Psychological capital

Positive psychological capital is defined as the positive and developmental state of an individual as characterized by high self-efficacy, optimism, hope and resiliency.

For decades psychology has been associated as dealing mainly with the treatment of mental illness, although other areas of research and application have existed since its origins. At the very end of the twentieth century a new approach in psychology gained popularity: positive psychology.

Positive psychology, the study of optimal human functioning, is an attempt to respond to the systematic bias inherent in psychology's historical emphasis on mental illness rather than on mental wellness (Seligman, 2002), mainly by focusing on two, forgotten but classical psychological goals:

Since Martin Seligman, a former head of American Psychological Association, chose positive psychology as the theme of his presidency term, more empirical research and theoretic development emerged in this field.

Two new branches of positive psychology are being implemented into the industrial-organizational world.

Drawing from positive psychology constructs and empirical research, four psychological resources were determined to best meet the POB scientific criteria: Hope, Efficacy, Resilience, and Optimism and were termed by Luthans and colleagues as psychological Capital or PsyCap and as en Emotional Capital (Gendron B., 2002, 2004).

Emotional capital (EK), a capital in an economic sense: filling the gap of the Becker's Human capital measurement approach. It brings outcomes and makes a bridge between outcomes from psychology and economics by taking into account soft skills as the socio-emotional competencies described in emotional intelligence models from Goleman, Cherniss, Bar-on, Salovey & Meyer, Caruso, Sarni.

Positive psychological capital: an heritage versus capital. In combination, the four constructs making up PsyCap were empirically determined to be a second-order, core construct that had a stronger relationship with satisfaction and performance than each of the components by itself. The four components are defined as follows:

The link with Emotional Capital (EK): filling the gap of Becker's Human capital measurement. It's the economics approach of the psychological parts and behaviors skills of human beings not innate but produced. Precisely, The emotional capital (Gendron, 2004) relates to the set of emotional competencies defined on the emotional intelligence models and complete the human capital approach where such skills were missing in the Human capital evaluation and returns.

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