Impact of employees' character strengths of wisdom on stress and creative performance

Both conventional understanding and positive psychology recognise an important link between people's character strengths and how they perform their jobs. However, no research to date has focused on the relationship of employees' wisdom strengths, potential mediating effects and creative task performance. Utilising a large heterogeneous sample (N = 974) of working adults, this study found that participants' levels of the character strengths of wisdom were positively related to their performance on a creative task and negatively related to their reported level of stress. In addition, stress was found to be negatively related to creative task performance, with reported stress partly mediating the relationship between participants' wisdom and their performance on the creative task. Implications for incorporating character strengths in the development of HRM theory and practice conclude the article.

[1]  Teresa M. Amabile,et al.  Creativity under the gun. , 2002, Harvard business review.

[2]  B. Fredrickson.  The role of positive emotions in positive psychology. The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. , 2001, The American psychologist.

[3]  Jeremy Dawson,et al.  HRM as a predictor of innovation , 2006 .

[4]  U. Staudinger,et al.  Wisdom-related knowledge in a life review task: age differences and the role of professional specialization. , 1992, Psychology and aging.

[5]  D. Nelson,et al.  Chronic work stress and coping: A longitudinal study and suggested new directions. , 1990 .

[6]  G. Graen,et al.  Training in creative problem solving: Effects on ideation and problem finding and solving in an industrial research organization , 1982 .

[7]  M. Mumford,et al.  Creativity syndrome: Integration, application, and innovation. , 1988 .

[8]  G. R. Oldham,et al.  The curvilinear relation between experienced creative time pressure and creativity: moderating effects of openness to experience and support for creativity. , 2006, The Journal of applied psychology.

[9]  Barry M. Staw,et al.  Threat-rigidity effects in organizational behavior: A multilevel analysis. , 1981 .

[10]  J. Perry-Smith.  Social Yet Creative: The Role Of Social Relationships In Facilitating Individual Creativity , 2006 .

[11]  J. Harackiewicz,et al.  Motivating the Academically Unmotivated: A Critical Issue for the 21st Century , 2000 .

[12]  E. Hallowell,et al.  Overloaded circuits: why smart people underperform. , 2005, Harvard business review.

[13]  Fred Luthans,et al.  Emerging Positive Organizational Behavior , 2007 .

[14]  Teresa M. Amabile,et al.  Affect and Creativity at Work , 2005 .

[15]  J. Kevin Ford,et al.  LEARNING WITHIN A LEARNER CONTROL TRAINING ENVIRONMENT: THE INTERACTIVE EFFECTS OF GOAL ORIENTATION AND METACOGNITIVE INSTRUCTION ON LEARNING OUTCOMES , 2003 .

[16]  L. Hunter,et al.  Feeling the Heat: Effects of Stress, Commitment, and Job Experience on Job Performance , 2007 .

[17]  C. Sansone,et al.  Once a boring task always a boring task? Interest as a self-regulatory mechanism. , 1992, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[18]  E. A. Locke.  Relation of goal level to performance with a short work period and multiple goal levels. , 1982 .

[19]  Paul B. Baltes,et al.  Occupational settings facilitating wisdom-related knowledge: the sample case of clinical psychologists. , 1994, Journal of consulting and clinical psychology.

[20]  Fred Luthans,et al.  Psychological capital: A positive resource for combating employee stress and turnover , 2009 .

[21]  P. Tierney,et al.  Creative Self-Efficacy: Its Potential Antecedents and Relationship to Creative Performance , 2002 .

[22]  S. Gully,et al.  Role of goal orientation, ability, need for achievement, and locus of control in the self-efficacy and goal--setting process. , 1997 .

[23]  Fred Luthans,et al.  Positive organizational behavior: Developing and managing psychological strengths , 2002 .

[24]  S. Hobfoll.  Social and Psychological Resources and Adaptation , 2002 .

[25]  R. A. Cooke,et al.  Stress and strain from family roles and work-role expectations. , 1984, The Journal of applied psychology.

[26]  C. Shalley,et al.  The Effects of Personal and Contextual Characteristics on Creativity: Where Should We Go from Here? , 2004 .

[27]  Aleksander P. J. Ellis.  System Breakdown: The Role of Mental Models and Transactive Memory in the Relationship between Acute Stress and Team Performance , 2006 .

[28]  Andrew B. Hargadon,et al.  Enhancing Creativity Through "Mindless" Work: A Framework of Workday Design , 2006, Organ. Sci..

[29]  J. McGrath,et al.  TIME MATTERS IN TEAM PERFORMANCE: EFFECTS OF MEMBER FAMILIARITY, ENTRAINMENT, AND TASK DISCONTINUITY ON SPEED AND QUALITY , 2003 .

[30]  Teresa M. Amabile,et al.  Assessing the Work Environment for Creativity , 1996 .

[31]  M. Seligman,et al.  Character Strengths Before and After September 11 , 2003, Psychological science.

[32]  M. Csíkszentmihályi,et al.  Positive psychology. An introduction. , 2000, The American psychologist.

[33]  D. A. Kenny,et al.  The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. , 1986, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[34]  Wei-Chi Tsai,et al.  Employee positive moods as a mediator linking transformational leadership and employee work outcomes , 2009 .

[35]  P. Lovibond,et al.  The structure of negative emotional states: comparison of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS) with the Beck Depression and Anxiety Inventories. , 1995, Behaviour research and therapy.

[36]  Jerry Goodstein,et al.  Character Is Not “Dead” in Management Research: A Review of Individual Character and Organizational-Level Virtue† , 2007 .

[37]  Eduardo Salas,et al.  Group Decision Making Under Stress , 1991 .

[38]  J. George,et al.  When openness to experience and conscientiousness are related to creative behavior: an interactional approach. , 2001, The Journal of applied psychology.

[39]  B. Avolio,et al.  The “point” of positive organizational behavior , 2009, Journal of Organizational Behavior.

[40]  Y Shoda,et al.  Reconciling processing dynamics and personality dispositions. , 1998, Annual review of psychology.

[41]  A. Bandura,et al.  Impact of conceptions of ability on self-regulatory mechanisms and complex decision making. , 1989, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[42]  R. Lord,et al.  Leader self-structure: a framework for positive leadership , 2009 .

[43]  D. Algom,et al.  Selective attention improves under stress: implications for theories of social cognition. , 2003, Journal of personality and social psychology.