructs and represent a holistic view of positive functioning; and (2) to predict important health outcomes that are useful for researchers and health practitioners. The CIT includes 18 subscales with 54 items in total, covering a broad range of well-being components. The BIT has 10 items in total and can serve as an indicator of psychological well-being and a brief screening tool of mental health. The new measures were evaluated in five samples of a total of 3,191 US participants with diverse demographics. The CIT and BIT had excellent psychometric properties and exhibited convergent validity with existing measures of psychological well-being and discriminant validity with measures of ill-being. Both measures contributed over and above existing measures of psychology well-being in predicting a variety of health outcomes, including self-reported and objective health status, physical functioning, and health behaviors. In addition, we showed the relative importance of thriving compared to ill-being for health outcomes and the benefits of assessing individuals' positive functioning beyond ill-being. Potential uses of the new measures are discussed.
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Summary The present diary study examines how employees thrive at work in response to resources (i.e., positive meaning, relational resources, and knowledge). Thriving is conceptualized as the joint experience of vitality and learning. A total of 121 employees working in the social services sector responded to three daily surveys (in the morning, at lunchtime, and at the end of the work day) for a period of five work days. Intra‐individual analyses (hierarchical linear modeling) revealed that on days when employees experience positive meaning at work in the morning, they feel more vital at the end of the work day and have a higher sense of learning. Work behaviors such as task focus and exploration mediated the relation between positive meaning and both components of thriving. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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Foreword - Ralph Smith, The Annie E. Casey Foundation Preface 1. Ideals and Human Development 2. Evolution and the Emergence of Liberty 3. Social Relationships and Human Development 4. Developmental Theory as a Frame for Understanding Liberty 5. On the Nature of Thriving 6. Programs Promoting Positive Youth Development and Civil Society 7. Policies Promoting Positive Youth Development and Civil Society References Name Index Subject Index About the Author