psychological capital

[ljgeoff]

There's an interesting article in this month's Scientific American: What You Need To Succeed -- And How To Find Out If You Have It.

The article talks about a 2011 study by Avery, et el -- Meta-analysis of the impact of positive psychological capital on employee attitudes, behaviors, and performance.

In the study, researchers measured levels of "psychological capital" -- efficacy, hope, and resilience. The researchers found that self-measures for this kind of thing are awful because folks tend to report what they wish were true or what they think is normal or appropriate, instead of what is really going on. So, instead, the researches asked the participants to rate an avatar.

Rather than using real people, some of whom may actually be jerks, they asked subjects to conjure up imaginary people, on whom they could impose their own schema and mindsets. The result is a world they have completely made up. “It’s all a projection,” Harms explains, a kind of ethereal Rorschach test. And it seems to work. (Ingrid Wickelgren in Scientific American)

So, here's my question: Wouldn't it be interesting to do this with Sims? Couldn't you test rather young kids with this? Wouldn't this work in testing hope, resiliency, and efficacy in, say, middle school kids?

I think that this would be pretty darn interesting.