TY - JOUR
T1 - Survivor mission
T2 - Do those who survive have a drive to thrive at work?
AU - Eskreis-Winkler, Lauren
AU - Shulman, Elizabeth P.
AU - Duckworth, Angela L.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Adam Grant, Martin Seligman, Geoffrey Goodwin, Eli Tsukayama, Ann-Marie Roepke, Marie Forgeard, and Ari Lustig for their helpful feedback. This research was supported by funding from the National Institutes of Health (5-K01-AG033182-02).
PY - 2014/5
Y1 - 2014/5
N2 - Are helping professionals who have experienced the same types of struggles as their clients more engaged at work? In the current investigation, we examine this question in samples of police detectives (with and without a history of violent victimization) and mental health workers (with and without a history of mental illness). Our results indicate that police detectives who have experienced violent victimization and mental health professionals who have experienced the same mental illness as their clients do indeed exhibit greater work engagement than their colleagues who lack these parallel life experiences. The link between a professional's firsthand experience of his/her client's hardships and work engagement appears to be partially explained by higher levels of grit among police detectives and by a greater sense of life-narrative continuity among mental health professionals.
AB - Are helping professionals who have experienced the same types of struggles as their clients more engaged at work? In the current investigation, we examine this question in samples of police detectives (with and without a history of violent victimization) and mental health workers (with and without a history of mental illness). Our results indicate that police detectives who have experienced violent victimization and mental health professionals who have experienced the same mental illness as their clients do indeed exhibit greater work engagement than their colleagues who lack these parallel life experiences. The link between a professional's firsthand experience of his/her client's hardships and work engagement appears to be partially explained by higher levels of grit among police detectives and by a greater sense of life-narrative continuity among mental health professionals.
KW - altruism born of suffering
KW - empathy
KW - grit
KW - survivor mission
KW - work engagement
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U2 - 10.1080/17439760.2014.888579
DO - 10.1080/17439760.2014.888579
M3 - Article
C2 - 24748898
AN - SCOPUS:84897990238
SN - 1743-9760
VL - 9
SP - 209
EP - 218
JO - Journal of Positive Psychology
JF - Journal of Positive Psychology
IS - 3
ER -
