Psychological Capital

Psychological Capital

Psychological capital is a positive psychological state with four components: self-efficacy, optimism,

hope and resiliency. Self-efficacy means having confidence in oneself to complete goals. Optimism is

more than just being positive; it is purposely and positively reframing external negative experiences.

Hope is about persevering toward goals, redirecting yourself when faced with a setback. And resiliency

refers to one’s ability to bounce back from adversity. Together they are greater than the sum of their

parts.

Psychological capital, like widely recognized concepts human and social capital, is a construct similar to

economic capital, where resources are invested and leveraged for a future return. Psychological capital

is different from human (‘what you know’) and social (‘who you know’) capital, and is more directly

concerned with ‘who you are’ and more importantly ‘who you are becoming’ (i.e., developing one’s

actual self to become the possible self).

Psychological capital is operationally defined as an individual’s positive psychological state of

development that is characterized by: (1) having confidence (self-efficacy) to take on and put in the

necessary effort to succeed at challenging tasks; (2) making a positive attribution (optimism) about

succeeding now and in the future; (3) persevering toward goals, and when necessary, redirecting paths

to goals (hope) in order to succeed; and (4) when beset by problems and adversity, sustaining and

bouncing back and even beyond (resiliency) to attain success (Luthans, Youssef, & Avolio).

Questions (if possible, offer personal examples):

 Can psychological capital impact satisfaction and organizational commitment?

 Can wages affect the psychological constructs of psychological capital?

 Can psychological capital be developed via training and impact individual performance?