Our current research embraces a basic tenet of Positive Psychology (PP)—focusing on the positive is a starting point for understanding and fostering well-being. The purpose of this work has been to demonstrate how this tenet applies to change in the workplace, an environment where most adults spend a large portion of their daily lives. Existent workplace change efforts often focus on identifying the negative and fixing such deficiencies.

In this work, Fredrickson’s (2001) broaden-and-build theory was used as a framework to propose that an organizational change intervention that focuses on identifying positive aspects of the work environment and cultivates individuals’ moments of satisfaction and appreciation, will contribute to enhanced cognitive abilities such as broader and more flexible thinking. The study was designed to advance cutting edge work in the field of positive organizational scholarship by exercising and extending this theory; multiple methods including self-reports on emotion and physiological correlates were used. By converging research on organizational behavior, emotions, psychology, and cardiology, we hope to illustrate how an appreciative approach to change is a catalyst for the best of human functioning.

In conjunction with the Department of Veterans Health Administration and the Institute of HeartMath, an experiment was conducted at the VA medical center in Washington, D.C (Fall, 2001). The experiment compared an appreciative approach toward change to a more traditional workplace intervention derived from a deficit-based model. The latter has long dominated intervention modalities in the field of organizational development and typically moves to identify problems with the intention of improved functioning (e.g., French & Bell, 1973). It is proposed that if individuals are asked to focus on high points at work rather than problems, positive emotions and favorably valanced self-schemas (Markus, 1977) will emerge. In turn, this is expected to cultivate cognitive structures that foster creativity (Torrance, 1966). Cooperrider’s Appreciative Inquiry (2000), an intervention practice that involves recalling the best of one’s organizational experience as a starting point, is hypothesized to serve as a catalyst for increased positive affect (PA), decreased negative affect (NA), and a healthier heart rate variability (HRV). Given that appreciative thoughts are known to reduce stress via a favorable influence to ANS activity, this work predicts that the appreciative approach will have a beneficial impact on parasympathetic and sympathetic HRV (McCraty, Atkinson, Tiller, Rein, & Watkins, 1995). Resulting favorable affective states are expected to be associated with a more positive view of self (Ruvolo & Markus, 1992) and combined, serve to increase creative thinking (e.g., Isen, Daubman & Nowicki, 1987).

Study results are expected to contribute to current knowledge in positive organizational scholarship by exercising and extending the broaden-and-build theory (Fredrickson, 2001) to consider impacts of both increases to PA and decreases to NA as contributing components to favorable affective state. Preliminary research supports the contention that focusing on the best of one’s organization significantly decreases self-reported NA (Sekerka, Cooperrider, Wilken, 2001). It is hoped that this research will help us demonstrate how beneficial changes to emotions occur cognitively as well as physiologically during the intervention process.

This is the first known field experiment where this combination of measures is used to assess organizational change techniques. Our contention is that positive reflections contribute to a healthier and more effective intervention process. By asking positive questions to promote organizational change, we may indeed learn how to illuminate a pathway toward favorable affective states, which will help move individuals toward the co-creation of beneficial system transformation (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997).

References

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997). Finding flow: the psychology of engagement with everyday life. NY: Basic Books, Inc.

Cooperrider, D. L., Sorensen, P. F., Whitney, D., Yaeger, T. F. (2000). Appreciative inquiry: Rethinking human organization toward a positive theory of change. Champaign, IL: Stipes Publishing.

Fredrickson, B. L. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist, 56(3), 218-226.

French, W. L., & Bell, C. H. (1973). Organization development: Behavioral science interventions for organization improvement. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Isen, A. M., Daubman, K. A., & Nowicki, G. P. (1987). Positive affect facilitates creative problem solving. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 1122-1131.

Markus, H. (1977). Self-schemata and processing information about the self. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35(2), 63-78.

McCraty, R., Atkinson, M., Tiller, W., Rein, G. & Watkins, A. D. (November, 1995). The effects of emotions on short-term power spectrum analysis of heart rate variability. The American Journal of Cardiology, 76(14), 1089-1093.

Ruvolo, A. P., & Markus, H. R. (1992). Possible selves and performance: The power of self-relevant Imagery. Social Cognition, 10(1), 95-124.

Sekerka, L. E., Cooperrider, D. L., & Wilken, J. A. (2001). An appreciative approach to organizational intervention: A catalyst to well-being and creativity in the workplace. Poster session presented at the Positive Psychology Summit, Washington D. C. (October).

Torrance, E. P. (1966). Torrance tests of creative thinking. Princeton, NJ: Personal Press, Inc.