Imagine, create and remember

A key component in LEGO® SERIOUS® PLAY® for Positive Psychology is that it facilitates the benefits from the narrative approach using storytelling and metaphors. We define our reality in terms of metaphors and the stories we tell about ourselves. In LEGO® SERIOUS® PLAY® for Positive Psychology the stories contribute to the construction, reproduction, or transformation of our reality and identity.

Through the use of LEGO® SERIOUS® PLAY® for Positive Psychology the participants build metaphorical models that visualize and make meaning of abstract concepts that can otherwise be quite difficult to comprehend. The metaphors give a more complex creation of understanding and can make something more meaningful by equating it with something else. At the same time the use of metaphors and the way participants visualize things in a Build & Share workshop makes it much easier for participants to remember.

Research has shown that the brain better handles and stores information through images and in that way use visual sources to create new ideas and make more meaning of complex things. A LEGO® SERIOUS® PLAY® for Positive Psychology process takes advantage of the human ability to imagine things and create something radically new. This is a key capacity when we want to be more innovative, create knowledge and develop ourselves and the group we interact in. In that context LEGO® SERIOUS® PLAY® for Positive Psychology aims to enable all three kinds of key properties of the human imagination: to describe, to create, and to challenge.

Imagination

The human’s descriptive imagination is about seeing the world as it is. It enables us to identify patterns, to make sense of it and to see new possibilities and opportunities. When adding structure to information by building metaphors with LEGO® bricks we are effectively using descriptive imagination to focus on repeating patterns and to see things in a new way. The creative imagination allows us to see what isn’t there, which means we can develop and create new things and patterns. In Build & Share we use this imagination to generate new possibilities from the combination, recombination or transformation of the things or concepts we have built. The challenging imagination encourages us to negate, defame, contradict and even destroy the sense of progress that comes from descriptions and creativity. That enables us to look at things in a new way and be even more creative and innovative.

This creative, metaphorical and visual approach in LEGO® SERIOUS® PLAY® for Positive Psychology makes a much richer and more memorable learning experience, which especially is an advantage when dealing with the complex and abstract concepts within the field of positive psychology.

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Building Psychological Capital

Detail and perspectiveBuild & Share™ is particularly useful to investigate those characteristics that create feelings of hope, self-efficacy, optimism and resilience and together those four components create Positive Psychological Capital.

Positive Psychological Capital (PsyCap) is defined as “an individual’s positive psychological state of development”. In other words PsyCap can be used as a way to define well-beeing, and Build & Share seek to strength and develop both the individual and group based PsyCap.

The four components

Research has shown that PsyCap has a positive influence on performance and satisfaction in groups and organisations. The four components in PsyCap are defined as:

  • Hope: persevering toward goals and, when necessary, redirecting paths to goals (hope) in order to succeed.
  • Self-efficacy: having confidence (self-efficacy) to take on and put in the necessary effort to succeed at challenging tasks.
  • Optimism: making a positive attribution (optimism) about succeeding now
  • Resilience: sustaining and bouncing back and even beyond (resilience) to attain success

As PsyCap is concerned about an individual’s internal resources for dealing with challenges at work, PsyCap is an emerging framework for applying positive psychology to business settings. By developing employee’s psychological capital organisations can create a competitive advantage