Primer To Positive Psychology Values

Nathan Hernandez

First Year Seminar

Nivla Fitzpatrick

Values Aiding the Pursuit For a Better You

According to Christopher Peterson (2006) in his book A Primer to Positive Psychology, “part of the good life is the articulation and pursuit of those goals that we deem worthy.” He describes these as values. Finding vales in yourself will help you become a better person in the eyes of your own. This will transfer onto your work ethic and you will become successful as a result. Three factors play a part in this. Self-direction, Moral Ambition, and Cultural Intelligence, these are three things that help in pursuing a goal of achieving better character and work ethic. With these three values, you will feel as if you are ahead of the crowd. Like

After establishing a strong work ethic, it is imperative that you accompany this trait with a set of values that you live your life by. When thinking about moral ambition, there are some ways that people seek moral improvement. Some choose a discriminating path by which Glen Pettigrove and Michael Meyer (2009) describe as “seeking honor ‘by the study of wisdom and the patience of virtue.” In other words, if this is how they wish to achieve it, it is likely to believe that they are craving admiration for their qualities. They are unlikely to receive this admiration they desire because that is not how it works; you cannot seek admiration and then choose to be a person of character. “The person who strives to improve her character in order to acquire praise from others has not yet properly internalized the value of this improvement.” (Pettigrove & Meyer, 2009) Someone truly seeking moral improvement might avoid the problems with the previous and aim to “not acquire the admiration of the ‘wise and the virtuous’ but to deserve it.” (Pettigrove & Meyer, 2009). The value of moral ambition, described by these two is “a desire to better oneself morally that leads one to strive for moral excellence.” This craving for moral excellence allows one to look at one’s actions “through the lens of moral worth, and to condemn oneself when one’s actions or motives fall short of the standard of excellence.”

One will not be easily manipulated by others because they stick to their morals and belief, it will also be easier because with motivation comes hard work. Hard work is attractive and thus people will be more inclined to go out of their way speak to you if they see that you are successful, especially people who too themselves are successful. When speaking to others, it is important to keep an open mind and avoid being ethnocentric. Someone who is ethnocentric is described as not being able to see where other people are coming from, they compare everyone else’s culture to their own and fail to accept the differences, thus they are blinded by diversity. But I digress, cultural intelligence is defined by the International Journal of Cross Cultural Management (2008) as “…a system of interacting knowledge and skills, linked by cultural metacognition, that allows people to adapt to, select, and shape the cultural aspects of their environment.” It is a “multidimensional construct that has compensatory qualities in its effects on it outcome of culturally intelligent behavior.” (Thomas et al., 2008) The constituent elements of Cultural Intelligence include: cultural knowledge, cross-cultural skills, and cultural metacognition. “Specific content knowledge of cultures,” described by Thomas et al., (2008) “is the foundation of cultural intelligence