CIO Wiki

  • Recent changes
  • Random page
  • Help about MediaWiki
  • What links here
  • Related changes
  • Special pages
  • Printable version
  • Permanent link
  • Page information
  • View source

PRIDE Methodology

What is pride methodology.

PRIDE methodology is a Software Development methodology that stands for Planning, Requirements, Implementation, Deployment, and Evaluation. It is a process-oriented approach to software development that emphasizes the importance of careful planning and the systematic gathering of requirements before beginning the implementation phase.

The PRIDE methodology involves the following steps:

Planning: This step involves identifying the goals and objectives of the software project, as well as the resources and time frame needed to complete it.

Requirements: This step involves gathering detailed information about the functional and non-functional requirements of the software, as well as the stakeholders and users who will be impacted by the project.

Implementation: This step involves designing and building the software based on the requirements gathered in the previous step.

Deployment: This step involves installing and testing the software in a production environment, and making any necessary modifications to ensure that it is working properly.

Evaluation: This step involves evaluating the performance of the software and gathering feedback from users, and making any necessary changes to improve the software.

PRIDE methodology is often used in large-scale software development projects, as it helps to ensure that the project is well-planned and that the software meets the needs of the stakeholders and users.

So, PRIDE methodology is a software development methodology that stands for Planning, Requirements, Implementation, Deployment, and Evaluation, and it is a process-oriented approach to software development that emphasizes the importance of careful planning and the systematic gathering of requirements. It is often used in large-scale software development projects to help ensure that the project is well-planned and that the software meets the needs of the stakeholders and users.

  • Search Menu
  • Browse content in Arts and Humanities
  • Browse content in Archaeology
  • Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Archaeology
  • Archaeological Methodology and Techniques
  • Archaeology by Region
  • Archaeology of Religion
  • Archaeology of Trade and Exchange
  • Biblical Archaeology
  • Contemporary and Public Archaeology
  • Environmental Archaeology
  • Historical Archaeology
  • History and Theory of Archaeology
  • Industrial Archaeology
  • Landscape Archaeology
  • Mortuary Archaeology
  • Prehistoric Archaeology
  • Underwater Archaeology
  • Zooarchaeology
  • Browse content in Architecture
  • Architectural Structure and Design
  • History of Architecture
  • Residential and Domestic Buildings
  • Theory of Architecture
  • Browse content in Art
  • Art Subjects and Themes
  • History of Art
  • Industrial and Commercial Art
  • Theory of Art
  • Biographical Studies
  • Byzantine Studies
  • Browse content in Classical Studies
  • Classical History
  • Classical Philosophy
  • Classical Mythology
  • Classical Literature
  • Classical Reception
  • Classical Art and Architecture
  • Classical Oratory and Rhetoric
  • Greek and Roman Papyrology
  • Greek and Roman Epigraphy
  • Greek and Roman Law
  • Greek and Roman Archaeology
  • Late Antiquity
  • Religion in the Ancient World
  • Digital Humanities
  • Browse content in History
  • Colonialism and Imperialism
  • Diplomatic History
  • Environmental History
  • Genealogy, Heraldry, Names, and Honours
  • Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing
  • Historical Geography
  • History by Period
  • History of Agriculture
  • History of Education
  • History of Gender and Sexuality
  • Industrial History
  • Intellectual History
  • International History
  • Labour History
  • Legal and Constitutional History
  • Local and Family History
  • Maritime History
  • Military History
  • National Liberation and Post-Colonialism
  • Oral History
  • Political History
  • Public History
  • Regional and National History
  • Revolutions and Rebellions
  • Slavery and Abolition of Slavery
  • Social and Cultural History
  • Theory, Methods, and Historiography
  • Urban History
  • World History
  • Browse content in Language Teaching and Learning
  • Language Learning (Specific Skills)
  • Language Teaching Theory and Methods
  • Browse content in Linguistics
  • Applied Linguistics
  • Cognitive Linguistics
  • Computational Linguistics
  • Forensic Linguistics
  • Grammar, Syntax and Morphology
  • Historical and Diachronic Linguistics
  • History of English
  • Language Evolution
  • Language Reference
  • Language Acquisition
  • Language Variation
  • Language Families
  • Lexicography
  • Linguistic Anthropology
  • Linguistic Theories
  • Linguistic Typology
  • Phonetics and Phonology
  • Psycholinguistics
  • Sociolinguistics
  • Translation and Interpretation
  • Writing Systems
  • Browse content in Literature
  • Bibliography
  • Children's Literature Studies
  • Literary Studies (Romanticism)
  • Literary Studies (American)
  • Literary Studies (Asian)
  • Literary Studies (European)
  • Literary Studies (Eco-criticism)
  • Literary Studies (Modernism)
  • Literary Studies - World
  • Literary Studies (1500 to 1800)
  • Literary Studies (19th Century)
  • Literary Studies (20th Century onwards)
  • Literary Studies (African American Literature)
  • Literary Studies (British and Irish)
  • Literary Studies (Early and Medieval)
  • Literary Studies (Fiction, Novelists, and Prose Writers)
  • Literary Studies (Gender Studies)
  • Literary Studies (Graphic Novels)
  • Literary Studies (History of the Book)
  • Literary Studies (Plays and Playwrights)
  • Literary Studies (Poetry and Poets)
  • Literary Studies (Postcolonial Literature)
  • Literary Studies (Queer Studies)
  • Literary Studies (Science Fiction)
  • Literary Studies (Travel Literature)
  • Literary Studies (War Literature)
  • Literary Studies (Women's Writing)
  • Literary Theory and Cultural Studies
  • Mythology and Folklore
  • Shakespeare Studies and Criticism
  • Browse content in Media Studies
  • Browse content in Music
  • Applied Music
  • Dance and Music
  • Ethics in Music
  • Ethnomusicology
  • Gender and Sexuality in Music
  • Medicine and Music
  • Music Cultures
  • Music and Media
  • Music and Religion
  • Music and Culture
  • Music Education and Pedagogy
  • Music Theory and Analysis
  • Musical Scores, Lyrics, and Libretti
  • Musical Structures, Styles, and Techniques
  • Musicology and Music History
  • Performance Practice and Studies
  • Race and Ethnicity in Music
  • Sound Studies
  • Browse content in Performing Arts
  • Browse content in Philosophy
  • Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art
  • Epistemology
  • Feminist Philosophy
  • History of Western Philosophy
  • Metaphysics
  • Moral Philosophy
  • Non-Western Philosophy
  • Philosophy of Language
  • Philosophy of Mind
  • Philosophy of Perception
  • Philosophy of Science
  • Philosophy of Action
  • Philosophy of Law
  • Philosophy of Religion
  • Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic
  • Practical Ethics
  • Social and Political Philosophy
  • Browse content in Religion
  • Biblical Studies
  • Christianity
  • East Asian Religions
  • History of Religion
  • Judaism and Jewish Studies
  • Qumran Studies
  • Religion and Education
  • Religion and Health
  • Religion and Politics
  • Religion and Science
  • Religion and Law
  • Religion and Art, Literature, and Music
  • Religious Studies
  • Browse content in Society and Culture
  • Cookery, Food, and Drink
  • Cultural Studies
  • Customs and Traditions
  • Ethical Issues and Debates
  • Hobbies, Games, Arts and Crafts
  • Lifestyle, Home, and Garden
  • Natural world, Country Life, and Pets
  • Popular Beliefs and Controversial Knowledge
  • Sports and Outdoor Recreation
  • Technology and Society
  • Travel and Holiday
  • Visual Culture
  • Browse content in Law
  • Arbitration
  • Browse content in Company and Commercial Law
  • Commercial Law
  • Company Law
  • Browse content in Comparative Law
  • Systems of Law
  • Competition Law
  • Browse content in Constitutional and Administrative Law
  • Government Powers
  • Judicial Review
  • Local Government Law
  • Military and Defence Law
  • Parliamentary and Legislative Practice
  • Construction Law
  • Contract Law
  • Browse content in Criminal Law
  • Criminal Procedure
  • Criminal Evidence Law
  • Sentencing and Punishment
  • Employment and Labour Law
  • Environment and Energy Law
  • Browse content in Financial Law
  • Banking Law
  • Insolvency Law
  • History of Law
  • Human Rights and Immigration
  • Intellectual Property Law
  • Browse content in International Law
  • Private International Law and Conflict of Laws
  • Public International Law
  • IT and Communications Law
  • Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law
  • Law and Politics
  • Law and Society
  • Browse content in Legal System and Practice
  • Courts and Procedure
  • Legal Skills and Practice
  • Primary Sources of Law
  • Regulation of Legal Profession
  • Medical and Healthcare Law
  • Browse content in Policing
  • Criminal Investigation and Detection
  • Police and Security Services
  • Police Procedure and Law
  • Police Regional Planning
  • Browse content in Property Law
  • Personal Property Law
  • Study and Revision
  • Terrorism and National Security Law
  • Browse content in Trusts Law
  • Wills and Probate or Succession
  • Browse content in Medicine and Health
  • Browse content in Allied Health Professions
  • Arts Therapies
  • Clinical Science
  • Dietetics and Nutrition
  • Occupational Therapy
  • Operating Department Practice
  • Physiotherapy
  • Radiography
  • Speech and Language Therapy
  • Browse content in Anaesthetics
  • General Anaesthesia
  • Neuroanaesthesia
  • Clinical Neuroscience
  • Browse content in Clinical Medicine
  • Acute Medicine
  • Cardiovascular Medicine
  • Clinical Genetics
  • Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics
  • Dermatology
  • Endocrinology and Diabetes
  • Gastroenterology
  • Genito-urinary Medicine
  • Geriatric Medicine
  • Infectious Diseases
  • Medical Toxicology
  • Medical Oncology
  • Pain Medicine
  • Palliative Medicine
  • Rehabilitation Medicine
  • Respiratory Medicine and Pulmonology
  • Rheumatology
  • Sleep Medicine
  • Sports and Exercise Medicine
  • Community Medical Services
  • Critical Care
  • Emergency Medicine
  • Forensic Medicine
  • Haematology
  • History of Medicine
  • Browse content in Medical Skills
  • Clinical Skills
  • Communication Skills
  • Nursing Skills
  • Surgical Skills
  • Browse content in Medical Dentistry
  • Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
  • Paediatric Dentistry
  • Restorative Dentistry and Orthodontics
  • Surgical Dentistry
  • Medical Ethics
  • Medical Statistics and Methodology
  • Browse content in Neurology
  • Clinical Neurophysiology
  • Neuropathology
  • Nursing Studies
  • Browse content in Obstetrics and Gynaecology
  • Gynaecology
  • Occupational Medicine
  • Ophthalmology
  • Otolaryngology (ENT)
  • Browse content in Paediatrics
  • Neonatology
  • Browse content in Pathology
  • Chemical Pathology
  • Clinical Cytogenetics and Molecular Genetics
  • Histopathology
  • Medical Microbiology and Virology
  • Patient Education and Information
  • Browse content in Pharmacology
  • Psychopharmacology
  • Browse content in Popular Health
  • Caring for Others
  • Complementary and Alternative Medicine
  • Self-help and Personal Development
  • Browse content in Preclinical Medicine
  • Cell Biology
  • Molecular Biology and Genetics
  • Reproduction, Growth and Development
  • Primary Care
  • Professional Development in Medicine
  • Browse content in Psychiatry
  • Addiction Medicine
  • Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
  • Forensic Psychiatry
  • Learning Disabilities
  • Old Age Psychiatry
  • Psychotherapy
  • Browse content in Public Health and Epidemiology
  • Epidemiology
  • Public Health
  • Browse content in Radiology
  • Clinical Radiology
  • Interventional Radiology
  • Nuclear Medicine
  • Radiation Oncology
  • Reproductive Medicine
  • Browse content in Surgery
  • Cardiothoracic Surgery
  • Gastro-intestinal and Colorectal Surgery
  • General Surgery
  • Neurosurgery
  • Paediatric Surgery
  • Peri-operative Care
  • Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
  • Surgical Oncology
  • Transplant Surgery
  • Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgery
  • Vascular Surgery
  • Browse content in Science and Mathematics
  • Browse content in Biological Sciences
  • Aquatic Biology
  • Biochemistry
  • Bioinformatics and Computational Biology
  • Developmental Biology
  • Ecology and Conservation
  • Evolutionary Biology
  • Genetics and Genomics
  • Microbiology
  • Molecular and Cell Biology
  • Natural History
  • Plant Sciences and Forestry
  • Research Methods in Life Sciences
  • Structural Biology
  • Systems Biology
  • Zoology and Animal Sciences
  • Browse content in Chemistry
  • Analytical Chemistry
  • Computational Chemistry
  • Crystallography
  • Environmental Chemistry
  • Industrial Chemistry
  • Inorganic Chemistry
  • Materials Chemistry
  • Medicinal Chemistry
  • Mineralogy and Gems
  • Organic Chemistry
  • Physical Chemistry
  • Polymer Chemistry
  • Study and Communication Skills in Chemistry
  • Theoretical Chemistry
  • Browse content in Computer Science
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Computer Architecture and Logic Design
  • Game Studies
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Mathematical Theory of Computation
  • Programming Languages
  • Software Engineering
  • Systems Analysis and Design
  • Virtual Reality
  • Browse content in Computing
  • Business Applications
  • Computer Security
  • Computer Games
  • Computer Networking and Communications
  • Digital Lifestyle
  • Graphical and Digital Media Applications
  • Operating Systems
  • Browse content in Earth Sciences and Geography
  • Atmospheric Sciences
  • Environmental Geography
  • Geology and the Lithosphere
  • Maps and Map-making
  • Meteorology and Climatology
  • Oceanography and Hydrology
  • Palaeontology
  • Physical Geography and Topography
  • Regional Geography
  • Soil Science
  • Urban Geography
  • Browse content in Engineering and Technology
  • Agriculture and Farming
  • Biological Engineering
  • Civil Engineering, Surveying, and Building
  • Electronics and Communications Engineering
  • Energy Technology
  • Engineering (General)
  • Environmental Science, Engineering, and Technology
  • History of Engineering and Technology
  • Mechanical Engineering and Materials
  • Technology of Industrial Chemistry
  • Transport Technology and Trades
  • Browse content in Environmental Science
  • Applied Ecology (Environmental Science)
  • Conservation of the Environment (Environmental Science)
  • Environmental Sustainability
  • Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Environmental Science)
  • Management of Land and Natural Resources (Environmental Science)
  • Natural Disasters (Environmental Science)
  • Nuclear Issues (Environmental Science)
  • Pollution and Threats to the Environment (Environmental Science)
  • Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Environmental Science)
  • History of Science and Technology
  • Browse content in Materials Science
  • Ceramics and Glasses
  • Composite Materials
  • Metals, Alloying, and Corrosion
  • Nanotechnology
  • Browse content in Mathematics
  • Applied Mathematics
  • Biomathematics and Statistics
  • History of Mathematics
  • Mathematical Education
  • Mathematical Finance
  • Mathematical Analysis
  • Numerical and Computational Mathematics
  • Probability and Statistics
  • Pure Mathematics
  • Browse content in Neuroscience
  • Cognition and Behavioural Neuroscience
  • Development of the Nervous System
  • Disorders of the Nervous System
  • History of Neuroscience
  • Invertebrate Neurobiology
  • Molecular and Cellular Systems
  • Neuroendocrinology and Autonomic Nervous System
  • Neuroscientific Techniques
  • Sensory and Motor Systems
  • Browse content in Physics
  • Astronomy and Astrophysics
  • Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics
  • Biological and Medical Physics
  • Classical Mechanics
  • Computational Physics
  • Condensed Matter Physics
  • Electromagnetism, Optics, and Acoustics
  • History of Physics
  • Mathematical and Statistical Physics
  • Measurement Science
  • Nuclear Physics
  • Particles and Fields
  • Plasma Physics
  • Quantum Physics
  • Relativity and Gravitation
  • Semiconductor and Mesoscopic Physics
  • Browse content in Psychology
  • Affective Sciences
  • Clinical Psychology
  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Criminal and Forensic Psychology
  • Developmental Psychology
  • Educational Psychology
  • Evolutionary Psychology
  • Health Psychology
  • History and Systems in Psychology
  • Music Psychology
  • Neuropsychology
  • Organizational Psychology
  • Psychological Assessment and Testing
  • Psychology of Human-Technology Interaction
  • Psychology Professional Development and Training
  • Research Methods in Psychology
  • Social Psychology
  • Browse content in Social Sciences
  • Browse content in Anthropology
  • Anthropology of Religion
  • Human Evolution
  • Medical Anthropology
  • Physical Anthropology
  • Regional Anthropology
  • Social and Cultural Anthropology
  • Theory and Practice of Anthropology
  • Browse content in Business and Management
  • Business Ethics
  • Business Strategy
  • Business History
  • Business and Technology
  • Business and Government
  • Business and the Environment
  • Comparative Management
  • Corporate Governance
  • Corporate Social Responsibility
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Health Management
  • Human Resource Management
  • Industrial and Employment Relations
  • Industry Studies
  • Information and Communication Technologies
  • International Business
  • Knowledge Management
  • Management and Management Techniques
  • Operations Management
  • Organizational Theory and Behaviour
  • Pensions and Pension Management
  • Public and Nonprofit Management
  • Strategic Management
  • Supply Chain Management
  • Browse content in Criminology and Criminal Justice
  • Criminal Justice
  • Criminology
  • Forms of Crime
  • International and Comparative Criminology
  • Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice
  • Development Studies
  • Browse content in Economics
  • Agricultural, Environmental, and Natural Resource Economics
  • Asian Economics
  • Behavioural Finance
  • Behavioural Economics and Neuroeconomics
  • Econometrics and Mathematical Economics
  • Economic History
  • Economic Systems
  • Economic Methodology
  • Economic Development and Growth
  • Financial Markets
  • Financial Institutions and Services
  • General Economics and Teaching
  • Health, Education, and Welfare
  • History of Economic Thought
  • International Economics
  • Labour and Demographic Economics
  • Law and Economics
  • Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics
  • Microeconomics
  • Public Economics
  • Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics
  • Welfare Economics
  • Browse content in Education
  • Adult Education and Continuous Learning
  • Care and Counselling of Students
  • Early Childhood and Elementary Education
  • Educational Equipment and Technology
  • Educational Strategies and Policy
  • Higher and Further Education
  • Organization and Management of Education
  • Philosophy and Theory of Education
  • Schools Studies
  • Secondary Education
  • Teaching of a Specific Subject
  • Teaching of Specific Groups and Special Educational Needs
  • Teaching Skills and Techniques
  • Browse content in Environment
  • Applied Ecology (Social Science)
  • Climate Change
  • Conservation of the Environment (Social Science)
  • Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Social Science)
  • Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Social Science)
  • Browse content in Human Geography
  • Cultural Geography
  • Economic Geography
  • Political Geography
  • Browse content in Interdisciplinary Studies
  • Communication Studies
  • Museums, Libraries, and Information Sciences
  • Browse content in Politics
  • African Politics
  • Asian Politics
  • Chinese Politics
  • Comparative Politics
  • Conflict Politics
  • Elections and Electoral Studies
  • Environmental Politics
  • European Union
  • Foreign Policy
  • Gender and Politics
  • Human Rights and Politics
  • Indian Politics
  • International Relations
  • International Organization (Politics)
  • International Political Economy
  • Irish Politics
  • Latin American Politics
  • Middle Eastern Politics
  • Political Behaviour
  • Political Economy
  • Political Institutions
  • Political Methodology
  • Political Communication
  • Political Philosophy
  • Political Sociology
  • Political Theory
  • Politics and Law
  • Public Policy
  • Public Administration
  • Quantitative Political Methodology
  • Regional Political Studies
  • Russian Politics
  • Security Studies
  • State and Local Government
  • UK Politics
  • US Politics
  • Browse content in Regional and Area Studies
  • African Studies
  • Asian Studies
  • East Asian Studies
  • Japanese Studies
  • Latin American Studies
  • Middle Eastern Studies
  • Native American Studies
  • Scottish Studies
  • Browse content in Research and Information
  • Research Methods
  • Browse content in Social Work
  • Addictions and Substance Misuse
  • Adoption and Fostering
  • Care of the Elderly
  • Child and Adolescent Social Work
  • Couple and Family Social Work
  • Developmental and Physical Disabilities Social Work
  • Direct Practice and Clinical Social Work
  • Emergency Services
  • Human Behaviour and the Social Environment
  • International and Global Issues in Social Work
  • Mental and Behavioural Health
  • Social Justice and Human Rights
  • Social Policy and Advocacy
  • Social Work and Crime and Justice
  • Social Work Macro Practice
  • Social Work Practice Settings
  • Social Work Research and Evidence-based Practice
  • Welfare and Benefit Systems
  • Browse content in Sociology
  • Childhood Studies
  • Community Development
  • Comparative and Historical Sociology
  • Economic Sociology
  • Gender and Sexuality
  • Gerontology and Ageing
  • Health, Illness, and Medicine
  • Marriage and the Family
  • Migration Studies
  • Occupations, Professions, and Work
  • Organizations
  • Population and Demography
  • Race and Ethnicity
  • Social Theory
  • Social Movements and Social Change
  • Social Research and Statistics
  • Social Stratification, Inequality, and Mobility
  • Sociology of Religion
  • Sociology of Education
  • Sport and Leisure
  • Urban and Rural Studies
  • Browse content in Warfare and Defence
  • Defence Strategy, Planning, and Research
  • Land Forces and Warfare
  • Military Administration
  • Military Life and Institutions
  • Naval Forces and Warfare
  • Other Warfare and Defence Issues
  • Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution
  • Weapons and Equipment

The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Psychology

  • < Previous chapter
  • Next chapter >

48 Problem Solving

Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara

  • Published: 03 June 2013
  • Cite Icon Cite
  • Permissions Icon Permissions

Problem solving refers to cognitive processing directed at achieving a goal when the problem solver does not initially know a solution method. A problem exists when someone has a goal but does not know how to achieve it. Problems can be classified as routine or nonroutine, and as well defined or ill defined. The major cognitive processes in problem solving are representing, planning, executing, and monitoring. The major kinds of knowledge required for problem solving are facts, concepts, procedures, strategies, and beliefs. Classic theoretical approaches to the study of problem solving are associationism, Gestalt, and information processing. Current issues and suggested future issues include decision making, intelligence and creativity, teaching of thinking skills, expert problem solving, analogical reasoning, mathematical and scientific thinking, everyday thinking, and the cognitive neuroscience of problem solving. Common themes concern the domain specificity of problem solving and a focus on problem solving in authentic contexts.

The study of problem solving begins with defining problem solving, problem, and problem types. This introduction to problem solving is rounded out with an examination of cognitive processes in problem solving, the role of knowledge in problem solving, and historical approaches to the study of problem solving.

Definition of Problem Solving

Problem solving refers to cognitive processing directed at achieving a goal for which the problem solver does not initially know a solution method. This definition consists of four major elements (Mayer, 1992 ; Mayer & Wittrock, 2006 ):

Cognitive —Problem solving occurs within the problem solver’s cognitive system and can only be inferred indirectly from the problem solver’s behavior (including biological changes, introspections, and actions during problem solving). Process —Problem solving involves mental computations in which some operation is applied to a mental representation, sometimes resulting in the creation of a new mental representation. Directed —Problem solving is aimed at achieving a goal. Personal —Problem solving depends on the existing knowledge of the problem solver so that what is a problem for one problem solver may not be a problem for someone who already knows a solution method.

The definition is broad enough to include a wide array of cognitive activities such as deciding which apartment to rent, figuring out how to use a cell phone interface, playing a game of chess, making a medical diagnosis, finding the answer to an arithmetic word problem, or writing a chapter for a handbook. Problem solving is pervasive in human life and is crucial for human survival. Although this chapter focuses on problem solving in humans, problem solving also occurs in nonhuman animals and in intelligent machines.

How is problem solving related to other forms of high-level cognition processing, such as thinking and reasoning? Thinking refers to cognitive processing in individuals but includes both directed thinking (which corresponds to the definition of problem solving) and undirected thinking such as daydreaming (which does not correspond to the definition of problem solving). Thus, problem solving is a type of thinking (i.e., directed thinking).

Reasoning refers to problem solving within specific classes of problems, such as deductive reasoning or inductive reasoning. In deductive reasoning, the reasoner is given premises and must derive a conclusion by applying the rules of logic. For example, given that “A is greater than B” and “B is greater than C,” a reasoner can conclude that “A is greater than C.” In inductive reasoning, the reasoner is given (or has experienced) a collection of examples or instances and must infer a rule. For example, given that X, C, and V are in the “yes” group and x, c, and v are in the “no” group, the reasoning may conclude that B is in “yes” group because it is in uppercase format. Thus, reasoning is a type of problem solving.

Definition of Problem

A problem occurs when someone has a goal but does not know to achieve it. This definition is consistent with how the Gestalt psychologist Karl Duncker ( 1945 , p. 1) defined a problem in his classic monograph, On Problem Solving : “A problem arises when a living creature has a goal but does not know how this goal is to be reached.” However, today researchers recognize that the definition should be extended to include problem solving by intelligent machines. This definition can be clarified using an information processing approach by noting that a problem occurs when a situation is in the given state, the problem solver wants the situation to be in the goal state, and there is no obvious way to move from the given state to the goal state (Newell & Simon, 1972 ). Accordingly, the three main elements in describing a problem are the given state (i.e., the current state of the situation), the goal state (i.e., the desired state of the situation), and the set of allowable operators (i.e., the actions the problem solver is allowed to take). The definition of “problem” is broad enough to include the situation confronting a physician who wishes to make a diagnosis on the basis of preliminary tests and a patient examination, as well as a beginning physics student trying to solve a complex physics problem.

Types of Problems

It is customary in the problem-solving literature to make a distinction between routine and nonroutine problems. Routine problems are problems that are so familiar to the problem solver that the problem solver knows a solution method. For example, for most adults, “What is 365 divided by 12?” is a routine problem because they already know the procedure for long division. Nonroutine problems are so unfamiliar to the problem solver that the problem solver does not know a solution method. For example, figuring out the best way to set up a funding campaign for a nonprofit charity is a nonroutine problem for most volunteers. Technically, routine problems do not meet the definition of problem because the problem solver has a goal but knows how to achieve it. Much research on problem solving has focused on routine problems, although most interesting problems in life are nonroutine.

Another customary distinction is between well-defined and ill-defined problems. Well-defined problems have a clearly specified given state, goal state, and legal operators. Examples include arithmetic computation problems or games such as checkers or tic-tac-toe. Ill-defined problems have a poorly specified given state, goal state, or legal operators, or a combination of poorly defined features. Examples include solving the problem of global warming or finding a life partner. Although, ill-defined problems are more challenging, much research in problem solving has focused on well-defined problems.

Cognitive Processes in Problem Solving

The process of problem solving can be broken down into two main phases: problem representation , in which the problem solver builds a mental representation of the problem situation, and problem solution , in which the problem solver works to produce a solution. The major subprocess in problem representation is representing , which involves building a situation model —that is, a mental representation of the situation described in the problem. The major subprocesses in problem solution are planning , which involves devising a plan for how to solve the problem; executing , which involves carrying out the plan; and monitoring , which involves evaluating and adjusting one’s problem solving.

For example, given an arithmetic word problem such as “Alice has three marbles. Sarah has two more marbles than Alice. How many marbles does Sarah have?” the process of representing involves building a situation model in which Alice has a set of marbles, there is set of marbles for the difference between the two girls, and Sarah has a set of marbles that consists of Alice’s marbles and the difference set. In the planning process, the problem solver sets a goal of adding 3 and 2. In the executing process, the problem solver carries out the computation, yielding an answer of 5. In the monitoring process, the problem solver looks over what was done and concludes that 5 is a reasonable answer. In most complex problem-solving episodes, the four cognitive processes may not occur in linear order, but rather may interact with one another. Although some research focuses mainly on the execution process, problem solvers may tend to have more difficulty with the processes of representing, planning, and monitoring.

Knowledge for Problem Solving

An important theme in problem-solving research is that problem-solving proficiency on any task depends on the learner’s knowledge (Anderson et al., 2001 ; Mayer, 1992 ). Five kinds of knowledge are as follows:

Facts —factual knowledge about the characteristics of elements in the world, such as “Sacramento is the capital of California” Concepts —conceptual knowledge, including categories, schemas, or models, such as knowing the difference between plants and animals or knowing how a battery works Procedures —procedural knowledge of step-by-step processes, such as how to carry out long-division computations Strategies —strategic knowledge of general methods such as breaking a problem into parts or thinking of a related problem Beliefs —attitudinal knowledge about how one’s cognitive processing works such as thinking, “I’m good at this”

Although some research focuses mainly on the role of facts and procedures in problem solving, complex problem solving also depends on the problem solver’s concepts, strategies, and beliefs (Mayer, 1992 ).

Historical Approaches to Problem Solving

Psychological research on problem solving began in the early 1900s, as an outgrowth of mental philosophy (Humphrey, 1963 ; Mandler & Mandler, 1964 ). Throughout the 20th century four theoretical approaches developed: early conceptions, associationism, Gestalt psychology, and information processing.

Early Conceptions

The start of psychology as a science can be set at 1879—the year Wilhelm Wundt opened the first world’s psychology laboratory in Leipzig, Germany, and sought to train the world’s first cohort of experimental psychologists. Instead of relying solely on philosophical speculations about how the human mind works, Wundt sought to apply the methods of experimental science to issues addressed in mental philosophy. His theoretical approach became structuralism —the analysis of consciousness into its basic elements.

Wundt’s main contribution to the study of problem solving, however, was to call for its banishment. According to Wundt, complex cognitive processing was too complicated to be studied by experimental methods, so “nothing can be discovered in such experiments” (Wundt, 1911/1973 ). Despite his admonishments, however, a group of his former students began studying thinking mainly in Wurzburg, Germany. Using the method of introspection, subjects were asked to describe their thought process as they solved word association problems, such as finding the superordinate of “newspaper” (e.g., an answer is “publication”). Although the Wurzburg group—as they came to be called—did not produce a new theoretical approach, they found empirical evidence that challenged some of the key assumptions of mental philosophy. For example, Aristotle had proclaimed that all thinking involves mental imagery, but the Wurzburg group was able to find empirical evidence for imageless thought .

Associationism

The first major theoretical approach to take hold in the scientific study of problem solving was associationism —the idea that the cognitive representations in the mind consist of ideas and links between them and that cognitive processing in the mind involves following a chain of associations from one idea to the next (Mandler & Mandler, 1964 ; Mayer, 1992 ). For example, in a classic study, E. L. Thorndike ( 1911 ) placed a hungry cat in what he called a puzzle box—a wooden crate in which pulling a loop of string that hung from overhead would open a trap door to allow the cat to escape to a bowl of food outside the crate. Thorndike placed the cat in the puzzle box once a day for several weeks. On the first day, the cat engaged in many extraneous behaviors such as pouncing against the wall, pushing its paws through the slats, and meowing, but on successive days the number of extraneous behaviors tended to decrease. Overall, the time required to get out of the puzzle box decreased over the course of the experiment, indicating the cat was learning how to escape.

Thorndike’s explanation for how the cat learned to solve the puzzle box problem is based on an associationist view: The cat begins with a habit family hierarchy —a set of potential responses (e.g., pouncing, thrusting, meowing, etc.) all associated with the same stimulus (i.e., being hungry and confined) and ordered in terms of strength of association. When placed in the puzzle box, the cat executes its strongest response (e.g., perhaps pouncing against the wall), but when it fails, the strength of the association is weakened, and so on for each unsuccessful action. Eventually, the cat gets down to what was initially a weak response—waving its paw in the air—but when that response leads to accidentally pulling the string and getting out, it is strengthened. Over the course of many trials, the ineffective responses become weak and the successful response becomes strong. Thorndike refers to this process as the law of effect : Responses that lead to dissatisfaction become less associated with the situation and responses that lead to satisfaction become more associated with the situation. According to Thorndike’s associationist view, solving a problem is simply a matter of trial and error and accidental success. A major challenge to assocationist theory concerns the nature of transfer—that is, where does a problem solver find a creative solution that has never been performed before? Associationist conceptions of cognition can be seen in current research, including neural networks, connectionist models, and parallel distributed processing models (Rogers & McClelland, 2004 ).

Gestalt Psychology

The Gestalt approach to problem solving developed in the 1930s and 1940s as a counterbalance to the associationist approach. According to the Gestalt approach, cognitive representations consist of coherent structures (rather than individual associations) and the cognitive process of problem solving involves building a coherent structure (rather than strengthening and weakening of associations). For example, in a classic study, Kohler ( 1925 ) placed a hungry ape in a play yard that contained several empty shipping crates and a banana attached overhead but out of reach. Based on observing the ape in this situation, Kohler noted that the ape did not randomly try responses until one worked—as suggested by Thorndike’s associationist view. Instead, the ape stood under the banana, looked up at it, looked at the crates, and then in a flash of insight stacked the crates under the bananas as a ladder, and walked up the steps in order to reach the banana.

According to Kohler, the ape experienced a sudden visual reorganization in which the elements in the situation fit together in a way to solve the problem; that is, the crates could become a ladder that reduces the distance to the banana. Kohler referred to the underlying mechanism as insight —literally seeing into the structure of the situation. A major challenge of Gestalt theory is its lack of precision; for example, naming a process (i.e., insight) is not the same as explaining how it works. Gestalt conceptions can be seen in modern research on mental models and schemas (Gentner & Stevens, 1983 ).

Information Processing

The information processing approach to problem solving developed in the 1960s and 1970s and was based on the influence of the computer metaphor—the idea that humans are processors of information (Mayer, 2009 ). According to the information processing approach, problem solving involves a series of mental computations—each of which consists of applying a process to a mental representation (such as comparing two elements to determine whether they differ).

In their classic book, Human Problem Solving , Newell and Simon ( 1972 ) proposed that problem solving involved a problem space and search heuristics . A problem space is a mental representation of the initial state of the problem, the goal state of the problem, and all possible intervening states (based on applying allowable operators). Search heuristics are strategies for moving through the problem space from the given to the goal state. Newell and Simon focused on means-ends analysis , in which the problem solver continually sets goals and finds moves to accomplish goals.

Newell and Simon used computer simulation as a research method to test their conception of human problem solving. First, they asked human problem solvers to think aloud as they solved various problems such as logic problems, chess, and cryptarithmetic problems. Then, based on an information processing analysis, Newell and Simon created computer programs that solved these problems. In comparing the solution behavior of humans and computers, they found high similarity, suggesting that the computer programs were solving problems using the same thought processes as humans.

An important advantage of the information processing approach is that problem solving can be described with great clarity—as a computer program. An important limitation of the information processing approach is that it is most useful for describing problem solving for well-defined problems rather than ill-defined problems. The information processing conception of cognition lives on as a keystone of today’s cognitive science (Mayer, 2009 ).

Classic Issues in Problem Solving

Three classic issues in research on problem solving concern the nature of transfer (suggested by the associationist approach), the nature of insight (suggested by the Gestalt approach), and the role of problem-solving heuristics (suggested by the information processing approach).

Transfer refers to the effects of prior learning on new learning (or new problem solving). Positive transfer occurs when learning A helps someone learn B. Negative transfer occurs when learning A hinders someone from learning B. Neutral transfer occurs when learning A has no effect on learning B. Positive transfer is a central goal of education, but research shows that people often do not transfer what they learned to solving problems in new contexts (Mayer, 1992 ; Singley & Anderson, 1989 ).

Three conceptions of the mechanisms underlying transfer are specific transfer , general transfer , and specific transfer of general principles . Specific transfer refers to the idea that learning A will help someone learn B only if A and B have specific elements in common. For example, learning Spanish may help someone learn Latin because some of the vocabulary words are similar and the verb conjugation rules are similar. General transfer refers to the idea that learning A can help someone learn B even they have nothing specifically in common but A helps improve the learner’s mind in general. For example, learning Latin may help people learn “proper habits of mind” so they are better able to learn completely unrelated subjects as well. Specific transfer of general principles is the idea that learning A will help someone learn B if the same general principle or solution method is required for both even if the specific elements are different.

In a classic study, Thorndike and Woodworth ( 1901 ) found that students who learned Latin did not subsequently learn bookkeeping any better than students who had not learned Latin. They interpreted this finding as evidence for specific transfer—learning A did not transfer to learning B because A and B did not have specific elements in common. Modern research on problem-solving transfer continues to show that people often do not demonstrate general transfer (Mayer, 1992 ). However, it is possible to teach people a general strategy for solving a problem, so that when they see a new problem in a different context they are able to apply the strategy to the new problem (Judd, 1908 ; Mayer, 2008 )—so there is also research support for the idea of specific transfer of general principles.

Insight refers to a change in a problem solver’s mind from not knowing how to solve a problem to knowing how to solve it (Mayer, 1995 ; Metcalfe & Wiebe, 1987 ). In short, where does the idea for a creative solution come from? A central goal of problem-solving research is to determine the mechanisms underlying insight.

The search for insight has led to five major (but not mutually exclusive) explanatory mechanisms—insight as completing a schema, insight as suddenly reorganizing visual information, insight as reformulation of a problem, insight as removing mental blocks, and insight as finding a problem analog (Mayer, 1995 ). Completing a schema is exemplified in a study by Selz (Fridja & de Groot, 1982 ), in which people were asked to think aloud as they solved word association problems such as “What is the superordinate for newspaper?” To solve the problem, people sometimes thought of a coordinate, such as “magazine,” and then searched for a superordinate category that subsumed both terms, such as “publication.” According to Selz, finding a solution involved building a schema that consisted of a superordinate and two subordinate categories.

Reorganizing visual information is reflected in Kohler’s ( 1925 ) study described in a previous section in which a hungry ape figured out how to stack boxes as a ladder to reach a banana hanging above. According to Kohler, the ape looked around the yard and found the solution in a flash of insight by mentally seeing how the parts could be rearranged to accomplish the goal.

Reformulating a problem is reflected in a classic study by Duncker ( 1945 ) in which people are asked to think aloud as they solve the tumor problem—how can you destroy a tumor in a patient without destroying surrounding healthy tissue by using rays that at sufficient intensity will destroy any tissue in their path? In analyzing the thinking-aloud protocols—that is, transcripts of what the problem solvers said—Duncker concluded that people reformulated the goal in various ways (e.g., avoid contact with healthy tissue, immunize healthy tissue, have ray be weak in healthy tissue) until they hit upon a productive formulation that led to the solution (i.e., concentrating many weak rays on the tumor).

Removing mental blocks is reflected in classic studies by Duncker ( 1945 ) in which solving a problem involved thinking of a novel use for an object, and by Luchins ( 1942 ) in which solving a problem involved not using a procedure that had worked well on previous problems. Finding a problem analog is reflected in classic research by Wertheimer ( 1959 ) in which learning to find the area of a parallelogram is supported by the insight that one could cut off the triangle on one side and place it on the other side to form a rectangle—so a parallelogram is really a rectangle in disguise. The search for insight along each of these five lines continues in current problem-solving research.

Heuristics are problem-solving strategies, that is, general approaches to how to solve problems. Newell and Simon ( 1972 ) suggested three general problem-solving heuristics for moving from a given state to a goal state: random trial and error , hill climbing , and means-ends analysis . Random trial and error involves randomly selecting a legal move and applying it to create a new problem state, and repeating that process until the goal state is reached. Random trial and error may work for simple problems but is not efficient for complex ones. Hill climbing involves selecting the legal move that moves the problem solver closer to the goal state. Hill climbing will not work for problems in which the problem solver must take a move that temporarily moves away from the goal as is required in many problems.

Means-ends analysis involves creating goals and seeking moves that can accomplish the goal. If a goal cannot be directly accomplished, a subgoal is created to remove one or more obstacles. Newell and Simon ( 1972 ) successfully used means-ends analysis as the search heuristic in a computer program aimed at general problem solving, that is, solving a diverse collection of problems. However, people may also use specific heuristics that are designed to work for specific problem-solving situations (Gigerenzer, Todd, & ABC Research Group, 1999 ; Kahneman & Tversky, 1984 ).

Current and Future Issues in Problem Solving

Eight current issues in problem solving involve decision making, intelligence and creativity, teaching of thinking skills, expert problem solving, analogical reasoning, mathematical and scientific problem solving, everyday thinking, and the cognitive neuroscience of problem solving.

Decision Making

Decision making refers to the cognitive processing involved in choosing between two or more alternatives (Baron, 2000 ; Markman & Medin, 2002 ). For example, a decision-making task may involve choosing between getting $240 for sure or having a 25% change of getting $1000. According to economic theories such as expected value theory, people should chose the second option, which is worth $250 (i.e., .25 x $1000) rather than the first option, which is worth $240 (1.00 x $240), but psychological research shows that most people prefer the first option (Kahneman & Tversky, 1984 ).

Research on decision making has generated three classes of theories (Markman & Medin, 2002 ): descriptive theories, such as prospect theory (Kahneman & Tversky), which are based on the ideas that people prefer to overweight the cost of a loss and tend to overestimate small probabilities; heuristic theories, which are based on the idea that people use a collection of short-cut strategies such as the availability heuristic (Gigerenzer et al., 1999 ; Kahneman & Tversky, 2000 ); and constructive theories, such as mental accounting (Kahneman & Tversky, 2000 ), in which people build a narrative to justify their choices to themselves. Future research is needed to examine decision making in more realistic settings.

Intelligence and Creativity

Although researchers do not have complete consensus on the definition of intelligence (Sternberg, 1990 ), it is reasonable to view intelligence as the ability to learn or adapt to new situations. Fluid intelligence refers to the potential to solve problems without any relevant knowledge, whereas crystallized intelligence refers to the potential to solve problems based on relevant prior knowledge (Sternberg & Gregorenko, 2003 ). As people gain more experience in a field, their problem-solving performance depends more on crystallized intelligence (i.e., domain knowledge) than on fluid intelligence (i.e., general ability) (Sternberg & Gregorenko, 2003 ). The ability to monitor and manage one’s cognitive processing during problem solving—which can be called metacognition —is an important aspect of intelligence (Sternberg, 1990 ). Research is needed to pinpoint the knowledge that is needed to support intelligent performance on problem-solving tasks.

Creativity refers to the ability to generate ideas that are original (i.e., other people do not think of the same idea) and functional (i.e., the idea works; Sternberg, 1999 ). Creativity is often measured using tests of divergent thinking —that is, generating as many solutions as possible for a problem (Guilford, 1967 ). For example, the uses test asks people to list as many uses as they can think of for a brick. Creativity is different from intelligence, and it is at the heart of creative problem solving—generating a novel solution to a problem that the problem solver has never seen before. An important research question concerns whether creative problem solving depends on specific knowledge or creativity ability in general.

Teaching of Thinking Skills

How can people learn to be better problem solvers? Mayer ( 2008 ) proposes four questions concerning teaching of thinking skills:

What to teach —Successful programs attempt to teach small component skills (such as how to generate and evaluate hypotheses) rather than improve the mind as a single monolithic skill (Covington, Crutchfield, Davies, & Olton, 1974 ). How to teach —Successful programs focus on modeling the process of problem solving rather than solely reinforcing the product of problem solving (Bloom & Broder, 1950 ). Where to teach —Successful programs teach problem-solving skills within the specific context they will be used rather than within a general course on how to solve problems (Nickerson, 1999 ). When to teach —Successful programs teaching higher order skills early rather than waiting until lower order skills are completely mastered (Tharp & Gallimore, 1988 ).

Overall, research on teaching of thinking skills points to the domain specificity of problem solving; that is, successful problem solving depends on the problem solver having domain knowledge that is relevant to the problem-solving task.

Expert Problem Solving

Research on expertise is concerned with differences between how experts and novices solve problems (Ericsson, Feltovich, & Hoffman, 2006 ). Expertise can be defined in terms of time (e.g., 10 years of concentrated experience in a field), performance (e.g., earning a perfect score on an assessment), or recognition (e.g., receiving a Nobel Prize or becoming Grand Master in chess). For example, in classic research conducted in the 1940s, de Groot ( 1965 ) found that chess experts did not have better general memory than chess novices, but they did have better domain-specific memory for the arrangement of chess pieces on the board. Chase and Simon ( 1973 ) replicated this result in a better controlled experiment. An explanation is that experts have developed schemas that allow them to chunk collections of pieces into a single configuration.

In another landmark study, Larkin et al. ( 1980 ) compared how experts (e.g., physics professors) and novices (e.g., first-year physics students) solved textbook physics problems about motion. Experts tended to work forward from the given information to the goal, whereas novices tended to work backward from the goal to the givens using a means-ends analysis strategy. Experts tended to store their knowledge in an integrated way, whereas novices tended to store their knowledge in isolated fragments. In another study, Chi, Feltovich, and Glaser ( 1981 ) found that experts tended to focus on the underlying physics concepts (such as conservation of energy), whereas novices tended to focus on the surface features of the problem (such as inclined planes or springs). Overall, research on expertise is useful in pinpointing what experts know that is different from what novices know. An important theme is that experts rely on domain-specific knowledge rather than solely general cognitive ability.

Analogical Reasoning

Analogical reasoning occurs when people solve one problem by using their knowledge about another problem (Holyoak, 2005 ). For example, suppose a problem solver learns how to solve a problem in one context using one solution method and then is given a problem in another context that requires the same solution method. In this case, the problem solver must recognize that the new problem has structural similarity to the old problem (i.e., it may be solved by the same method), even though they do not have surface similarity (i.e., the cover stories are different). Three steps in analogical reasoning are recognizing —seeing that a new problem is similar to a previously solved problem; abstracting —finding the general method used to solve the old problem; and mapping —using that general method to solve the new problem.

Research on analogical reasoning shows that people often do not recognize that a new problem can be solved by the same method as a previously solved problem (Holyoak, 2005 ). However, research also shows that successful analogical transfer to a new problem is more likely when the problem solver has experience with two old problems that have the same underlying structural features (i.e., they are solved by the same principle) but different surface features (i.e., they have different cover stories) (Holyoak, 2005 ). This finding is consistent with the idea of specific transfer of general principles as described in the section on “Transfer.”

Mathematical and Scientific Problem Solving

Research on mathematical problem solving suggests that five kinds of knowledge are needed to solve arithmetic word problems (Mayer, 2008 ):

Factual knowledge —knowledge about the characteristics of problem elements, such as knowing that there are 100 cents in a dollar Schematic knowledge —knowledge of problem types, such as being able to recognize time-rate-distance problems Strategic knowledge —knowledge of general methods, such as how to break a problem into parts Procedural knowledge —knowledge of processes, such as how to carry our arithmetic operations Attitudinal knowledge —beliefs about one’s mathematical problem-solving ability, such as thinking, “I am good at this”

People generally possess adequate procedural knowledge but may have difficulty in solving mathematics problems because they lack factual, schematic, strategic, or attitudinal knowledge (Mayer, 2008 ). Research is needed to pinpoint the role of domain knowledge in mathematical problem solving.

Research on scientific problem solving shows that people harbor misconceptions, such as believing that a force is needed to keep an object in motion (McCloskey, 1983 ). Learning to solve science problems involves conceptual change, in which the problem solver comes to recognize that previous conceptions are wrong (Mayer, 2008 ). Students can be taught to engage in scientific reasoning such as hypothesis testing through direct instruction in how to control for variables (Chen & Klahr, 1999 ). A central theme of research on scientific problem solving concerns the role of domain knowledge.

Everyday Thinking

Everyday thinking refers to problem solving in the context of one’s life outside of school. For example, children who are street vendors tend to use different procedures for solving arithmetic problems when they are working on the streets than when they are in school (Nunes, Schlieman, & Carraher, 1993 ). This line of research highlights the role of situated cognition —the idea that thinking always is shaped by the physical and social context in which it occurs (Robbins & Aydede, 2009 ). Research is needed to determine how people solve problems in authentic contexts.

Cognitive Neuroscience of Problem Solving

The cognitive neuroscience of problem solving is concerned with the brain activity that occurs during problem solving. For example, using fMRI brain imaging methodology, Goel ( 2005 ) found that people used the language areas of the brain to solve logical reasoning problems presented in sentences (e.g., “All dogs are pets…”) and used the spatial areas of the brain to solve logical reasoning problems presented in abstract letters (e.g., “All D are P…”). Cognitive neuroscience holds the potential to make unique contributions to the study of problem solving.

Problem solving has always been a topic at the fringe of cognitive psychology—too complicated to study intensively but too important to completely ignore. Problem solving—especially in realistic environments—is messy in comparison to studying elementary processes in cognition. The field remains fragmented in the sense that topics such as decision making, reasoning, intelligence, expertise, mathematical problem solving, everyday thinking, and the like are considered to be separate topics, each with its own separate literature. Yet some recurring themes are the role of domain-specific knowledge in problem solving and the advantages of studying problem solving in authentic contexts.

Future Directions

Some important issues for future research include the three classic issues examined in this chapter—the nature of problem-solving transfer (i.e., How are people able to use what they know about previous problem solving to help them in new problem solving?), the nature of insight (e.g., What is the mechanism by which a creative solution is constructed?), and heuristics (e.g., What are some teachable strategies for problem solving?). In addition, future research in problem solving should continue to pinpoint the role of domain-specific knowledge in problem solving, the nature of cognitive ability in problem solving, how to help people develop proficiency in solving problems, and how to provide aids for problem solving.

Anderson L. W. , Krathwohl D. R. , Airasian P. W. , Cruikshank K. A. , Mayer R. E. , Pintrich P. R. , Raths, J., & Wittrock M. C. ( 2001 ). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives. New York : Longman.

Baron J. ( 2000 ). Thinking and deciding (3rd ed.). New York : Cambridge University Press.

Google Scholar

Google Preview

Bloom B. S. , & Broder B. J. ( 1950 ). Problem-solving processes of college students: An exploratory investigation. Chicago : University of Chicago Press.

Chase W. G. , & Simon H. A. ( 1973 ). Perception in chess.   Cognitive Psychology, 4, 55–81.

Chen Z. , & Klahr D. ( 1999 ). All other things being equal: Acquisition and transfer of the control of variable strategy . Child Development, 70, 1098–1120.

Chi M. T. H. , Feltovich P. J. , & Glaser R. ( 1981 ). Categorization and representation of physics problems by experts and novices. Cognitive Science, 5, 121–152.

Covington M. V. , Crutchfield R. S. , Davies L. B. , & Olton R. M. ( 1974 ). The productive thinking program. Columbus, OH : Merrill.

de Groot A. D. ( 1965 ). Thought and choice in chess. The Hague, The Netherlands : Mouton.

Duncker K. ( 1945 ). On problem solving.   Psychological Monographs, 58 (3) (Whole No. 270).

Ericsson K. A. , Feltovich P. J. , & Hoffman R. R. (Eds.). ( 2006 ). The Cambridge handbook of expertise and expert performance. New York : Cambridge University Press.

Fridja N. H. , & de Groot A. D. ( 1982 ). Otto Selz: His contribution to psychology. The Hague, The Netherlands : Mouton.

Gentner D. , & Stevens A. L. (Eds.). ( 1983 ). Mental models. Hillsdale, NJ : Erlbaum.

Gigerenzer G. , Todd P. M. , & ABC Research Group (Eds.). ( 1999 ). Simple heuristics that make us smart. Oxford, England : Oxford University Press.

Goel V. ( 2005 ). Cognitive neuroscience of deductive reasoning. In K. J. Holyoak & R. G. Morrison (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of thinking and reasoning (pp. 475–492). New York : Cambridge University Press.

Guilford J. P. ( 1967 ). The nature of human intelligence. New York : McGraw-Hill.

Holyoak K. J. ( 2005 ). Analogy. In K. J. Holyoak & R. G. Morrison (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of thinking and reasoning (pp. 117–142). New York : Cambridge University Press.

Humphrey G. ( 1963 ). Thinking: An introduction to experimental psychology. New York : Wiley.

Judd C. H. ( 1908 ). The relation of special training and general intelligence. Educational Review, 36, 28–42.

Kahneman D. , & Tversky A. ( 1984 ). Choices, values, and frames. American Psychologist, 39, 341–350.

Kahneman D. , & Tversky A. (Eds.). ( 2000 ). Choices, values, and frames. New York : Cambridge University Press.

Kohler W. ( 1925 ). The mentality of apes. New York : Liveright.

Larkin J. H. , McDermott J. , Simon D. P. , & Simon H. A. ( 1980 ). Expert and novice performance in solving physics problems. Science, 208, 1335–1342.

Luchins A. ( 1942 ). Mechanization in problem solving.   Psychological Monographs, 54 (6) (Whole No. 248).

Mandler J. M. , & Mandler G. ( 1964 ). Thinking from associationism to Gestalt. New York : Wiley.

Markman A. B. , & Medin D. L. ( 2002 ). Decision making. In D. Medin (Ed.), Stevens’ handbook of experimental psychology, Vol. 2. Memory and cognitive processes (2nd ed., pp. 413–466). New York : Wiley.

Mayer R. E. ( 1992 ). Thinking, problem solving, cognition (2nd ed). New York : Freeman.

Mayer R. E. ( 1995 ). The search for insight: Grappling with Gestalt psychology’s unanswered questions. In R. J. Sternberg & J. E. Davidson (Eds.), The nature of insight (pp. 3–32). Cambridge, MA : MIT Press.

Mayer R. E. ( 2008 ). Learning and instruction. Upper Saddle River, NJ : Merrill Prentice Hall.

Mayer R. E. ( 2009 ). Information processing. In T. L. Good (Ed.), 21st century education: A reference handbook (pp. 168–174). Thousand Oaks, CA : Sage.

Mayer R. E. , & Wittrock M. C. ( 2006 ). Problem solving. In P. A. Alexander & P. H. Winne (Eds.), Handbook of educational psychology (2nd ed., pp. 287–304). Mahwah, NJ : Erlbaum.

McCloskey M. ( 1983 ). Intuitive physics.   Scientific American, 248 (4), 122–130.

Metcalfe J. , & Wiebe D. ( 1987 ). Intuition in insight and non-insight problem solving. Memory and Cognition, 15, 238–246.

Newell A. , & Simon H. A. ( 1972 ). Human problem solving. Englewood Cliffs, NJ : Prentice-Hall.

Nickerson R. S. ( 1999 ). Enhancing creativity. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), Handbook of creativity (pp. 392–430). New York : Cambridge University Press.

Nunes T. , Schliemann A. D. , & Carraher D. W , ( 1993 ). Street mathematics and school mathematics. Cambridge, England : Cambridge University Press.

Robbins P. , & Aydede M. (Eds.). ( 2009 ). The Cambridge handbook of situated cognition. New York : Cambridge University Press.

Rogers T. T. , & McClelland J. L. ( 2004 ). Semantic cognition: A parallel distributed processing approach. Cambridge, MA : MIT Press.

Singley M. K. , & Anderson J. R. ( 1989 ). The transfer of cognitive skill. Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press.

Sternberg R. J. ( 1990 ). Metaphors of mind: Conceptions of the nature of intelligence. New York : Cambridge University Press.

Sternberg R. J. ( 1999 ). Handbook of creativity. New York : Cambridge University Press.

Sternberg R. J. , & Gregorenko E. L. (Eds.). ( 2003 ). The psychology of abilities, competencies, and expertise. New York : Cambridge University Press.

Tharp R. G. , & Gallimore R. ( 1988 ). Rousing minds to life: Teaching, learning, and schooling in social context. New York : Cambridge University Press.

Thorndike E. L. ( 1911 ). Animal intelligence. New York: Hafner.

Thorndike E. L. , & Woodworth R. S. ( 1901 ). The influence of improvement in one mental function upon the efficiency of other functions. Psychological Review, 8, 247–261.

Wertheimer M. ( 1959 ). Productive thinking. New York : Harper and Collins.

Wundt W. ( 1973 ). An introduction to experimental psychology. New York : Arno Press. (Original work published in 1911).

Further Reading

Baron, J. ( 2008 ). Thinking and deciding (4th ed). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Duncker, K. ( 1945 ). On problem solving. Psychological Monographs , 58(3) (Whole No. 270).

Holyoak, K. J. , & Morrison, R. G. ( 2005 ). The Cambridge handbook of thinking and reasoning . New York: Cambridge University Press.

Mayer, R. E. , & Wittrock, M. C. ( 2006 ). Problem solving. In P. A. Alexander & P. H. Winne (Eds.), Handbook of educational psychology (2nd ed., pp. 287–304). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Sternberg, R. J. , & Ben-Zeev, T. ( 2001 ). Complex cognition: The psychology of human thought . New York: Oxford University Press.

Weisberg, R. W. ( 2006 ). Creativity . New York: Wiley.

  • About Oxford Academic
  • Publish journals with us
  • University press partners
  • What we publish
  • New features  
  • Open access
  • Institutional account management
  • Rights and permissions
  • Get help with access
  • Accessibility
  • Advertising
  • Media enquiries
  • Oxford University Press
  • Oxford Languages
  • University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

  • Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
  • Cookie settings
  • Cookie policy
  • Privacy policy
  • Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

CWLA Logo

PRIDE Model of Practice

( P arent R esources for I nformation, D evelopment, and E ducation)

Developing and Supporting Foster and Adoptive Families as Team Members in Child Protection and Trauma-informed Care of Children

FPC

In-person/online edition of  PRIDE Model of Practice CWLA and FosterParentCollege.com have partnered to bring in-person/online edition of the  PRIDE Model of Practice to agencies and families. The in-person/online edition of   PRIDE integrates the strengths of in-person group sessions, family assessment (home study) consultations, and online self-paced training to meet the needs of diverse families and agency resources.

This 14-step model of practice to develop and support foster and adoptive families as team members in child protection and trauma-informed care of children is designed to strengthen the quality of family foster care and adoption services by:

• Clarifying the role of resource families in support of your agency’s vision and mission and as integral members of your agency’s team • Educating communities about the importance of resource families • Recruiting families based on a strengths/needs, comprehensive plan • Providing hybrid in-person/online, pre-service training with information and skill building around Five Core Competencies • Integrating pre-service training as an essential component of the mutual family assessment (home study) process • Selecting resource families based on the Five Core Competencies • Matching children with licensed (approved, certified, verified) resource families • Creating family development plans to guide ongoing professional development of foster parents • Providing in-service training and other essential supports • Ending relationships with resource families using a strengths-based approach and a quality assurance process

Implementing the PRIDE Model of Practice provides your agency with the opportunity to ensure that your staff and resource families commit to your agency’s vision, mission, and values; have complementary competency-based roles; use strengths-based language; implement culturally responsive best practices; and work to achieve outcomes that support safety, well-being, and permanency for the children in your care.

Five Core Competencies The PRIDE Model of Practice is built upon five core competency categories developed through comprehensive role analysis:

• Protecting and nurturing children; • Meeting children’s developmental needs and addressing their delays; • Supporting relationships with birth families; • Connecting children to safe, nurturing relationships intended to last a lifetime (permanency); and • Working as a member of a professional team.

The Resources & Information section below provides links to additional information on the PRIDE Model of Practice , resources, and training and consultation.

For assistance with the PRIDE Model of Practice , please contact Marcus Stallworth , LMSW, Director, Training and Implementation or Gaelle Augustin , Training and Administration Associate.

Recent PRIDE Model of Practice Trainings

pride model of problem solving suggested by

PRIDE In-Person/Online Edition

Pride all in-person edition, pride model of practice overview, pride training and consultation, value prop about becoming a member.

The PRIDE Model

  • About Sheila

PRIDE stands for Purpose, Reputation, Integrity, Direction and Energy. The model is a unique approach to building employee engagement and high performance in the workplace.

Principles of pride.

The PRIDE Model is built on two key principles.

Firstly, recognising the power of the individual to have an impact, to affect change, it looks at life at work from the dual perspective of the organisation and the people that work there. Nothing happens at work unless the employees turn up, physically and mentally, and so the PRIDE Model consciously places them and their interests on a par with those of the organisation.

Secondly, it places equal value on technical skills and emotional intelligence. If you want to build pride in your organisation and to see colleagues taking pride in their roles, you need to appeal to both rational and emotional incentives. People and organisations are successful when they are led by a well-rounded team and so leaders are encouraged to get to know and care about the people who work for them.

“People who apply the PRIDE Model will create an authentic and energetic workplace where people understand and share purpose and direction, where they want and are able to contribute, and also where they have evidence that they are valued.”

The Business Case

There is a compelling business case for pride at work – pride in oneself and pride in one’s organisation lead to better personal and collective performance. People with pride will make more effort, make better decisions, forge better relationships with their customers and become more positive influencers on their colleagues. They will also take more care of their own and their organisation’s reputation. People with pride are generally happier and healthier. They are more confident in their own abilities, are more fulfilled and are less likely to suffer from stress.

Take Pride is for leaders and influencers who want work to be a great place for the majority, not the minority, and who are looking for a fresh approach to make it happen.

Identify Purpose

An authentic statement of purpose creates emotional connections between brands and customers; between institutions and people; and it creates meaning for employees at work.

It may be inherent to your organisation, or it may be a higher ideal that you seek to achieve alongside your business goals. But it is not enough to think that organisational purpose alone creates meaningful work. The motivation of individuals is an interwoven strand that drives people to achieve things for themselves and for others. It impacts how much effort they put in and how they relate to their work. When fulfilled, it can carry them further and deeper into a positive relationship with their work.

Build Reputation

Most companies realise that their reputation can make or break them, and that employees are an integral part in the equation. Fewer companies really consider the impact of their corporate reputation on their existing and potential employees.

The employer brand arena is dominated by a handful of organisations, who recognise the power of the employee voice in employee attraction and reputation management. Most employers are way behind in terms of realising the power of employee advocacy from the inside out and thus creating a brand story that delivers more effective recruitment and retention.

Assure Integrity

The inner truth, or integrity of your brand promise is the central piece of the PRIDE model, and it should at the very least meet the expectations set by your employee brand proposition.

Think employee experience from recruitment through to retirement as a framework, but don’t forget to add the dimension of their every day interaction with colleagues on your premises. Culture, values and behaviours are the real-life demonstrations of policies, standards and processes and every individual person contributes to the whole. The larger your organisation, the longer the chain of interactions, and line managers are key to making work a great place to be. They need to be givers not takers, motivators not judges, and ultimately driven by the success of their teams.

Provide Direction

Clear and visible direction, and a sense of contributing to a future goal, is a huge factor in employee engagement. This is often expressed in terms of vision and strategy, where is an organisation going and how will it get there; but it also needs to articulate what employees need to do to contribute.

Leaders should be well versed in providing the line of sight between a goal and a task, but to truly resonate they need to consider their employees’ direction of travel as well, what life-stage they are at, and where they are in their own skills development. It is vital to set direction but also to know how far and how fast people are able and willing to come with you.

Nourish Energy

While the life expectancy of the average business is falling – companies generally are changing more rapidly, brands are coming and going – and it takes more energy to survive and thrive. Energy encompasses the physical, mental and indeed spiritual health of your company and its people.

Operational health, premises, flexible working and space for creative thought will build longevity, sustainability and stamina. People who are inspired will give their best and be in the flow. At the same time, individual health and wellbeing is a massive economic issue. We are not only living longer but we are working longer too. Organisations need to nourish all their employees, but anticipate the fact they will need to accommodate a more multigenerational workforce than in the past, and that might mean some smarter, more flexible working patterns.

How to get started

So you’ve bought into the philosophy and want to see the pride model come to life in your organisation. although every organisation is in a different starting position, here are the typical steps you will have to think about. if you need help, call sheila to discuss how she can provide support for your internal team., 1. establish a team.

Creating a PRIDE programme and putting it into practice requires leadership, ownership and resource. Typically in smaller companies, this is led by a CEO, and in bigger organisations, it is a strategic partner to the Board, like an HR or Brand Director. The resourcing and structure of the implementation team will depend on the scale and capabilities of the organisation and of your team.

2. Embrace the philosophy

The PRIDE model is built on the core belief that pride in the organisation and pride in one’s role drives performance. So it’s worth giving some time and thought to how that concept may play out in your organisation. It is also essential that the entire programme is explained in clear communications and supported where necessary by skills development and coaching.

HR and Communications professionals are in a great place to represent a PRIDE programme internally, as, in order to function, they are generally tuned in to the different aspects of an organisation’s strategy and its people already, they own or at least manage the communications channels, and are well connected with the decision-makers.

3. Understand your starting point

You then need to determine how all five elements of the PRIDE model are currently working in your organisation, through a combination of fact-finding, qualitative and quantitative investigation.

We recommend following a process of structured interviews and focus groups with representative groups from senor management, functional leads and employee teams. We also supply an employee questionnaire, created with The Centre for Brand Analysis, to gather input from your whole workforce, or a representative portion of it. This can be conducted online or by hard-copy, depending on the working practices of the organisation.

The questionnaire demands up to 100 individual responses to questions and statements in 12 different categories. The number of questions and statements can be tailored according to the target user group, but there is a minimum set of questions that are required before an integrated PRIDE score can be applied.

4. Accept independent analysts

The PRIDE diagnostic will be analysed by The Centre for Brand Analysis and reported by an independent researcher who is experienced in the PRIDE model. The diagnostic report will demonstrate where the strengths and weaknesses of the organisation lie and pinpoint the areas in need of most attention.

The results for each organisation will be unique and the improvement programme will need to be tailored accordingly.  We can work with your internal team to present results back to the leadership team and put forward recommendations for improvement.

5. Create action plans

The components of the PRIDE model are influenced and impacted by a wide range of factors and so recommendations for improvement are likely to touch many parts of your organisation. Your implementation team will need to identify the actions that will make the greatest difference to collective and individual performance.

Each aspect of PRIDE can be addressed by introducing and maintaining specific processes and practices at work. They will need to be assigned to the most appropriate lead and work within your existing structures and functions. Previous PRIDE action plans have included new and improved performance management processes, clear communications on future strategies, new energy plans and health and wellbeing communications programmes.

6. Track progress and celebrate achievements

There are several ways of conducting light-touch reviews of your action plans, including informal feedback sessions with employee representatives, and quick pulse surveys on one or two aspects of your programme. In order to track results of the entire programme, the PRIDE Diagnostic should be repeated in its entirety 12-18 months after the initial diagnostic.

Recognition is an important source of motivation for employees. If you already have an employee recognition scheme, you should consider whether to integrate elements of the PRIDE programme into it, or to expand it to celebrate examples of improvements in PRIDE components. Otherwise, you can create a process that will suit the culture of your organisation and encourage people to take celebrate their Moments of Pride in the organisation.

Take Pride includes a chapter called Pride in Practice that provides more details on the PRIDE methodology. The book also contains practical tips and ideas on how to introduce the five factors of Purpose, Reputation, Integrity, Direction and Energy.

How far can you take pride.

Book cover

Creativity and Innovation pp 117–147 Cite as

Creative Problem-Solving

  • Terence Lee 4 ,
  • Lauren O’Mahony 5 &
  • Pia Lebeck 6  
  • First Online: 29 January 2023

461 Accesses

This chapter presents Alex Osborn’s 1953 creative problem-solving (CPS) model as a three-procedure approach that can be deployed to problems that emerge in our everyday lives. The three procedures are fact-finding, idea-finding and solution-finding, with each step carefully informed by both divergent and convergent thinking. Using case studies to elaborate on the efficacy of CPS, the chapter also identifies a few common flaws that can impact on creativity and innovation. This chapter explores the challenges posed by ‘wicked problems’ that are particularly challenging in that they are ill-defined, unique, contradictory, multi-causal and recurring; it considers the practical importance of building team environments, of embracing diversity and difference, and other characteristics of effective teams. The chapter builds conceptually and practically on the earlier chapters, especially Chapter 4 , and provides case studies to help make sense of the key principles of creative problem-solving.

  • Creative problem-solving
  • Fact-finding
  • Idea-finding
  • Solution-finding
  • Divergent thinking
  • Convergent thinking
  • Wicked problems

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution .

Buying options

  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

The creative problem-solving process explored in this chapter is not to be confused with the broader ‘creative process’ that is presented in Chapter 2 of this book. See Chapter 2 to understand what creative process entails.

A general online search of the Osborn-Parnes Creative Problem-Solving (CPS) process will generate many results. One of them is: https://projectbliss.net/osborn-parnes-creative-problem-solving-process/ . Osborn is largely credited as the creator of CPS, hence references are largely made to him (Osborn 1953 , 1957 ).

Founded in 2002, Fahrenheit 212 described itself as “a global innovation consultancy delivering sustainable, profitable growth for companies by pairing business acumen and consumer empathy.” It merged with Capgemini Consulting in 2016 and remains based in New York City, USA. ( https://www.capgemini.com/in-en/news/press-releases/capgemini-acquires-innovation-and-design-consultancy-fahrenheit-212-to-drive/ ).

More information on the NeoNurture incubator can be found in the Design That Matters website ( https://www.designthatmatters.org/ ) and in a TEDx presentation by Timothy Prestero ( https://www.ted.com/talks/timothy_prestero_design_for_people_not_awards ) (Prestero 2012 ).

For more information on the Embrace infant warmer, see Embrace Global: https://www.embraceglobal.org/ .

See also David Alger’s popular descriptions of the ‘Rules of Improv’ (Parts 1 and 2): https://www.pantheater.com/rules-of-improv.html ; and, ‘How to be a better improvisor’: https://www.pantheater.com/how-to-be-a-better-improvisor.html .

For more information about the Bay of Pigs, visit the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum at Columbia Point, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Online information can be accessed here: https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/jfk-in-history/the-bay-of-pigs .

Bhat, R. 2021. Solving Wicked Problems Is What MBA Programs Need to Prepare the Students For? Business World Education . May 20. Available: http://bweducation.businessworld.in/article/Solving-Wicked-Problems-Is-What-MBA-Programs-Need-To-Prepare-The-Students-For-/20-05-2021-390302/. Accessed 30 August 2022.

Bratton, J., et al. 2010. Work and Organizational Behaviour , 2nd ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave.

Book   Google Scholar  

Buzan, T. 1974. Use Your Head . London: BBC Active.

Google Scholar  

Cohen, A.K., and J.R. Cromwell. 2021. How to Respond to the COVID-19 Pandemic with More Creativity and Innovation. Population Health Management 24 (2): 153–155.

Article   Google Scholar  

Cunningham, E., B. Smyth, and D. Greene. 2021. Collaboration in the Time of COVID: A Scientometric Analysis of Multidisciplinary SARSCoV-2 Research. Humanities & Social Sciences Communications. 8 (240): 1–8.

Cunningham, S. 2021. Sitting with Difficult Things: Meaningful Action in Contested Times. Griffith Review 71 (February): 124–133.

De Bono, E. 1985. Six Thinking Hats . Boston: Little, Brown and Company.

Dutta, K. 2018. Solving Wicked Problems: Searching for the Critical Cognitive Trait. The International Journal of Management Education 16 (3): 493–503.

Elia, G., and A. Margherita. 2018. Can we Solve Wicked Problems? A Conceptual Framework and a Collective Intelligence System to Support Problem Analysis and Solution Design for Complex Social Issues. Technological Forecasting & Social Change 133: 279–286.

Engler, J.O., D.J. Abson, and H. von Wehrden. 2021. The Coronavirus Pandemic as an Analogy for Future Sustainability. Sustainability Science 16: 317–319.

Grivas, C., and G. Puccio. 2012. The Innovative Team: Unleashing Creative Potential for Breakthrough Results . San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Holmes, K. 2021. Generation Covid: Crafting History and Collective Memory. Griffith Review 71 (February): 79–88.

Kapoor, H., and J.C. Kaufman. 2020. Meaning-Making Through Creativity During COVID-19. Frontiers in Psychology 18 (December): 1–8.

Kelley, T. 2001. The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America’s Leading Design Firm . New York, NY: Random House.

Kite-Powell, J. 2014. Simple Tech Creates Infant-Warmer to Save Lives in Developing Countries. Forbes , 29 January. Available: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jenniferhicks/2014/01/29/simple-tech-creates-infant-warmer-to-save-lives-in-developing-countries/?sh=df540aa758c1. Accessed 31 August 2022.

May, M. 2009. In Pursuit of Elegance . NY: Broadway Books.

McShane, S., M. Olekalns, and T. Travaglione. 2010. Organisational Behaviour on the Pacific Rim , 3rd ed. Sydney: McGraw Hill.

Osborn, A. 1953. Applied Imagination: Principles and Procedures of Creative Thinking . New York: Scribners.

Osborn, A. 1957. Applied Imagination: Principles and Procedures of Creative Thinking , 10th ed. New York: Scribners.

Page, S.E. 2007. The Difference: How the power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Page, S.E. 2011. Diversity and Complexity . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Page, S.E. 2012. The Hidden Factor: Why Thinking Differently Is Your Greatest Asset . Chantilly, Virginia: The Great Courses.

Payne, M. 2014. How to Kill a Unicorn: How the World’s Hottest Innovation Factory Builds Bold Ideas That Make It to Market . New York: Crown Business.

Potter, A., M. McClure, and K. Sellers. 2010. Mass Collaboration Problem Solving: A New Approach to Wicked Problems. Proceedings of 2010 International Symposium on Collaborative Technologies and Systems . IEEE Explore, Chicago, Illinois. May 17–21: 398–407.

Prestero, T. 2012. Design for People, Not Awards. TEDxBoston . Available: https://www.ted.com/speakers/timothy_prestero. Accessed 30 August 2022.

Proctor, T. 2013. Creative Problem Solving for Managers: Developing Skills for Decision Making and Managers , 4th ed. New York: Routledge.

Puccio, G.J. 2012. Creativity Rising: Creative Thinking and Creative Problem Solving in the 21st Century . Buffalo, NY: ICSC Press.

Rittel, H.W.J., and M.M. Webber. 1973. Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning. Policy Sciences 4 (2), June: 155–169.

Roberto, M. 2009. The Art of Critical Decision Making: The Great Courses. Chantilly, Virginia: The Teaching Company.

Roy, A. 2020. Arundhati Roy: “The Pandemic is a Portal”. Financial Times , April 4. Available: https://www.ft.com/content/10d8f5e8-74eb-11ea-95fe-fcd274e920ca . Accessed 28 February 2022.

Ruggiero, V.R. 2009. The Art of Thinking: A Guide to Critical and Creative Thought , 9th ed. New York: Longman.

Sawyer, K. 2007. Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration . New York: Basic Books.

Schuelke-Leech, B. 2021. A Problem Taxonomy for Engineering. IEEE Transactions on Technology and Society 2 (2), June: 105.

Stellar, D. 2010. The PlayPump: What Went Wrong? State of the Planet, Columbia Climate School. Columbia University. Available: https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2010/07/01/the-playpump-what-went-wrong/. Accessed 30 August 2022.

Surowiecki, J. 2004. The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Businesses, Economies, Societies and Nations . New York: Anchor Books.

Sweet, C., H. Blythe, and R. Carpenter. 2021. Creativity in the Time of COVID-19: Three Principles. The National Teaching and Learning Forum. 30 (5): 6–8.

Taibbi, R. 2011. The Tao of Improv: 5 Rules for Improvising Your Life. Psychology Today , 25 January. Available: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/fixing-families/201101/the-tao-improv-5-rules-improvising-your-life. Accessed 1 September 2022.

Walton, M. 2010. Playpump is Not a Panacea for Africa’s Water Problems. Circle of Blue , July 24. Available: http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2010/world/playpump-not-a-panacea-for-africas-water-problems/. Accessed 30 August 2022.

World Health Organization (WHO). 2022. Child Mortality (Under 5 Years). Available: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/levels-and-trends-in-child-under-5-mortality-in-2020. Accessed 28 February 2022.

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Humanities and Social Sciences, Sheridan Institute of Higher Education, Perth, WA, Australia

Terence Lee

Media and Communication, Murdoch University, Perth, WA, Australia

Lauren O’Mahony

Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Murdoch University, Perth, WA, Australia

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Terence Lee .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

About this chapter

Cite this chapter.

Lee, T., O’Mahony, L., Lebeck, P. (2023). Creative Problem-Solving. In: Creativity and Innovation. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-8880-6_5

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-8880-6_5

Published : 29 January 2023

Publisher Name : Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore

Print ISBN : 978-981-19-8879-0

Online ISBN : 978-981-19-8880-6

eBook Packages : Business and Management Business and Management (R0)

Share this chapter

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

  • Publish with us

Policies and ethics

  • Find a journal
  • Track your research

U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

  • Publications
  • Account settings
  • Advanced Search
  • Journal List
  • Springer Open Choice

Design for Pride in the Workplace

Dept of Design, School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Aalto University, Hämeentie 135C, Helsinki, Finland

Pride is one of the most meaningful experiences in daily life. Many psychological studies emphasize self-oriented and event-based achievements as the main sources of pride, whereas work from organizational management considers pride as a collective attitude derived from other-focused activities and fostered by the sense of belongingness. Taking the interdisciplinary aspects of pride into account, this article addresses the challenge of how experience design can contribute to pride experience in the workplace.

By cross-cutting theories from psychology and organizational management, this study introduces a framework of dynamic pride. The data includes 20 experience design cases that were specifically devoted to positive experiences in the context of the metal and engineering industry. 33 pride-related experience design goals were analyzed and categorized into the framework of pride.

This study introduces the social and temporal dimensions of pride experience at work. The pride-related experience design goals fall into four categories: self-focused short-term pride, self-focused long-term pride, other-focused short-term pride, and other-focused long-term pride. Accordingly, the extracted design strategies of these goals were mapped to each type of pride. Most of these design strategies were clustered in the categories of self-focused short-term pride and other-focused long-term pride.

Conclusions

This study reveals the design strategies for dynamics of pride in the workplace varying from evoking self-achievement in individual interactions with tools to maintaining long-term motivation of self-competence development, and from highlighting one’s contribution in face-to-face collaborative work facilitated by interactive tools to fostering co-experience of organizational pride throughout social events.

People feel life holds more meaning when they are motivated by cherished goals, aware of self-improvement, involved in healthy interpersonal relationships, and loyal to their beliefs. In essence, these profound experiences of meaning make life worth living (e.g., Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi 2000 ). However, the contribution of subjective value experiences, especially those of happiness, has not gained adequate attention in empirical research until the emergence of positive psychology. This new branch of psychology shifted the research focus from pathology to optimal human function and flourishing (Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi 2000 ), and it addresses how to enable individuals and communities to thrive (Seligman 2011 ).

Positive psychology has promoted human flourishing as the ultimate goal of scientific research. It has been increasingly applied to other disciplines, such as education, policy, management, mental health, computer science, engineering, and design (Calvo and Peters 2014 , p. 25). In the field of human–computer interaction, the “positive technology” approach was proposed to utilize interactive technologies for personal experience optimization (Riva et al. 2012 ). From the perspective of multidisciplinary efforts, Calvo and Peters ( 2014 ) refer to this area of design and development of technology for psychological wellbeing and human potential as “positive computing”.

Highly connected with technology and engineering, the discipline of design (e.g., industrial design, product design, and interaction design) has been inspired by the mindset of positive psychology: from preventing pain towards promoting happiness, from material sufficiency towards experiential value (Pohlmeyer 2012 ), from immediate response towards long-term impact, and from designing solutions towards designing possibilities (Desmet and Hassenzahl 2012 ; Jensen 2014 ). Human flourishing has essentially changed the traditional design process, exemplified by recent scholarly advice, such as “think experience before product” (Hassenzahl 2010 ) and “first decide what kind of experience to be aimed for and then design certain features to evoke the targeted experience” (Desmet and Schifferstein 2011 ). Design approaches, such as experience-based design (Bate and Robert 2007 ), experience-centered design (Wright and McCarthy 2010 ), experience-driven design (Desmet and Schifferstein 2011 ), positive design (Desmet and Pohlmeyer 2013 ), experience design (Hassenzahl et al. 2013 ) and design for profound experiences (Jensen 2014 ), prioritize quality experience goals over material-level requirements. One typical experience design case introduced by Hassenzahl ( 2010 ) is Philips wake-up light simulating sunrise and bird singing for natural wake-up experience in the morning. Combining an alarm clock and a bedside lamp, it guides user gently out of a deep sleep phase by progressively increasing in light intensity and volume of bird singing. Adding to this understanding of experience design, Lu and Roto ( 2014 ) defined an experience goal addressing in-depth meaning as the starting point and driver of design process. Functionality and usability requirements are submissive to ultimate experience goals.

To facilitate the designers’ adaptation to this mindset change, design researchers have started to translate knowledge from the field of psychology into design approaches. Hassenzahl et al. ( 2010 ) selected six out of 10 psychological needs (Sheldon et al. 2001 ) and suggested utilizing an “experience pattern” as a tool to distill the essence of an experience and transfer it to the targeted context. Desmet ( 2012 ) introduced a basic set of 25 positive emotion types and proposed six main sources of positive emotions in human product interactions. Desmet and Pohlmeyer ( 2013 ) created a framework suggesting three ingredients of design for human flourishing: pleasure, personal significance, and virtue. Calvo and Peters ( 2014 ) identified the determinant factors of wellbeing and provided the strategies to develop a certain factor as well as its evaluation methods. For the specific context of the industrial work environment, Lu and Roto ( 2015 ) borrowed the knowledge on the meaning of work (Rosso et al. 2010 ) and provided high-level design strategies for evoking meaningful experiences at work regarding work tool design, such as promoting competence for the perception of personal significance. These frameworks address positive experiences as the root of design, and open the door to design for wellbeing in general. However, these theories may arguably appear too essential, comprehensive, or concise for designers, and scarcely reach to the fine granularity required for design action. The nature of design practice remains highly context-dependent and the resulting design is required to be concrete and to manifest in details. Therefore, more explicit and practicable strategies for experience design are needed regarding a specific experience in a targeted context.

This study aims to investigate design strategies for human flourishing with a special focus on pride experience in the workplace, because the nature of pride is full of richness regarding meaningful experiences at work. According to the positive computing framework (Calvo and Peters 2014 , p. 87), pride covers the dimension from intra - personal pride that is experienced within oneself (e.g., feelings of self-achievement) to interpersonal pride that is experienced from interaction between oneself and others (e.g., perception of respect from others). From the perspective of time, pride can be experienced as a moment-by-moment positive emotion evoked by unstable events, such as success in a challenging task. Also, pride can be considered as a cumulative experience based on a long-term rational attitude, such as loyalty towards one’s community. In contrast to the richness of pride, current design research studies provide limited sources of design for pride, which are mainly constrained by the mere scope of product design and the perspective of self-achievement and personal distinct possession (Desmet 2012 ).

Pride as a meaningful experience design goal in the workplace is worth investigating further. This study specifically strives to provide designers concrete design-for-pride strategies from two angles: the literature review on the multiple facets of pride and the empirical data on pride embodiment in design concepts. Accordingly, with a special focus on workplace, this study addresses two research questions: first, to identify what are the dimensions of pride that help designers to understand the design space for pride experience; second, to distinguish the strategies that designers have used so far in the design-for-pride cases. By synthesizing theoretical and empirical knowledge, this study proposes a multi-dimensional framework of design-mediated pride 1 and the design strategies for evoking dynamics of pride in the workplace.

The remaining sections of this paper are structured accordingly: first, a theoretical framework of pride based on literature review is presented and the need of knowledge on design-mediated pride is identified; second, 20 cases that were designed for positive experience at work are analyzed based on self-focus to other-focus dimensions and short-term to long-term timespans; third, derived from these cases, the design strategies for evoking pride experience at work are proposed; finally, the insights from these design strategies are discussed.

Literature Review

Psychological structure of pride.

Pride is a fundamental human emotion involving a complex self-evaluative process (Tracy and Robins 2004 ). Different from other “purely” basic emotions, such as the universally admired emotion of love or the universally reviled emotion of jealousy (Williams and DeSteno 2009 ), pride is comprised of two distinct facets. To this extent, Tangney ( 1990 ) referred to “alpha” pride as pride in self and “beta” pride as pride in behavior. Furthermore, Tracy and Robins ( 2004 ) distinguished between authentic pride and hubristic pride: authentic pride is evoked by accomplishment from successful behavior and positively related to genuine self-esteem and prosocial traits, whereas hubristic pride is more towards self-aggrandizement and positively related to narcissism (Tracy et al. 2014 ). Additionally, the two facets of pride differ from each other in cognitive antecedents (Tracy and Robins 2007b ). Authentic pride is triggered more by unstable, specific, and controllable attributions, such as solid results due to hard work, whereas hubristic pride is more likely to occur from stable, global, and uncontrollable causes, such as feelings of superiority from “who I am” (Tracy and Robins 2007b ). As this study focuses on designing for positive pride, hubristic pride is excluded in the scope of this paper.

Self-Focus Versus Other-Focus

Both self- and other-focused pride are sources of positive emotion (Desmet 2012 ); moreover, the categories of self and social have been identified as wellbeing factors (Calvo and Peters 2014 ). Self-focused pride emphasizes more on interaction within oneself and response to oneself whereas other-focused pride accentuates interpersonal interaction and the influence between self and others. Most studies emphasize pride as a self-conscious and performance-related experience triggered by self-efficacy (Tracy and Robins 2007a ). Besides its elicitation through self-achievement, pride as a fundamental social emotion can also be “generated by appraisals when one is responsible for a socially valued outcome or for being a socially valued person” (Mascolo and Fischer 1995 , p. 66). Moral accomplishment and prosocial actions are associated with the feeling of pride that may motivate and reinforce one’s socially valued conduct (Tangney et al. 2007 ), such as caregiving (Tracy and Robins 2007b ), treating others well (Michie 2009 ), and positively responding to others’ emotions and needs (Leffel et al. 2008 ). Nakamura’s ( 2013 ) related work suggests that compared with self-oriented achievement, other-oriented prosocial action has an even stronger relationship to pride in both family life and work life. Therefore, no matter whether it is triggered by self-oriented task accomplishment or other-oriented altruistic activities, pride functions as both a “barometer” and “motivator” (McCullough et al. 2001 ) in assessing, regulating, and encouraging one’s behavior toward being “good, competent, and virtuous” (Haidt 2003 , p. 860).

Short-Term Versus Long-Term

Pride derived from subjective histories of success may promote eagerness towards new anticipatory goals (Katzenbach 2003b ). This promotion-related eagerness may energize and enhance performance (Higgins et al. 2001 ) and thus renew the experience of pride. As such, pride can transition from a temporary emotional experience towards a durable attitude of pride. According to the timespans of user experience (Roto et al. 2011 ), a new challenging goal may evoke an anticipatory pride for a person with a subjective history of success (Higgins et al. 2001 ); incremental progress in problem solving may elicit a momentary pride; when reflecting on an overcome challenge, a person may feel an episodic pride in the achievement. These performance-related types of pride are short-term, event-specific, and ascribed to internal attributes, such as ability or effort (Weiner 1985 ). Additionally, another kind of long-term and cognitive attitudinal pride exists in organizational studies, which does not rely on single events, but cumulative experience related to the overall evaluation of a target (Gouthier and Rhein 2011 ), such as being proud of one’s community.

Pride Experience at Work

Pride is one of the most intense experiences in work life (Katzenbach 2003b ), and work itself is a source of pride (Hodson 1998 ). Katzenbach ( 2003b ) distinguishes institution-building pride which is based on largely intangible value and collective interest from self-serving pride which is driven by power and materialism.

Employees can take intrinsic pride in what they make, how they work, and whom they work with (Katzenbach 2003b ). Experience of pride in achievement can be empathized by others in social interaction at work and thereby contribute to psychological empowerment and promote future successes (Froman 2010 ). Katzenbach ( 2003b ) introduces a powerful “closed loop of energy” derived from pride: better performance contributes to business success, and recognized business success instills a strong feeling of pride, which fuels future better performance. This cycle can be repeatedly applied in organizational management.

Gouthier and Rhein ( 2011 ) discern two types of organizational pride: one is an emotional pride triggered by successful organizational events, and the other is a cognitive and durable attitude of pride oriented from the general perception of the organization and employees’ sense of belonging to the organization (Lea and Webley 1997 ). On this matter, the celebration of successful events, presence of a successful company history and culture, and successful advertising campaigns have been identified as activators of organizational pride (Gouthier and Rhein 2011 ).

In summary, pride experience can be derived from self-focused achievement and other-focused interpersonal interaction. The richness of pride also lies in covering a timespan from a temporary emotion to a durable attitude. Pride can be intensively experienced in the workplace, and intrinsic pride can be evoked by organizational celebration and reputation. From the psychology and organizational management literature review, two dimensions of pride were identified relevant for design: social dimension from self-focused to other-focused and temporal dimension from short-term to long-term (Fig.  1 ).

An external file that holds a picture, illustration, etc.
Object name is 13612_2016_41_Fig1_HTML.jpg

Social and temporal dimensions of pride experience at work

Design for Pride Experience

Recently, design researchers have started to explore how design can contribute to pride experience. Desmet ( 2012 ) introduced pride among the 25 positive emotions in the scope of human-product interactions: pride may be evoked by owning a unique product, being able to use a complex product, achieving something a product facilitates, or receiving positive feedback from others concerning the product one owns. Based on Desmet’s work, Yoon et al. ( 2013 ) developed a tool to facilitate emotional granularity in design and specified that pride may be triggered by “one’s praiseworthy behavior surpassing internal and external standard, and/or one recognizes that others appreciate it” (ibid., p.8). Compared with the two dimensions of pride (Fig.  1 ), pride as a collective experience in social interaction (Battarbee and Koskinen 2005 ) and the long-term cumulative experience has not yet been fully addressed in existing experience design theories.

One example of positive design for pride given by Desmet and Pohlmeyer ( 2013 ) is a designed social interactive activity in which patients with dementia can match record pieces in order to play music from their past on a turntable with others; thus, a feeling of pride may arise from task completion within the social interaction. Moreover, two cases of work tool design for meaningful experience at work (Lu and Roto 2015 ) indicate that employees may feel proud of mastering a tool and being part of an organization; meanwhile, customers may experience pride when they make a right decision on a tool purchase and present manufactured tools to their clients. These design examples suggest how designers shape the conditions that may evoke a pride experience in a specific context. These cases reveal different strategies of designing for dynamics of pride. On one hand, those theoretical sources of pride, such as achievement, competence, owning something special, and positive appraisal from self and others, are clearly embodied in these three cases. On the other hand, when referring to a pride experience in a specific context, designers seem to employ specific context-adapted design strategies, such as utilizing the positive relationship between personalized music and a patient with dementia, developing the employee’s perceptions of organizational reputation, and highlighting one’s contribution of a right decision to an organization.

Because the nature of design knowledge is highly applicable and practice-driven (Cross 2001 ), besides the theoretical perspective, it is meaningful to examine how different types of pride were designed for in the concrete cases. This study aims to help designers to discover profound and unique sources of pride experience in the specific context of the workplace. The design-for-pride strategies employed by the collected cases will be identified and analyzed against the theoretical dimensions of pride (Fig.  1 ).

This study falls under research for design category of design research, since the main aim of this work is to improve design practice (Frayling 1993 ). In line with Zimmerman et al. ( 2010 ), this research for design activity yields to a framework and design recommendations that help designers in their work. Besides a literature review, the research data is also derived from empirical design studies. The specific design approach under study is experience design, in which experience goals are the key prerequisite for design activity and defined in the early stage of the design process. Experience goals drive the whole design process and evolve into the designed artifacts that may evoke the targeted experience (Lu and Roto 2015 ). Thus, this study proposes that the design strategies for shaping a certain experience can be distilled from the argumentation of the experience goal realization in the design concepts. According to the premise of experience design, any kind of design that best fulfills the experience goals can be the design outcome. In the workplace context, specifically, this may mean a tool, service, space, or even an event.

The authors of this paper studied the reports of 20 experience design cases that were conducted in collaboration with masters-level design students and seven companies in the metal and engineering industry from 2012 to 2015. The given design briefs from the different companies share the same high-level goal to design for meaningful experience at work in heavy industry. The differences among the 20 assignments lie in the design contexts varying from heavy machine operation (e.g., crane remote control, tugboat console, control room of automation system) to the peripheral touchpoints for different stakeholders involved in the industrial system (e.g., a mobile application for factory automation customers, a mobile sales application for ship components, a mobile crane monitoring application).

In the beginning of the design course, experience design approaches were taught to the students by at least one of the authors. Design teams were then comprised of two to three master students who worked full time on a two-month design assignment from one company. Each company assignment was tackled by one team of students. All the teams underwent the following design process: familiarizing oneself with the target context and users, defining a set of profound experience goals, deriving concepts from the determined goals, and finally evaluating design concepts against these goals with relevant stakeholders. Most teams produced two design concepts: one called ‘incremental’ to address the company’s current needs, and another called ‘radical’, which was supposed to radically improve the user experience and show what experience design could mean without limitations for the outcome. The students defined the experience goals based on different sources (Kaasinen et al. 2015 ), and they had the freedom to set up goals that would fit their case briefs. In each case, experience goals were formatted into a word or a short phrase for convenient communication among different stakeholders. There was no special rule with regard to how many experience goals the students should define, whereas the relations between a set of experience goals were expected for clarification. Involved throughout the whole design process, the company personnel were available for providing information and comments. At least one of the authors followed these cases by arranging weekly meetings with the design teams and reading their design diaries. The students were not given special guidance for designing for pride, as pride was not a presumed design goal in any of the assignments. Rather, the students were trained to identify multiple profound experience goals for the targeted workplace contexts. Only after a majority of cases ended up pride-related experience goals, the authors got interested in a deeper study of pride experience at work. Hence the analysis of the design cases was retrospective and the final reports of the student teams served as the primary data source for this part of the research.

Four Design Case Examples

The design case description can provide better understanding of the experience design in the industrial workplace context. Due to the limited length of this article, this section will shortly describe four example cases that tackled pride from different perspectives.

The customer for the first experience design case was Kemppi, a manufacturer of welding machines. The task was to design a mobile application with which people (e.g. welding students) could train their welding skills with welding without the actual welding equipment, but rather with the help of a welding simulator game. The design students drew three experience goals: Pleasure (the joy of welding), Self-motivation (willingness to practice constantly), and Pride (about their skills, the results, and the welding itself). The Pleasure goal was tackled by gamification features; Self-motivation by sharing and communicating the progress; and Pride by a physical certificate after completing all levels of training (Fig.  2 ). The incremental concept was a mobile application as suggested in the assignment, and the radical concept focused on the best possible pride experience by inviting selected application users to showcase their real-life welding skills in an event similar to an art exhibition.

An external file that holds a picture, illustration, etc.
Object name is 13612_2016_41_Fig2_HTML.jpg

A physical certificate was designed to enhance pride after completing welding training

Another kind of experience design case was completed for Konecranes, focusing on the maintenance services of cranes at waste-to-energy plants. After studying the employees at the plant, the students set goals for the crane maintenance service experience. Of the three goals, two were related to the pride experience: Worthiness (an affirmation of their importance as a customer) and Belongingness (a meaningful relationship with Konecranes employees). The radical concept is called Mood sphere, consisting of a light ball at the plant and an identity badge for each employee. Both the badge and the ball show the status of the crane and the related Konecranes service. The crane operators can interact with the ball to communicate their feelings about the crane and its service (Fig.  3 ).

An external file that holds a picture, illustration, etc.
Object name is 13612_2016_41_Fig3_HTML.jpg

A light ball communicates the status of a crane to the crane operator, and the operator can send emotional messages to Konecranes service by interacting with the ball

In the third case, students were asked to redesign a tugboat steering simulator for Rolls-Royce Marine. The objective was to create a quality experience both for the salesperson demonstrating the steering properties with different thruster options and for the customer wanting to see its functionality. The task for the students was focused on the physical design of the simulator, consisting of two big joystick devices and a display. The practical goal was to enable a portable system. The experience goals were derived with the salesperson’s experience in mind, since the salesperson is the primary user of the simulator. The students utilized the metaphor of Q from the James Bond movies and set three experience goals that all were related to the experience of pride: Sense of directing (directing the situation by suggesting possible solutions), Expertise (presenting oneself as a professional, technical expert), and Pride (proudly representing the company). The design strategy to fulfill the Sense of directing goal was to boost the feeling of control; Expertise goal by using impressive technology; and Pride by drawing attention with a novel way of presentation. The radical solution proposed by the students was a simulator vehicle, similar to a Segway, with the steering joysticks mounted on it (Fig.  4 ).

An external file that holds a picture, illustration, etc.
Object name is 13612_2016_41_Fig4_HTML.jpg

A salesperson presenting in front of an audience by driving a tugboat steering simulator

The last experience design task reported here was assigned by a factory automation company, Fastems, who wanted to extend their training center into a visitor space. In this case, the company already had defined company-wide experience goals (Roto et al. 2015 ) for experience development projects, from which the students derived four experience goals for this specific case. One of these was Participation for pride, which aims to foster a pride experience in customers by being able to influence the development activities at Fastems. In addition to the physical space design in the center of the factory activities, students proposed an interactive table as a collaboration platform• in the space (Fig.  5 ).

An external file that holds a picture, illustration, etc.
Object name is 13612_2016_41_Fig5_HTML.jpg

A physical space for visitors ( left ) and an interactive table for collaboration ( right )

Selecting Pride-Related Experience Goals

To decide whether a case is an endeavor for evoking a pride experience at work, the authors analyzed the final reports of all student teams, and examined the description of each experience goal setting and its infusion into a design concept. Compared to the existing guidance on designing for pride, this study adopted a broader and deeper understanding of pride based on the literature study. Besides the experience goals literally labeled with “pride”, those having the potential to elicit pride experience were also taken into account as pride-related experience goals and their relevance to pride is indicated in Table  1 . The researchers interpreted the implication of these goals situated in the design context rather than their original meaning. For example, in the Kemppi case introduced above, pride as a long-term experience is based on a momentary pleasurable pride and episodic evaluative pride in self-motivation and thus Pleasure and Self-motivation are grouped into pride-related experience goals. On the other hand, if the experience goals and their embodiment in the final concepts both have little connection with pride, then these goals are excluded in this study.

Table 1

The experience goals with high relevance to pride

In these 20 design cases, altogether 61 experience goals were identified and more than half (33) of them were pride-related. Meanwhile, only two cases out of 20 have little connection with pride: one stressed Discovery as an experience in taking an elevator; the other focused on a Trust experience evoked by the designed cover for an expensive ship component placed outside.

Analyzing Pride-Related Experience Goals Against Two Dimensions of Pride

Each goal was then postulated to fall into the category either long-term or short-term experience. Two researchers (the authors) conducted the goal categorization independently, resulting to an inter-rater agreement of 87.88 %. Consensus was reached by discussion. These pride-related experience goals were also categorized along the self-focus or other-focus dimension. The inter-rater agreement in this case was 72.73 %, and the consensus was reached by discussion.

Combining the two categorizations, each selected experience goal was supposed to belong to one of these four groups: self-focused short-term pride, self-focused long-term pride, other-focused short-term pride, and other-focused long-term pride. Accordingly, the design strategies used by the students for different types of pride were compared within and across categories.

According to the social dimension, 17 out of 33 pride-related experience goals are self-focused, whereas the remaining 16 goals are other-focused. Along the temporal dimension, 15 out of 33 pride-related experience goals are short-term, and the rest are long-term. The experience goals for self-focus short-term pride and other-focus long-term pride both take one-third of all the pride-related experience goals whereas other-focus short-term pride was the least designed for.

As shown in Fig.  6 , different design strategies are summarized and grouped along the social and temporal dimensions of pride.

An external file that holds a picture, illustration, etc.
Object name is 13612_2016_41_Fig6_HTML.jpg

Design strategies sorted by two dimensions of pride

Design for Self-Focus Short-Term Pride

10 out of the 33 pride-related experience goals are both self-focus and short-term. The design strategies are distilled into three aspects: enhancing self-respect, enhancing self-efficacy, and promoting one’s goal achievement.

Enhancing Self-Respect

Three experience goals indicate that enhancing the feeling of self-respect is a pathway to pride experience. Thus, providing users with a distinctive interactive tool or workspace and strengthening their unique expertise may increase self-awareness of users’ own professionalism, which leads to self-respect enhancement. For instance, in the Rolls-Royce Marine case introduced above, the salesperson drives in front of the customers a special and attractive vehicle that demonstrates the same technology in the tugboat steering. This unique way of presentation reflects the professional engineering knowledge of a tugboat salesperson.

Enhancing Self-Efficacy

Five experience goals suggest that evoking the feeling of control, improvement, and autonomy can enable momentary pride experience. For example, providing an overview of all the machines’ data may enhance a manager’s feeling of control; boosting performances with a new application may enhance a worker’s feeling of competence; providing flexible options of the control room layout may enhance an operator’s feeling of work autonomy.

Promoting One’s Goal Achievement

Two experience goals indicate goal achievement promotion may induce anticipatory pride. For example, rewarding a learner’s practice of welding with a tangible certificate and fueling one’s intrinsic interest in doing something desirable may be a pathway to pride promotion.

Design for Self-Focus Long-Term Pride

Seven out of the 33 pride-related experience goals are designed for self-focused long-term pride. They stress three aspects: fostering self-worth, developing one’s competence, and developing and maintaining one’s interest.

Fostering a Sense of Self-Worth

Three goals indicate that activating one in organizational events, letting one work on what one is passionate about, and maintaining a positive self-status may foster self-worth, which would thus result in a durable self-focused pride. For example, in the case of Konecranes, the end users are often invited to a series of organizational events that may increase one’s awareness of their own value; making one passionate about one's work may result in self-actualization in a society; maintaining a decent status in a smooth transfer from work to retirement may increase one’s self-esteem.

Developing One’s Competence

Two goals indicate that challenging one to the next level of skills and letting one see how they perform compared to others may produce a durable and self-focused pride. In the case of Kemppi, the app provides gamification elements and makes the long-term skill improvement visible, which may in turn keep learners practicing through enjoyment of welding and competition with others.

Developing and Maintaining One’s Interest

Two goals from two cases indicate that motivating users with rewards as in games and keeping users’ inspirations in a series of organizational events may result in self-focus long-term pride. In the case of Kemppi, the app keeps an update of unlocked features to encourage learners onto the next practice level; a company can hold competitions, workshops, and seminars to maintain one’s interest and ambition and can thus accumulate one’s long-term pride.

Design for Other-Focus Short-Term Pride

Five out of the 33 pride-related experience goals are both other-focus and short-term. They emphasize two aspects: enabling one’s influence in social interaction and evoking a sense of belongingness to an organization.

Enabling One’s Influence in Social Interaction

Two experience goals indicate that fueling one’s leadership in social interaction and revealing one’s influence on decision-making may result in other-focused short-term pride. In the Rolls–Royces case introduced above, the special vehicle may guide others’ attention and provide a salesperson with a sense of directing, thus facilitate the salesperson’s leadership in interacting with the audience. Moreover, enabling the customers’ involvement and hence developing awareness of their impact on decision-making may build pride in customers through social interaction.

Evoking a Sense of Belongingness to an Organization

Three experience goals indicate that facilitating a connection with others, sharing happy moments, and stimulating inspiration and appreciation from others may lead to the feeling of other-focus short-term pride. For example, the output of an interactive system at the entrance of the office may evoke employees’ belongingness to a company by worldwide company information dissemination and entertainment activity arrangement. Besides this, organizational events may have the similar impact on stakeholder engagement by stimulating their inspiration.

Design for Other-focus Long-Term Pride

11 out of the 33 experience goals are designed for other-focus long-term pride. These goals focus on two main aspects: fostering a sense of belonging to an organization and revealing long-term impacts of one’s contribution to others.

Fostering a Sense of Belonging to an Organization

Six experience goals address the issue that enabling human-to-human interaction in organizational events, nurturing organizational heritage, and fostering immediate sharing of success may instill a sense of belonging to an organization and thus lead to other-focus long-term pride. For example, human-to-human interaction at work provides the feeling of camaraderie, the appreciation between each other, and the historical success of a company, which all contribute to collective pride towards an organization.

Revealing the Long-term Impact of One’s Contribution to Others

Five experience goals indicate that other-focused long-term pride can be produced by providing transparency on one's idea development, making the positive consequences of one's contributions visible to others, and making one’s positive progress visible to others. For example, the visualization of a process in which one’s work is further developed and implemented by others, and the positive confirmation of one’s critical decisions for an organization from a long-term perspective may increase one’s stable pride evoked by others.

Workplace as a social space provides a rich context for stimulation, development, and maintenance of the dynamics of pride. Design for pride in the workplace is a powerful, yet little utilized approach to keeping the closed loop of energy up for a successful business. By cross-cutting theories from psychology and organizational management, this study first introduces the social and temporal dimensions of pride. Based on the theoretical framework of pride, the empirical data from 20 experience design cases reveals contextualized and concrete design strategies for the dynamics of pride experience at work. The design implication drawn from these design strategies is given as follows.

The design strategies for self-focused short-term pride is in line with the sources of pride in human-production interaction (Desmet 2012 ): self-efficacy enhancement is related to “using the tool induces pride of task performance”; self-respect enhancements matches with “owning the tool induces pride of one’s expertise”; and goal achievement promotion fits with “the tool enables results that induces pride of one’s task performance”. To evoke such pride much depends on a well-designed momentary interaction between tool and user, for example, by measuring and visualizing incremental performance improvement in time.

When moving to a self-focus long-term pride, the design strategies adapt to the long-term effect, such as motivation maintenance, competence development and fostering self-worth. The key to designing for this type of pride is to explore and personalize the individual intrinsic meaning and to hold it longer, which is in line with positive design for personal significance, i.e., not focusing on the momentary effect, but on one’s personal goals and aspirations (Desmet and Pohlmeyer 2013 ).

Besides the facilitation of work performance enhancement, interactive tools can also be designed for other-focused short-term pride to assist users’ leadership or involvement in momentary social interaction, such as sharing one’s ideas by instant prototyping for collaborative discussion. Additionally, seeing others’ responses to one’s contribution may happen in organizational events, such as competitions, workshops, and seminars. These kinds of events may strengthen one’s connection with others, trigger social interaction, and stimulate each other’s creativity, in which co-experience of pride can be evoked within an organization.

Other-focused long-term pride is highly related to entrepreneurial spirit and loyalty. Company leaders aim to instill such pride into their employees and customers. The implications from organizational management can enter into design strategy by fostering a sense of belonging to an organization through activities (Gouthier and Rhein 2011 ). Belongingness is an other-oriented communion, which is about sharing common social identity and strengthening interpersonal connectedness (Rosso et al. 2010 ). Thus, sharing a positive identity is an important source of the other-focused pride, especially in organizational work contexts. Meanwhile, the visualization of progress and metrics can enable employees to track their own and others’ work (Katzenbach 2003b ), and thereby reveal the long-term impact of one’s contribution to others, which is also a key design strategy for other-focused pride.

These four types of pride apparently connect to each other and work together. For example, one’s pride derived from the pleasure of interaction with a work tool may bring out both enjoyment and self-enhancement at work. The pleasurable pride may serve as an intrinsic motivator for long-term good work performance. The visualization of one’s positive work results and progress may evoke others’ appreciation. In the long run, the collective impacts of everyone’s incremental contribution accumulate and sustain organizational success and thereby lead to a durable pride towards one’s organization.

In conclusion, this paper identifies two main trends in designing for pride experience in the workplace: designers can uplift their vision from self-focused and achievement-oriented interaction with a tool towards fostering engagement-oriented interaction with people, and from event-based emotional pride in momentary interaction towards a long-term organizational attitude of pride. Meanwhile, the role of a tool becomes that of an interactive facilitator for co-experience of pride in activities rather than the passive means of task completion.

This study opens the discussion that experience design researchers need to study external knowledge in order to broaden the understanding of targeted experience, associate multiple dimensions of such experience with the design context, and then transfer the constructed knowledge into experience design strategy for concept generation.

Limitation and Future Development

This study is a primary exploration on how to design for a specific positive experience in a targeted context. From the study approach perspective, the design strategies distilled from the triangulation between theories and empirical data were born with considerable validity which lies in the traceable evidences from available knowledge and concrete design cases. On the other hand, however, the predefined four-type-pride framework might limit the variety of the strategies, because there might be valuable special strategies that could be excluded by the scope of this framework. This limitation reflects that it could be a danger if designers overly rely on the available strategies and thus they might be restricted by the structured framework. In this sense, these identified patterns should serve more for understanding, inspiring and framing new themes, instead of fixing designers’ mindset.

From the data perspective, it is based on the collection of 20 student design cases in one design department from 2012 to 2015, which determines the specificity and limitation of this study. The interference between different design teams and the bias influenced by the earlier cases may be hardly avoided in the design process, which may lead to limitations of experience goal setting and idea generation. Although the fresh eyes of students may generate novel ideas and explore new possibilities, their limited breadth of mature design experience for the workplace may also result in some shallow design concepts. Moreover, a 2-month project can hardly include a long-term evaluation of design results.

From the finding validity perspective, the pride experience design strategies were presented as backup tools in the latest course but without guiding the students to use them. Compared with previous cases, pride was defined more towards durable pride and organizational pride in the recent cases. More importantly, inspired by these cases, the companies have gradually changed their mindset from focusing on usability towards prioritizing experience, and have recognized pride can be designed from not only interaction quality in task but also organizational impact. This impact was manifested in the industrial seminar when two companies presented and referred the student cases as their new path to experience design innovation. At least one design-for-pride case was implemented entirely from the students’ concepts, and got positive feedback from the company’s clients.

Future studies will focus on at least three directions. First, it is worth adding case diversity to the data collection: cases from different programs in different research institutes or companies are needed for both qualitative and quantitative studies to assess whether the two dimensions of design for pride can be applied to a large number of design cases. Second, there is a definite need to trace the real implementation of certain strategies in the client companies to identify the long-term impact on both workers’ subjective wellbeing and business development. Third, it is also meaningful to observe designing for pride in other domains and to identify what kind of strategies are common patterns and to what degree the differences of contexts lead to the specificity of design strategies.

Authors’ contributions

YL did the literature review. Both YL and VR set up the experience design courses, collected the design cases, analysed the data, developed the framework and wrote the manuscript together. Both authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Competing interests

This research was carried out as part of the Finnish Metals and Engineering Competence Cluster (FIMECC)’s UXUS programme funded by participating organisations and Tekes.

1 Thanks to the anonymous Reviewer 1.

Contributor Information

Yichen Lu, Phone: +358 50 436 7566, Email: [email protected] .

Virpi Roto, Email: [email protected] .

  • Bate P, Robert G. Bringing user experience to healthcare improvement: The concepts, methods and practices of experience-based design. Radcliffe Publishing; 2007.
  • Battarbee K, Koskinen I. Co-experience: user experience as interaction. CoDesign. 2005; 1 (1):5–18. doi: 10.1080/15710880412331289917. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
  • Calvo RA, Peters D. Positive computing: technology for wellbeing and human potential. Cambridge: MIT Press; 2014. [ Google Scholar ]
  • Cross Nigel. Designerly ways of knowing: design discipline versus design science. Des Issues. 2001; 17 (3):49–55. doi: 10.1162/074793601750357196. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
  • Desmet PM. Faces of product pleasure: 25 positive emotions in human-product interactions. Int J Design. 2012; 6 (2):2012. [ Google Scholar ]
  • Desmet PMA, Schifferstein HNJ. From floating wheelchairs to mobile car parks: a collection of 35 experience-driven design projects. Den Haag: Eleven Publishers; 2011. [ Google Scholar ]
  • Desmet PM, Pohlmeyer AE. Positive design: an introduction to design for subjective well-being. Int J Design. 2013; 7 (3):2013. [ Google Scholar ]
  • Desmet P, Hassenzahl M. Towards happiness: possibility-driven design. In: Oliveira JV, Zacarias M, editors. Human-computer interaction: the agency perspective. Heidelberg: Springer Berlin; 2012. pp. 3–27. [ Google Scholar ]
  • Frayling C. Research in art and design. Royal Col Art. 1993; 1 (1):1–5. [ Google Scholar ]
  • Froman L. Positive psychology in the workplace. J Adult Dev. 2010; 17 (2):59–69. doi: 10.1007/s10804-009-9080-0. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
  • Gouthier MH, Rhein M. Organizational pride and its positive effects on employee behavior. J Serv Manag. 2011; 22 (5):633–649. doi: 10.1108/09564231111174988. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
  • Haidt J. The moral emotions. In: Davidson RJ, Scherer KR, Goldsmith HH, editors. Handbook of affective sciences. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2003. pp. 852–870. [ Google Scholar ]
  • Hassenzahl M. Experience design: technology for all the right reasons. Synth Lecture Hum-Cent Inform. 2010; 3 (1):1–95. doi: 10.2200/S00261ED1V01Y201003HCI008. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
  • Hassenzahl M, Eckoldt K, Diefenbach S, Laschke M, Lenz E, Kim J. Designing moments of meaning and pleasure. Experience design and happiness. Int J Design. 2013; 7 (3):21–31. [ Google Scholar ]
  • Hassenzahl M, Diefenbach S, Göritz A. Needs, affect, and interactive products-facets of user experience. Interact Comput. 2010; 22 (5):353–362. doi: 10.1016/j.intcom.2010.04.002. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
  • Higgins ET, Friedman RS, Harlow RE, Idson LC, Ayduk ON, Taylor A. Achievement orientations from subjective histories of success: promotion pride versus prevention pride. Eur J Soc Psychol. 2001; 31 (1):3–23. doi: 10.1002/ejsp.27. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
  • Hodson R. Pride in task completion and organizational citizenship behaviour: evidence from the ethnographic literature. Work Stress. 1998; 12 (4):307–321. doi: 10.1080/02678379808256869. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
  • Jensen JL. Designing for profound experiences. Design . Issues. 2014; 30 (3):39–52. doi: 10.1162/DESI_a_00277. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
  • Kaasinen E, Roto V, Hakulinen J, Heimonen T, Jokinen JP, Karvonen H, Turunen M. Defining user experience goals to guide the design of industrial systems. Behaviour Inform Technol. 2015 (ahead-of-print) .
  • Katzenbach J. Pride: a strategic asset. Strategy Leadersh. 2003; 31 (5):34–38. doi: 10.1108/10878570310492041. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
  • Katzenbach J. Why pride matters more than money: the power of the world’s greatest motivational force. New York City: Crown Business; 2003. [ Google Scholar ]
  • Lea SEG, Webley P. Pride in economic psychology. J Econ Psychol. 1997; 18 (2–3):323–340. doi: 10.1016/S0167-4870(97)00011-1. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
  • Leffel GM, Fritz ME, Stephens MR. Who cares? generativity and the moral emotions, part 3. A social intuitionist "ecology of virtue". J psychol Theol. 2008;36(3).
  • Lu Y, Roto V. Towards meaning change: experience goals driving design space expansion. In: Proceedings of the 8th Nordic conference on human–computer interaction: fun, fast, foundational. New York City: ACM; 2014. p. 717–26.
  • Lu Y, Roto V. Evoking meaningful experiences at work—a positive design framework for work tools. J Eng Design. 2015 (ahead-of-print) .
  • Mascolo MF, Fischer KW. Developmental transformations in appraisals for pride, shame, and guilt. In: Tangney JP, Fischer KW, editors. Self-conscious emotions: the psychology of shame, guilt, embarrassment, and pride, xvii. New York: Guilford Press; 1995. pp 64–113.
  • McCullough ME, Kirkpatrick S, Emmons RA, Larson D. Is gratitude a moral affect? Psychol Bull. 2001; 127 :249–266. doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.127.2.249. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
  • Michie S. Pride and gratitude how positive emotions influence the prosocial behaviors of organizational leaders. J Leadersh Organ Stud. 2009;15(4):393–403.
  • Nakamura J. Pride and the experience of meaning in daily life. J Posit Psychol. 2013; 8 (6):555–567. doi: 10.1080/17439760.2013.830765. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
  • Pohlmeyer AE. Design for happiness. Interfaces. 2012;92:8–11.
  • Riva G, Banos RM, Botella C, Wiederhold BK, Gaggioli A. Positive technology: using interactive technologies to promote positive functioning. Cyberpsychol Behav Soc Network. 2012; 15 (2):69–77. doi: 10.1089/cyber.2011.0139. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
  • Rosso BD, Dekas KH, Wrzesniewski A. On the meaning of work: a theoretical integration and review. Research Organ Behav. 2010; 30 :91–127. doi: 10.1016/j.riob.2010.09.001. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
  • Roto V, Law E, Vermeeren APOS, Hoonhout J. User experience white paper. Bringing clarity to the concept of user experience. 2011.
  • Roto V, Lu Y, Nieminen H, Tutal E. Designing for user and brand experience via company-wide experience goals. In: Proceedings of the 33rd annual ACM conference extended abstracts on human factors in computing systems ACM. 2015. p. 2277–82.
  • Seligman M. Flourish: a new understanding of happiness, well-being-and how to achieve them. Boston: Nicholas Brealey Pub; 2011. [ Google Scholar ]
  • Seligman MEP, Csikszentmihalyi M. Positive psychology: an introduction. Am Psychol. 2000; 55 :5–14. doi: 10.1037/0003-066X.55.1.5. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
  • Sheldon KM, Elliot AJ, Kim Y, Kasser T. What is satisfying about satisfying events? testing 10 candidate psychological needs. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2001; 80 (2):325–339. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.80.2.325. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
  • Tangney JP. Assessing individual differences in proneness to shame and guilt: development of the self-conscious affect and attribution inventory. J Pers Soc Psychol. 1990; 59 (1):102. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.59.1.102. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
  • Tangney JP, Stuewig J, Mashek DJ. Moral emotions and moral behavior. Annu Rev Psychol. 2007;58:345. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ]
  • Tracy JL, Weidman AC, Cheng JT, Martens JP. The fundamental emotion of success, power, and status. In: Tugade M, Shiota M, Kirby L, editors. Handbook of positive emotions. New York: The Guilford Press; 2014. p. 2014. [ Google Scholar ]
  • Tracy JL, Robins RW. Putting the self into self-conscious emotions: a theoretical model. Psychol Inq. 2004; 15 :103–125. doi: 10.1207/s15327965pli1502_01. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
  • Tracy JL, Robins RW. Emerging insights into the nature and function of pride. Curr Dir Psychol Sci. 2007; 16 (3):147–150. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8721.2007.00493.x. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
  • Tracy JL, Robins RW. The psychological structure of pride: a tale of two facets. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2007; 92 :506–525. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.92.3.506. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
  • Weiner B. An attributional theory of achievement motivation and emotion. Psychol Rev. 1985; 92 (4):548. doi: 10.1037/0033-295X.92.4.548. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
  • Williams LA, DeSteno D. Pride adaptive social emotion or seventh sin? Psychol Sci. 2009; 20 (3):284–288. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02292.x. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
  • Yoon J, Desmet PMA, Pohlmeyer AE. Embodied typology of positive emotions: the development of a tool to facilitate emotional granularity in design. Presented at the 5th international congress of international association of sciences of design research, Tokyo, Japan. 2013. p. 1195–206.
  • Wright P, McCarthy J. Experience-centred design. Designers, Users, and Communities in Dialogue. San Rafael, CA, USA: Morgan Claypool. 2010.  
  • Zimmerman J, Stolterman E, Forlizzi J. An analysis and critique of research through design: towards a formalization of a research approach. DIS. 2010; 2010 :310–319. [ Google Scholar ]

Sangath Logo

PREMIUM FOR ADOLESCENTS (PRIDE)

pride model of problem solving suggested by

PROJECT OVERVIEW

PRIDE is a Wellcome Trust-funded programme (2016-22) that aims to develop and test a suite of scalable, evidence-based interventions addressing the major share of the adolescent mental health burden (i.e., anxiety, depression and conduct difficulties) in India. The country is home to the largest concentration of adolescents in the world, comprising 20% of the total global population of 10-19-year-olds. Previous research has shown that as many as 23.3% of secondary school students experience significant mental health morbidity, and suicide is the leading cause of mortality in Indian adolescents (Roy et al., 2019).

Designed initially for urban, low-income secondary schools in New Delhi and Goa, the PRIDE intervention model incorporates three design innovations. First, the content is built around a core set of active ingredients that were systematically identified by matching evidence-based practices to common adolescent problems found in the local context. These building blocks are combined within a structured transdiagnostic protocol from which a ‘menu’ of behavioural modules are selected, titrated and sequenced according to clinical presentations. The parsimonious use of a single intervention framework for multiple problems is intended to improve both efficiency and utility, especially in “real-world” service settings where psychosocial complexity and comorbidity are commonplace. Second, PRIDE employs non-specialist (“lay”) counsellors as the primary delivery agents, in line with evidence for the cost-effectiveness of task-sharing for mental health care in diverse low-resourced settings. A low-cost digital training package has been developed to enable capacity building at scale. Third, a stepped care architecture allows for further resource efficiency. A broad-based problem-solving intervention (“Step 1”) is delivered as a brief first-line intervention, followed by a more tailored, higher-intensity second step (“Step 2”) for non-responders.

The conceptual development of the PRIDE stepped care model has been detailed in a series of linked publications (Boustani et al., 2020; Chorpita et al., 2020; Michelson et al., 2020a). Subsequently, Step 1 has been trialled as a standalone intervention (Michelson et al., 2020b) using a brief (3-week) face-to-face counselling format, and compared against problem-solving booklets alone. The counselling format had a significant effect on self-reported psychosocial problem severity at 6 and 12 weeks, with the effect sustained over 12 months (Malik et al., in submission). Other PRIDE studies have included a stepped-wedge, cluster-randomised controlled trial of a classroom-based sensitisation intervention designed to generate demand for the Step 1 problem-solving intervention (Parikh et al., 2021), as well as a pilot evaluation of the complete stepped care protocol (Malik et al., in submission). A digital version of the problem-solving intervention has also been developed (Gonsalves et al., 2021), with a trial planned for 2022. A further trial will evaluate the learning outcomes of online training provided for prospective PRIDE counsellors without prior experience in psychological therapies.

More from Adolescent and Youth

New delhi, goa, project duration, project goal.

PRIDE aimed to develop and evaluate a suite of transdiagnostic interventions targeting common mental health problems among school-going students.

pride model of problem solving suggested by

batches of participants

Participants oriented, participants completed the course.

For further details please write to us at [email protected] 

RELEVANT LINKS

Learn about ‘POD Adventures’, our digital problem solving programme

Download POD Adventures App

Sangath-POD-Workbook-1 -English

Sangath-POD-Workbook-1 -Hindi

Sangath-POD-Workbook-2 -English

Sangath-POD-Workbook-2 -Hindi

Sangath-POD-Workbook-3 -English

Sangath-POD-Workbook-3 -Hindi

TRIAL PAPERS

A pre-and-post study with a nested randomised controlled trial of a coach-supported versus self-guided digital training course for a problem-solving psychological intervention for non-specialists: Study protocol

Sonal mathur; helen a weiss; melissa neuman; andy p field; baptiste leurent; tejaswi shetty; james e. j; pooja nair; rhea mathews; kanika malik; daniel michelson; vikram patel, jmir research protocol , jmir research protocols ,, pilot randomised controlled trial of a remotely delivered online intervention for adolescent mental health problems in india: lessons learned about low acceptability and feasibility during the covid-19 pandemic, gonsalves pattie, sharma rhea, jambhale abhijeet, chodankar bindiya, verma, m., hodgson, e. s., weiss, h. a., laurent, b., cavanagh, k., fairburn, c., cuijpers, p., michelson, d. & patel vikram., bjpsych open ,, “if there is a tension about something, i can solve it”: a qualitative investigation of change processes in a trial of brief problem-solving interventions for common adolescent mental health problems in india, kanika malik, rachana parikh, rooplata sahu, paulomi sudhir, christopher g. fairburn, vikram patel, daniel michelson, psychology and psychotherapy: theory research and practice ,, a guided internet-based problem-solving intervention delivered through smartphones for secondary school pupils during the covid-19 pandemic in india: protocol for a pilot randomised controlled trial, pattie gonsalves, rhea sharma, eleanor hodgson, bhargav bhat, abhijeet jambhale, helen a weiss, christopher g fairburn, kate cavanagh, pim cuijpers, daniel michelson, vikram patel, jmir research protocols ,, effectiveness and costs associated with a lay counselor–delivered, brief problem-solving mental health intervention for adolescents in urban, low-income schools in india: 12-month outcomes of a randomised controlled trial, kanika malik , daniel michelson , aoife m. doylei , helen a. weissi , giulia greco , rooplata sahu , james e. , sonal mathuri , paulomi sudhiri , michael kingi , pim cuijpersi , bruce chorpitai , christopher g. fairburn , vikram pateli, plos medicine ,, increasing demand for school counselling through a lay counsellor-delivered classroom sensitisation intervention: a stepped-wedge cluster randomised controlled trial in new delhi, india, rachana parikh, adriaan hoogendoorn, daniel michelson, jeroen ruwaard, rhea sharma, bhargav bhat, kanika malik, rooplata sahu, pim cuijpers, vikram patel, bmj global health ,, effectiveness of a brief lay counsellor-delivered, problem solving intervention for adolescent mental health problems in urban, low-income schools in india: a randomised controlled trial, daniel michelson, kanika malik, rachana parikh, helen a weiss, aoife m doyle, bhargav bhat, rooplata sahu, bhagwant chilhate, sonal mathur, madhuri krishna, rhea sharma, paulomi sudhir, michael king, pim cuijpers, bruce chorpita, christopher g fairburn, vikram patel, open access , the lancet ,, the effectiveness of a low-intensity problem-solving intervention for common adolescent mental health problems in new delhi, india: protocol for a school-based, individually randomized controlled treatment trial with an embedded stepped-wedge cluster randomized controlled recruitment trial, r. parikh, d. michelson , m. sapru , r. sahu , a. singh , p. cuijpers and v. patel, cambridge university press , global mental health ,.

INTERVENTION DEVELOPMENT PAPERS

App-based guided problem-solving intervention for adolescent mental health: a pilot cohort study in Indian schools

Pattie p gonsalves , eleanor sara hodgson, bhargav bhat, rhea sharma, abhijeet jambhale, daniel michelson, vikram patel, bmj mental health ,, feasibility and acceptability of a remote stepped care mental health programme for adolescents during the covid-19 pandemic in india, malik, k., shetty, t., mathur, s., james, e.j., mathews, r., manogya, s., chauhan, p., nair, p., patel, v. & michelson, d., international journal of environmental research and public health ,, a qualitative analysis of collaborative efforts to build a school-based intervention for multiple common adolescent mental health difficulties in india, resham gellatly, kendra knudsen, maya m. boustani, daniel michelson, kanika malik, sonal mathur, pooja nair, vikram patel, bruce f. chorpita, frontiers , frontiers in psychiatry ,, a pilot study to evaluate feasibility and acceptability of training mental health workers in india to select case-specific intervention procedures within a dynamic modular treatment designed for a low-resource setting, kendra s. knudsen ma, kimberly d. becker phd, karen guan phd, resham gellatly phd, vikram h. patel md, kanika malik phd, maya m. boustani phd, sonal mathur phd, bruce f. chorpita phd, journal of evaluation in clinical practice ,, development of a transdiagnostic stepped care programme for common adolescent mental health problems in indian secondary schools: lessons from a pilot study examining acceptability and feasibility, kanika malik, maliha ibrahim, sonal mathur, james e. jose, pooja nair, rooplata sahu, madhuri krishna, deepak jangra, rhea mathews, pim cuijpers, bruce chorpita, christopher g. fairburn, vikram patel and daniel michelson, design process and protocol description for a multi-problem mental health intervention within a stepped care approach for adolescents in india, bruce f. chorpitaa , eric l. daleiden , kanika malik , resham gellatly , maya m. boustani , daniel michelson , kendra knudsen , sonal mathur , vikram h. patel, using relevance mapping methodology to design an adolescent mental health intervention in india, maya m. boustani, eric daleiden, adam bernstein, daniel michelson, resham gellatly, kanika malik, vikram patel & bruce chorpita, global health action , taylor & francis ,, development of a transdiagnostic, low-intensity, psychological intervention for common adolescent mental health problems in indian secondary schools, daniel michelson, kanika malik, madhuri krishna, rhea sharma, sonal mathur, bhargav bhat, rachana parikh, kallol roy, akankasha joshi, rooplata sahu, bhagwant chilhate, maya boustani, pim cuijpers, bruce chorpita, christopher g. fairburn, vikram patel, behaviour research and therapy ,.

FORMATIVE PAPERS

Priorities and preferences for school-based mental health services in India: a multi-stakeholder study with adolescents, parents, school staff, and mental health providers

“it is like a mind attack”: stress and coping among urban school-going adolescents in india, rachana parikh, mahima sapru, madhuri krishna, pim cuijpers, vikram patel & daniel michelson, bmc psychology ,, india’s response to adolescent mental health: a policy review and stakeholder analysis, kallol roy, sachin shinde, bidyut k. sarkar, kanika malik, rachana parikh & vikram patel, press mentions, “we are everyone’s ashas but who’s there for us” a qualitative exploration of perceptions of work stress and coping among rural frontline workers in madhya pradesh, india, ritu shrivastava, lochan sharma, mehak jolly, romi ahuja, radhika sharma, john a naslund, jyotsna agrawal, rahul shidhaye, seema mehrotra, steve d hollon, vikram patel, deepak tugnawat, ananth kumar, anant bhan, ameya p bondre, soc sci med ,, determinants of alcohol use among young males in two indian states: a population-based study, jan m. heijdra suasnabar, abhijit nadkarni, benjamin palafox, wiley online library ,, stress alleviation methods for community-based health activists (sambhav): development of a digital program for stress reduction for community health workers in rural india, ritu shrivastava, abhishek singh, azaz khan, shivangi choubey, juliana restivo haney, eirini karyotaki, deepak tugnawat, anant bhan, john a. naslund, ssm-mental health ,, closing the treatment gap for alcohol use disorders in low- and middle-income countries, abhijit nadkarni, yashi gandhi, urvita bhatia and richard velleman, a qualitative exploration of perceived needs and barriers of individuals with schizophrenia, caregivers and clinicians in using mental health applications in madhya pradesh, india, ameya p. bondre, ritu shrivastava, harikeerthan raghuram, deepak tugnawat, azaz khan, snehil gupta, mohit kumar, urvakhsh meherwan mehta, matcheri keshavan, tanvi lakhtakia, prabhat kumar chand, jagadisha thirthalli, vikram patel, john torous, abhijit r. rozatkar, john a. naslund, anant bhan, ssm - mental health ,.

PRIDE SENSITISATION MANUAL

POD ADVENTURES APP MANUAL

PRIDE PROBLEM SOLVING COUNSELLING Manual

MBI FACE-FACE DELIVERY MANUAL

To view all our resources, please visit our Resources page.

pride model of problem solving suggested by

Quick Access

  • Our Projects
  • Our Approach
  • Get Support

Get Involved

  • Work With Us
  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Policy
  • Organisational Policies

Stay Updated

View this website in:.

do_shortcode(‘ ‘)

copyright@sangath 2022

Tim Lomas Ph.D.

How Can We Cultivate Less Problematic Forms of Pride?

Lessons from the italian notion of fiero..

Posted June 13, 2018

National Media Museum (public domain - adapted)

Finally, the FIFA World Cup is here. After four years of waiting, and an interminable qualifying campaign, at last our nations’ finest players stride out on the biggest sporting stage of all. I’m a huge football fan, and am as excited as anyone for it to get going. The fixture list is up on my wall, and my viewing schedule for the next month mapped out. Let the festivities commence!

However, aspects of the whole affair do make me uneasy. High among these is the idea of national pride. I’ll certainly be waving my flag for England and cheering them on. In that sense, I suppose the team does evoke a certain pride in me. However, there are important caveats here, for pride is a complex and problematic phenomenon. Not for nothing is it one of the seven "deadly sins."

The problem of pride

The notion of the deadly sins–also known as cardinal sins or capital vices–is thought to originate with the Christian ‘desert fathers,’ especially Evagrius Ponticus, the 4th century ascetic. He identified eight evil thoughts or spirits that one needs to overcome, otherwise one’s spiritual progress would be impeded, and misdeeds and misfortune would follow. The list was rendered into Latin, and in 590 was revised by Pope Gregory into the canonical seven that are known universally today: gula (gluttony), luxuria (lust), avaritia (avarice), acedia (sloth), ira (wrath), invidia ( envy ), and … superbia (pride).

In fact, of these, church teachers often placed particular emphasis on pride as the root of the other sins, and the vice which severs one from grace. St. Augustine, for instance, wrote that ‘it was pride that changed angels into devils.’ C. S. Lewis made the point equally forcefully when he called pride "the essential vice, the utmost evil." 1 For it describes an excessive vanity and belief in one’s own powers and self-worth. This cuts one off from the humility that in the Christian context is seen as the path of salvation.

Modern psychology may not use such vivid, dramatic language. But pride is definitely seen as problematic, for many reasons. For instance, inflated self-assessments can prompt people into taking on tasks that exceed their capacities, leading potentially to failure and harm; furthermore, this outcome can be particularly destabilizing if one’s self esteem is contingent on extrinsic validation and achievement of these goals . 2 More perniciously still, pride can be imbued with noxious qualities like narcissism, which are linked to higher levels of aggression , particularly when inflated self-appraisals are threatened. 3

The problem of collective pride

Pride can also be a collective phenomenon, where a person may experience it in relation to, or on behalf of, a group to which they belong. Although this can be a positive process (as we'll see below), it also has the potential to produce destructive outcomes like ‘collective narcissism,’ defined as "an emotional investment in an unrealistic belief about the in group’s greatness." 4 And when it does, the issues that bedevil pride as an individual vice still apply. Unfortunately, the destructive corollary of ‘in-group love’ can sometimes be ‘out-group hate,’ with adverse consequences. 5 This includes reactive and proactive hostility, aggression, and even violence towards out-groups.

Indeed, the recent history of humankind is a tragic demonstration of these dynamics. Take any major war or conflict, and these destructive processes will be there in the mix. And, to return to the topic at hand, they have cast a dark shadow over football. The UK, for instance, went through a particularly dark period in the 1980s, when the game was marred by violent hooliganism, with the nadir being the terrible Heysel stadium disaster, which led to English clubs being banned from European competition for five years. And even while the behavior of most fans has generally got better, many national teams still attract dark forms of nationalism and aggression.

How then, in that context, to feel about national pride? It should go without saying that the out-group hostility and violence depicted above has no place in football. Yet, we can ask, are all forms of pride bad? After all, at an individual level, while narcissistic self-aggrandizement may be harmful, the value of qualities such as positive self-regard and confidence is still widely recognized. 6 And at a collective level, movements such as Gay Pride show that upholding group self-worth can be affirmative and celebratory, and do not necessarily involve denigrating an out-group. 7 In that respect, perhaps we need a way of differentiating forms of pride, separating the good from the bad.

As we have seen, pride is a complex phenomenon, which can manifest in adaptive and maladaptive ways. It can thus be confusing to have this one word, pride, covering all varieties. Perhaps it would clarify things if we could develop a subtler lexicon to distinguish between these types. Indeed, in that regard, efforts are already underway in psychology. Consider the example of fiero .

pride model of problem solving suggested by

This is a nice example of an untranslatable word, one that lacks an exact equivalent in our own tongue. I’ve become fascinated by such words, particularly ones relating to well-being (being a researcher in positive psychology ). To that end, I’ve been creating a "positive lexicography," as I explore in two new books ( please see bio for details). These words are significant for many reasons. Most intriguingly, they can reveal phenomena which have been overlooked or underappreciated in one’s own culture and language.

Fiero is an interesting case: In Italian it can sometimes function in the same way as pride. However, the Italian psychologist Isabella Poggi has operationalized it as a specific form of pride, one that is justified and well-earned, often because one has triumphed over adversity 8 . Subsequently, Paul Ekman included it in his Atlas of Emotions , in which he described it as the "enjoyment felt when you have met a challenge that stretched your capabilities." 9 Crucially, rather than use the complex and ambivalent label pride , he deployed fiero as a loanword to depict the specific positive form of pride that he had in mind.

So, perhaps I’ll aim for this kind of pride over the next month. This isn’t a pride that lords its superiority over other teams–not that this would probably be viable for me anyway, given England’s record in recent championships–and it certainly isn’t the sort that ignites hostility and aggression towards rival fans. Rather, it means being happy that we're there, at the party, and being gratified if we try our best, play with passion and commitment, and carry ourselves with dignity and good grace. For me, that kind of pride that seems worth aiming for and celebrating.

[1] Lewis, C. S. (1980). Mere Christianity. San Francisco: Harper, p.121-122.

[2] Crocker, J., & Park, L. E. (2004). The costly pursuit of self-esteem. Psychological Bulletin, 130(3), 392-414.

[3] Baumeister, R. F., Smart, L., & Boden, J. M. (1996). Relation of threatened egotism to violence and aggression: The dark side of high self-esteem. Psychological Review, 103(1), 5-33.

[4] de Zavala, A. G., Cichocka, A., Eidelson, R., & Jayawickreme, N. (2009). Collective narcissism and its social consequences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97(6), 1074-1096.

[5] de Zavala, A. G. (2011). Collective narcissism and intergroup hostility: The dark side of ‘in‐group love’. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 5(6), 309-320.

[6] Heine, S. J. (2004). Positive self-views: Understanding universals and variability across cultures. Journal of Cultural and Evolutionary Psychology, 2(1-2), 109-122.

[7] Markwell, K., & Waitt, G. (2009). Festivals, space and sexuality: Gay pride in Australia. Tourism Geographies, 11(2), 143-168.

[8] Poggi, I., & D’Errico, F. (2011). Types of pride and their expression. In A. Esposito, A. Vinciarelli, K. Vicsi, C. Pelachaud & A. Nijholt (Eds.), Analysis of Verbal and Nonverbal Communication and Enactment. The Processing Issues (pp. 434-448). Netherlands: Springer.

[9] www.paulekman.com/atlas-of-emotions

Tim Lomas Ph.D.

Tim Lomas, Ph.D. , is a lecturer in positive psychology at the University of East London.

  • Find a Therapist
  • Find a Treatment Center
  • Find a Psychiatrist
  • Find a Support Group
  • Find Teletherapy
  • United States
  • Brooklyn, NY
  • Chicago, IL
  • Houston, TX
  • Los Angeles, CA
  • New York, NY
  • Portland, OR
  • San Diego, CA
  • San Francisco, CA
  • Seattle, WA
  • Washington, DC
  • Asperger's
  • Bipolar Disorder
  • Chronic Pain
  • Eating Disorders
  • Passive Aggression
  • Personality
  • Goal Setting
  • Positive Psychology
  • Stopping Smoking
  • Low Sexual Desire
  • Relationships
  • Child Development
  • Therapy Center NEW
  • Diagnosis Dictionary
  • Types of Therapy

January 2024 magazine cover

Overcome burnout, your burdens, and that endless to-do list.

  • Coronavirus Disease 2019
  • Affective Forecasting
  • Neuroscience

Theory, Research and Practice

  • Open access
  • Published: 04 July 2016

Design for Pride in the Workplace

  • Yichen Lu 1 &
  • Virpi Roto 1  

Psychology of Well-Being volume  6 , Article number:  6 ( 2016 ) Cite this article

9931 Accesses

14 Citations

50 Altmetric

Metrics details

Pride is one of the most meaningful experiences in daily life. Many psychological studies emphasize self-oriented and event-based achievements as the main sources of pride, whereas work from organizational management considers pride as a collective attitude derived from other-focused activities and fostered by the sense of belongingness. Taking the interdisciplinary aspects of pride into account, this article addresses the challenge of how experience design can contribute to pride experience in the workplace.

By cross-cutting theories from psychology and organizational management, this study introduces a framework of dynamic pride. The data includes 20 experience design cases that were specifically devoted to positive experiences in the context of the metal and engineering industry. 33 pride-related experience design goals were analyzed and categorized into the framework of pride.

This study introduces the social and temporal dimensions of pride experience at work. The pride-related experience design goals fall into four categories: self-focused short-term pride, self-focused long-term pride, other-focused short-term pride, and other-focused long-term pride. Accordingly, the extracted design strategies of these goals were mapped to each type of pride. Most of these design strategies were clustered in the categories of self-focused short-term pride and other-focused long-term pride.

Conclusions

This study reveals the design strategies for dynamics of pride in the workplace varying from evoking self-achievement in individual interactions with tools to maintaining long-term motivation of self-competence development, and from highlighting one’s contribution in face-to-face collaborative work facilitated by interactive tools to fostering co-experience of organizational pride throughout social events.

People feel life holds more meaning when they are motivated by cherished goals, aware of self-improvement, involved in healthy interpersonal relationships, and loyal to their beliefs. In essence, these profound experiences of meaning make life worth living (e.g., Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi 2000 ). However, the contribution of subjective value experiences, especially those of happiness, has not gained adequate attention in empirical research until the emergence of positive psychology. This new branch of psychology shifted the research focus from pathology to optimal human function and flourishing (Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi 2000 ), and it addresses how to enable individuals and communities to thrive (Seligman 2011 ).

Positive psychology has promoted human flourishing as the ultimate goal of scientific research. It has been increasingly applied to other disciplines, such as education, policy, management, mental health, computer science, engineering, and design (Calvo and Peters 2014 , p. 25). In the field of human–computer interaction, the “positive technology” approach was proposed to utilize interactive technologies for personal experience optimization (Riva et al. 2012 ). From the perspective of multidisciplinary efforts, Calvo and Peters ( 2014 ) refer to this area of design and development of technology for psychological wellbeing and human potential as “positive computing”.

Highly connected with technology and engineering, the discipline of design (e.g., industrial design, product design, and interaction design) has been inspired by the mindset of positive psychology: from preventing pain towards promoting happiness, from material sufficiency towards experiential value (Pohlmeyer 2012 ), from immediate response towards long-term impact, and from designing solutions towards designing possibilities (Desmet and Hassenzahl 2012 ; Jensen 2014 ). Human flourishing has essentially changed the traditional design process, exemplified by recent scholarly advice, such as “think experience before product” (Hassenzahl 2010 ) and “first decide what kind of experience to be aimed for and then design certain features to evoke the targeted experience” (Desmet and Schifferstein 2011 ). Design approaches, such as experience-based design (Bate and Robert 2007 ), experience-centered design (Wright and McCarthy 2010 ), experience-driven design (Desmet and Schifferstein 2011 ), positive design (Desmet and Pohlmeyer 2013 ), experience design (Hassenzahl et al. 2013 ) and design for profound experiences (Jensen 2014 ), prioritize quality experience goals over material-level requirements. One typical experience design case introduced by Hassenzahl ( 2010 ) is Philips wake-up light simulating sunrise and bird singing for natural wake-up experience in the morning. Combining an alarm clock and a bedside lamp, it guides user gently out of a deep sleep phase by progressively increasing in light intensity and volume of bird singing. Adding to this understanding of experience design, Lu and Roto ( 2014 ) defined an experience goal addressing in-depth meaning as the starting point and driver of design process. Functionality and usability requirements are submissive to ultimate experience goals.

To facilitate the designers’ adaptation to this mindset change, design researchers have started to translate knowledge from the field of psychology into design approaches. Hassenzahl et al. ( 2010 ) selected six out of 10 psychological needs (Sheldon et al. 2001 ) and suggested utilizing an “experience pattern” as a tool to distill the essence of an experience and transfer it to the targeted context. Desmet ( 2012 ) introduced a basic set of 25 positive emotion types and proposed six main sources of positive emotions in human product interactions. Desmet and Pohlmeyer ( 2013 ) created a framework suggesting three ingredients of design for human flourishing: pleasure, personal significance, and virtue. Calvo and Peters ( 2014 ) identified the determinant factors of wellbeing and provided the strategies to develop a certain factor as well as its evaluation methods. For the specific context of the industrial work environment, Lu and Roto ( 2015 ) borrowed the knowledge on the meaning of work (Rosso et al. 2010 ) and provided high-level design strategies for evoking meaningful experiences at work regarding work tool design, such as promoting competence for the perception of personal significance. These frameworks address positive experiences as the root of design, and open the door to design for wellbeing in general. However, these theories may arguably appear too essential, comprehensive, or concise for designers, and scarcely reach to the fine granularity required for design action. The nature of design practice remains highly context-dependent and the resulting design is required to be concrete and to manifest in details. Therefore, more explicit and practicable strategies for experience design are needed regarding a specific experience in a targeted context.

This study aims to investigate design strategies for human flourishing with a special focus on pride experience in the workplace, because the nature of pride is full of richness regarding meaningful experiences at work. According to the positive computing framework (Calvo and Peters 2014 , p. 87), pride covers the dimension from intra - personal pride that is experienced within oneself (e.g., feelings of self-achievement) to interpersonal pride that is experienced from interaction between oneself and others (e.g., perception of respect from others). From the perspective of time, pride can be experienced as a moment-by-moment positive emotion evoked by unstable events, such as success in a challenging task. Also, pride can be considered as a cumulative experience based on a long-term rational attitude, such as loyalty towards one’s community. In contrast to the richness of pride, current design research studies provide limited sources of design for pride, which are mainly constrained by the mere scope of product design and the perspective of self-achievement and personal distinct possession (Desmet 2012 ).

Pride as a meaningful experience design goal in the workplace is worth investigating further. This study specifically strives to provide designers concrete design-for-pride strategies from two angles: the literature review on the multiple facets of pride and the empirical data on pride embodiment in design concepts. Accordingly, with a special focus on workplace, this study addresses two research questions: first, to identify what are the dimensions of pride that help designers to understand the design space for pride experience; second, to distinguish the strategies that designers have used so far in the design-for-pride cases. By synthesizing theoretical and empirical knowledge, this study proposes a multi-dimensional framework of design-mediated pride Footnote 1 and the design strategies for evoking dynamics of pride in the workplace.

The remaining sections of this paper are structured accordingly: first, a theoretical framework of pride based on literature review is presented and the need of knowledge on design-mediated pride is identified; second, 20 cases that were designed for positive experience at work are analyzed based on self-focus to other-focus dimensions and short-term to long-term timespans; third, derived from these cases, the design strategies for evoking pride experience at work are proposed; finally, the insights from these design strategies are discussed.

Literature Review

Psychological structure of pride.

Pride is a fundamental human emotion involving a complex self-evaluative process (Tracy and Robins 2004 ). Different from other “purely” basic emotions, such as the universally admired emotion of love or the universally reviled emotion of jealousy (Williams and DeSteno 2009 ), pride is comprised of two distinct facets. To this extent, Tangney ( 1990 ) referred to “alpha” pride as pride in self and “beta” pride as pride in behavior. Furthermore, Tracy and Robins ( 2004 ) distinguished between authentic pride and hubristic pride: authentic pride is evoked by accomplishment from successful behavior and positively related to genuine self-esteem and prosocial traits, whereas hubristic pride is more towards self-aggrandizement and positively related to narcissism (Tracy et al. 2014 ). Additionally, the two facets of pride differ from each other in cognitive antecedents (Tracy and Robins 2007b ). Authentic pride is triggered more by unstable, specific, and controllable attributions, such as solid results due to hard work, whereas hubristic pride is more likely to occur from stable, global, and uncontrollable causes, such as feelings of superiority from “who I am” (Tracy and Robins 2007b ). As this study focuses on designing for positive pride, hubristic pride is excluded in the scope of this paper.

Self-Focus Versus Other-Focus

Both self- and other-focused pride are sources of positive emotion (Desmet 2012 ); moreover, the categories of self and social have been identified as wellbeing factors (Calvo and Peters 2014 ). Self-focused pride emphasizes more on interaction within oneself and response to oneself whereas other-focused pride accentuates interpersonal interaction and the influence between self and others. Most studies emphasize pride as a self-conscious and performance-related experience triggered by self-efficacy (Tracy and Robins 2007a ). Besides its elicitation through self-achievement, pride as a fundamental social emotion can also be “generated by appraisals when one is responsible for a socially valued outcome or for being a socially valued person” (Mascolo and Fischer 1995 , p. 66). Moral accomplishment and prosocial actions are associated with the feeling of pride that may motivate and reinforce one’s socially valued conduct (Tangney et al. 2007 ), such as caregiving (Tracy and Robins 2007b ), treating others well (Michie 2009 ), and positively responding to others’ emotions and needs (Leffel et al. 2008 ). Nakamura’s ( 2013 ) related work suggests that compared with self-oriented achievement, other-oriented prosocial action has an even stronger relationship to pride in both family life and work life. Therefore, no matter whether it is triggered by self-oriented task accomplishment or other-oriented altruistic activities, pride functions as both a “barometer” and “motivator” (McCullough et al. 2001 ) in assessing, regulating, and encouraging one’s behavior toward being “good, competent, and virtuous” (Haidt 2003 , p. 860).

Short-Term Versus Long-Term

Pride derived from subjective histories of success may promote eagerness towards new anticipatory goals (Katzenbach 2003b ). This promotion-related eagerness may energize and enhance performance (Higgins et al. 2001 ) and thus renew the experience of pride. As such, pride can transition from a temporary emotional experience towards a durable attitude of pride. According to the timespans of user experience (Roto et al. 2011 ), a new challenging goal may evoke an anticipatory pride for a person with a subjective history of success (Higgins et al. 2001 ); incremental progress in problem solving may elicit a momentary pride; when reflecting on an overcome challenge, a person may feel an episodic pride in the achievement. These performance-related types of pride are short-term, event-specific, and ascribed to internal attributes, such as ability or effort (Weiner 1985 ). Additionally, another kind of long-term and cognitive attitudinal pride exists in organizational studies, which does not rely on single events, but cumulative experience related to the overall evaluation of a target (Gouthier and Rhein 2011 ), such as being proud of one’s community.

Pride Experience at Work

Pride is one of the most intense experiences in work life (Katzenbach 2003b ), and work itself is a source of pride (Hodson 1998 ). Katzenbach ( 2003b ) distinguishes institution-building pride which is based on largely intangible value and collective interest from self-serving pride which is driven by power and materialism.

Employees can take intrinsic pride in what they make, how they work, and whom they work with (Katzenbach 2003b ). Experience of pride in achievement can be empathized by others in social interaction at work and thereby contribute to psychological empowerment and promote future successes (Froman 2010 ). Katzenbach ( 2003b ) introduces a powerful “closed loop of energy” derived from pride: better performance contributes to business success, and recognized business success instills a strong feeling of pride, which fuels future better performance. This cycle can be repeatedly applied in organizational management.

Gouthier and Rhein ( 2011 ) discern two types of organizational pride: one is an emotional pride triggered by successful organizational events, and the other is a cognitive and durable attitude of pride oriented from the general perception of the organization and employees’ sense of belonging to the organization (Lea and Webley 1997 ). On this matter, the celebration of successful events, presence of a successful company history and culture, and successful advertising campaigns have been identified as activators of organizational pride (Gouthier and Rhein 2011 ).

In summary, pride experience can be derived from self-focused achievement and other-focused interpersonal interaction. The richness of pride also lies in covering a timespan from a temporary emotion to a durable attitude. Pride can be intensively experienced in the workplace, and intrinsic pride can be evoked by organizational celebration and reputation. From the psychology and organizational management literature review, two dimensions of pride were identified relevant for design: social dimension from self-focused to other-focused and temporal dimension from short-term to long-term (Fig.  1 ).

Social and temporal dimensions of pride experience at work

Design for Pride Experience

Recently, design researchers have started to explore how design can contribute to pride experience. Desmet ( 2012 ) introduced pride among the 25 positive emotions in the scope of human-product interactions: pride may be evoked by owning a unique product, being able to use a complex product, achieving something a product facilitates, or receiving positive feedback from others concerning the product one owns. Based on Desmet’s work, Yoon et al. ( 2013 ) developed a tool to facilitate emotional granularity in design and specified that pride may be triggered by “one’s praiseworthy behavior surpassing internal and external standard, and/or one recognizes that others appreciate it” (ibid., p.8). Compared with the two dimensions of pride (Fig.  1 ), pride as a collective experience in social interaction (Battarbee and Koskinen 2005 ) and the long-term cumulative experience has not yet been fully addressed in existing experience design theories.

One example of positive design for pride given by Desmet and Pohlmeyer ( 2013 ) is a designed social interactive activity in which patients with dementia can match record pieces in order to play music from their past on a turntable with others; thus, a feeling of pride may arise from task completion within the social interaction. Moreover, two cases of work tool design for meaningful experience at work (Lu and Roto 2015 ) indicate that employees may feel proud of mastering a tool and being part of an organization; meanwhile, customers may experience pride when they make a right decision on a tool purchase and present manufactured tools to their clients. These design examples suggest how designers shape the conditions that may evoke a pride experience in a specific context. These cases reveal different strategies of designing for dynamics of pride. On one hand, those theoretical sources of pride, such as achievement, competence, owning something special, and positive appraisal from self and others, are clearly embodied in these three cases. On the other hand, when referring to a pride experience in a specific context, designers seem to employ specific context-adapted design strategies, such as utilizing the positive relationship between personalized music and a patient with dementia, developing the employee’s perceptions of organizational reputation, and highlighting one’s contribution of a right decision to an organization.

Because the nature of design knowledge is highly applicable and practice-driven (Cross 2001 ), besides the theoretical perspective, it is meaningful to examine how different types of pride were designed for in the concrete cases. This study aims to help designers to discover profound and unique sources of pride experience in the specific context of the workplace. The design-for-pride strategies employed by the collected cases will be identified and analyzed against the theoretical dimensions of pride (Fig.  1 ).

This study falls under research for design category of design research, since the main aim of this work is to improve design practice (Frayling 1993 ). In line with Zimmerman et al. ( 2010 ), this research for design activity yields to a framework and design recommendations that help designers in their work. Besides a literature review, the research data is also derived from empirical design studies. The specific design approach under study is experience design, in which experience goals are the key prerequisite for design activity and defined in the early stage of the design process. Experience goals drive the whole design process and evolve into the designed artifacts that may evoke the targeted experience (Lu and Roto 2015 ). Thus, this study proposes that the design strategies for shaping a certain experience can be distilled from the argumentation of the experience goal realization in the design concepts. According to the premise of experience design, any kind of design that best fulfills the experience goals can be the design outcome. In the workplace context, specifically, this may mean a tool, service, space, or even an event.

The authors of this paper studied the reports of 20 experience design cases that were conducted in collaboration with masters-level design students and seven companies in the metal and engineering industry from 2012 to 2015. The given design briefs from the different companies share the same high-level goal to design for meaningful experience at work in heavy industry. The differences among the 20 assignments lie in the design contexts varying from heavy machine operation (e.g., crane remote control, tugboat console, control room of automation system) to the peripheral touchpoints for different stakeholders involved in the industrial system (e.g., a mobile application for factory automation customers, a mobile sales application for ship components, a mobile crane monitoring application).

In the beginning of the design course, experience design approaches were taught to the students by at least one of the authors. Design teams were then comprised of two to three master students who worked full time on a two-month design assignment from one company. Each company assignment was tackled by one team of students. All the teams underwent the following design process: familiarizing oneself with the target context and users, defining a set of profound experience goals, deriving concepts from the determined goals, and finally evaluating design concepts against these goals with relevant stakeholders. Most teams produced two design concepts: one called ‘incremental’ to address the company’s current needs, and another called ‘radical’, which was supposed to radically improve the user experience and show what experience design could mean without limitations for the outcome. The students defined the experience goals based on different sources (Kaasinen et al. 2015 ), and they had the freedom to set up goals that would fit their case briefs. In each case, experience goals were formatted into a word or a short phrase for convenient communication among different stakeholders. There was no special rule with regard to how many experience goals the students should define, whereas the relations between a set of experience goals were expected for clarification. Involved throughout the whole design process, the company personnel were available for providing information and comments. At least one of the authors followed these cases by arranging weekly meetings with the design teams and reading their design diaries. The students were not given special guidance for designing for pride, as pride was not a presumed design goal in any of the assignments. Rather, the students were trained to identify multiple profound experience goals for the targeted workplace contexts. Only after a majority of cases ended up pride-related experience goals, the authors got interested in a deeper study of pride experience at work. Hence the analysis of the design cases was retrospective and the final reports of the student teams served as the primary data source for this part of the research.

Four Design Case Examples

The design case description can provide better understanding of the experience design in the industrial workplace context. Due to the limited length of this article, this section will shortly describe four example cases that tackled pride from different perspectives.

The customer for the first experience design case was Kemppi, a manufacturer of welding machines. The task was to design a mobile application with which people (e.g. welding students) could train their welding skills with welding without the actual welding equipment, but rather with the help of a welding simulator game. The design students drew three experience goals: Pleasure (the joy of welding), Self-motivation (willingness to practice constantly), and Pride (about their skills, the results, and the welding itself). The Pleasure goal was tackled by gamification features; Self-motivation by sharing and communicating the progress; and Pride by a physical certificate after completing all levels of training (Fig.  2 ). The incremental concept was a mobile application as suggested in the assignment, and the radical concept focused on the best possible pride experience by inviting selected application users to showcase their real-life welding skills in an event similar to an art exhibition.

A physical certificate was designed to enhance pride after completing welding training

Another kind of experience design case was completed for Konecranes, focusing on the maintenance services of cranes at waste-to-energy plants. After studying the employees at the plant, the students set goals for the crane maintenance service experience. Of the three goals, two were related to the pride experience: Worthiness (an affirmation of their importance as a customer) and Belongingness (a meaningful relationship with Konecranes employees). The radical concept is called Mood sphere, consisting of a light ball at the plant and an identity badge for each employee. Both the badge and the ball show the status of the crane and the related Konecranes service. The crane operators can interact with the ball to communicate their feelings about the crane and its service (Fig.  3 ).

A light ball communicates the status of a crane to the crane operator, and the operator can send emotional messages to Konecranes service by interacting with the ball

In the third case, students were asked to redesign a tugboat steering simulator for Rolls-Royce Marine. The objective was to create a quality experience both for the salesperson demonstrating the steering properties with different thruster options and for the customer wanting to see its functionality. The task for the students was focused on the physical design of the simulator, consisting of two big joystick devices and a display. The practical goal was to enable a portable system. The experience goals were derived with the salesperson’s experience in mind, since the salesperson is the primary user of the simulator. The students utilized the metaphor of Q from the James Bond movies and set three experience goals that all were related to the experience of pride: Sense of directing (directing the situation by suggesting possible solutions), Expertise (presenting oneself as a professional, technical expert), and Pride (proudly representing the company). The design strategy to fulfill the Sense of directing goal was to boost the feeling of control; Expertise goal by using impressive technology; and Pride by drawing attention with a novel way of presentation. The radical solution proposed by the students was a simulator vehicle, similar to a Segway, with the steering joysticks mounted on it (Fig.  4 ).

A salesperson presenting in front of an audience by driving a tugboat steering simulator

The last experience design task reported here was assigned by a factory automation company, Fastems, who wanted to extend their training center into a visitor space. In this case, the company already had defined company-wide experience goals (Roto et al. 2015 ) for experience development projects, from which the students derived four experience goals for this specific case. One of these was Participation for pride, which aims to foster a pride experience in customers by being able to influence the development activities at Fastems. In addition to the physical space design in the center of the factory activities, students proposed an interactive table as a collaboration platform• in the space (Fig.  5 ).

figure 5

A physical space for visitors ( left ) and an interactive table for collaboration ( right )

Selecting Pride-Related Experience Goals

To decide whether a case is an endeavor for evoking a pride experience at work, the authors analyzed the final reports of all student teams, and examined the description of each experience goal setting and its infusion into a design concept. Compared to the existing guidance on designing for pride, this study adopted a broader and deeper understanding of pride based on the literature study. Besides the experience goals literally labeled with “pride”, those having the potential to elicit pride experience were also taken into account as pride-related experience goals and their relevance to pride is indicated in Table  1 . The researchers interpreted the implication of these goals situated in the design context rather than their original meaning. For example, in the Kemppi case introduced above, pride as a long-term experience is based on a momentary pleasurable pride and episodic evaluative pride in self-motivation and thus Pleasure and Self-motivation are grouped into pride-related experience goals. On the other hand, if the experience goals and their embodiment in the final concepts both have little connection with pride, then these goals are excluded in this study.

In these 20 design cases, altogether 61 experience goals were identified and more than half (33) of them were pride-related. Meanwhile, only two cases out of 20 have little connection with pride: one stressed Discovery as an experience in taking an elevator; the other focused on a Trust experience evoked by the designed cover for an expensive ship component placed outside.

Analyzing Pride-Related Experience Goals Against Two Dimensions of Pride

Each goal was then postulated to fall into the category either long-term or short-term experience. Two researchers (the authors) conducted the goal categorization independently, resulting to an inter-rater agreement of 87.88 %. Consensus was reached by discussion. These pride-related experience goals were also categorized along the self-focus or other-focus dimension. The inter-rater agreement in this case was 72.73 %, and the consensus was reached by discussion.

Combining the two categorizations, each selected experience goal was supposed to belong to one of these four groups: self-focused short-term pride, self-focused long-term pride, other-focused short-term pride, and other-focused long-term pride. Accordingly, the design strategies used by the students for different types of pride were compared within and across categories.

According to the social dimension, 17 out of 33 pride-related experience goals are self-focused, whereas the remaining 16 goals are other-focused. Along the temporal dimension, 15 out of 33 pride-related experience goals are short-term, and the rest are long-term. The experience goals for self-focus short-term pride and other-focus long-term pride both take one-third of all the pride-related experience goals whereas other-focus short-term pride was the least designed for.

As shown in Fig.  6 , different design strategies are summarized and grouped along the social and temporal dimensions of pride.

Design strategies sorted by two dimensions of pride

Design for Self-Focus Short-Term Pride

10 out of the 33 pride-related experience goals are both self-focus and short-term. The design strategies are distilled into three aspects: enhancing self-respect, enhancing self-efficacy, and promoting one’s goal achievement.

Enhancing Self-Respect

Three experience goals indicate that enhancing the feeling of self-respect is a pathway to pride experience. Thus, providing users with a distinctive interactive tool or workspace and strengthening their unique expertise may increase self-awareness of users’ own professionalism, which leads to self-respect enhancement. For instance, in the Rolls-Royce Marine case introduced above, the salesperson drives in front of the customers a special and attractive vehicle that demonstrates the same technology in the tugboat steering. This unique way of presentation reflects the professional engineering knowledge of a tugboat salesperson.

Enhancing Self-Efficacy

Five experience goals suggest that evoking the feeling of control, improvement, and autonomy can enable momentary pride experience. For example, providing an overview of all the machines’ data may enhance a manager’s feeling of control; boosting performances with a new application may enhance a worker’s feeling of competence; providing flexible options of the control room layout may enhance an operator’s feeling of work autonomy.

Promoting One’s Goal Achievement

Two experience goals indicate goal achievement promotion may induce anticipatory pride. For example, rewarding a learner’s practice of welding with a tangible certificate and fueling one’s intrinsic interest in doing something desirable may be a pathway to pride promotion.

Design for Self-Focus Long-Term Pride

Seven out of the 33 pride-related experience goals are designed for self-focused long-term pride. They stress three aspects: fostering self-worth, developing one’s competence, and developing and maintaining one’s interest.

Fostering a Sense of Self-Worth

Three goals indicate that activating one in organizational events, letting one work on what one is passionate about, and maintaining a positive self-status may foster self-worth, which would thus result in a durable self-focused pride. For example, in the case of Konecranes, the end users are often invited to a series of organizational events that may increase one’s awareness of their own value; making one passionate about one's work may result in self-actualization in a society; maintaining a decent status in a smooth transfer from work to retirement may increase one’s self-esteem.

Developing One’s Competence

Two goals indicate that challenging one to the next level of skills and letting one see how they perform compared to others may produce a durable and self-focused pride. In the case of Kemppi, the app provides gamification elements and makes the long-term skill improvement visible, which may in turn keep learners practicing through enjoyment of welding and competition with others.

Developing and Maintaining One’s Interest

Two goals from two cases indicate that motivating users with rewards as in games and keeping users’ inspirations in a series of organizational events may result in self-focus long-term pride. In the case of Kemppi, the app keeps an update of unlocked features to encourage learners onto the next practice level; a company can hold competitions, workshops, and seminars to maintain one’s interest and ambition and can thus accumulate one’s long-term pride.

Design for Other-Focus Short-Term Pride

Five out of the 33 pride-related experience goals are both other-focus and short-term. They emphasize two aspects: enabling one’s influence in social interaction and evoking a sense of belongingness to an organization.

Enabling One’s Influence in Social Interaction

Two experience goals indicate that fueling one’s leadership in social interaction and revealing one’s influence on decision-making may result in other-focused short-term pride. In the Rolls–Royces case introduced above, the special vehicle may guide others’ attention and provide a salesperson with a sense of directing, thus facilitate the salesperson’s leadership in interacting with the audience. Moreover, enabling the customers’ involvement and hence developing awareness of their impact on decision-making may build pride in customers through social interaction.

Evoking a Sense of Belongingness to an Organization

Three experience goals indicate that facilitating a connection with others, sharing happy moments, and stimulating inspiration and appreciation from others may lead to the feeling of other-focus short-term pride. For example, the output of an interactive system at the entrance of the office may evoke employees’ belongingness to a company by worldwide company information dissemination and entertainment activity arrangement. Besides this, organizational events may have the similar impact on stakeholder engagement by stimulating their inspiration.

Design for Other-focus Long-Term Pride

11 out of the 33 experience goals are designed for other-focus long-term pride. These goals focus on two main aspects: fostering a sense of belonging to an organization and revealing long-term impacts of one’s contribution to others.

Fostering a Sense of Belonging to an Organization

Six experience goals address the issue that enabling human-to-human interaction in organizational events, nurturing organizational heritage, and fostering immediate sharing of success may instill a sense of belonging to an organization and thus lead to other-focus long-term pride. For example, human-to-human interaction at work provides the feeling of camaraderie, the appreciation between each other, and the historical success of a company, which all contribute to collective pride towards an organization.

Revealing the Long-term Impact of One’s Contribution to Others

Five experience goals indicate that other-focused long-term pride can be produced by providing transparency on one's idea development, making the positive consequences of one's contributions visible to others, and making one’s positive progress visible to others. For example, the visualization of a process in which one’s work is further developed and implemented by others, and the positive confirmation of one’s critical decisions for an organization from a long-term perspective may increase one’s stable pride evoked by others.

Workplace as a social space provides a rich context for stimulation, development, and maintenance of the dynamics of pride. Design for pride in the workplace is a powerful, yet little utilized approach to keeping the closed loop of energy up for a successful business. By cross-cutting theories from psychology and organizational management, this study first introduces the social and temporal dimensions of pride. Based on the theoretical framework of pride, the empirical data from 20 experience design cases reveals contextualized and concrete design strategies for the dynamics of pride experience at work. The design implication drawn from these design strategies is given as follows.

The design strategies for self-focused short-term pride is in line with the sources of pride in human-production interaction (Desmet 2012 ): self-efficacy enhancement is related to “using the tool induces pride of task performance”; self-respect enhancements matches with “owning the tool induces pride of one’s expertise”; and goal achievement promotion fits with “the tool enables results that induces pride of one’s task performance”. To evoke such pride much depends on a well-designed momentary interaction between tool and user, for example, by measuring and visualizing incremental performance improvement in time.

When moving to a self-focus long-term pride, the design strategies adapt to the long-term effect, such as motivation maintenance, competence development and fostering self-worth. The key to designing for this type of pride is to explore and personalize the individual intrinsic meaning and to hold it longer, which is in line with positive design for personal significance, i.e., not focusing on the momentary effect, but on one’s personal goals and aspirations (Desmet and Pohlmeyer 2013 ).

Besides the facilitation of work performance enhancement, interactive tools can also be designed for other-focused short-term pride to assist users’ leadership or involvement in momentary social interaction, such as sharing one’s ideas by instant prototyping for collaborative discussion. Additionally, seeing others’ responses to one’s contribution may happen in organizational events, such as competitions, workshops, and seminars. These kinds of events may strengthen one’s connection with others, trigger social interaction, and stimulate each other’s creativity, in which co-experience of pride can be evoked within an organization.

Other-focused long-term pride is highly related to entrepreneurial spirit and loyalty. Company leaders aim to instill such pride into their employees and customers. The implications from organizational management can enter into design strategy by fostering a sense of belonging to an organization through activities (Gouthier and Rhein 2011 ). Belongingness is an other-oriented communion, which is about sharing common social identity and strengthening interpersonal connectedness (Rosso et al. 2010 ). Thus, sharing a positive identity is an important source of the other-focused pride, especially in organizational work contexts. Meanwhile, the visualization of progress and metrics can enable employees to track their own and others’ work (Katzenbach 2003b ), and thereby reveal the long-term impact of one’s contribution to others, which is also a key design strategy for other-focused pride.

These four types of pride apparently connect to each other and work together. For example, one’s pride derived from the pleasure of interaction with a work tool may bring out both enjoyment and self-enhancement at work. The pleasurable pride may serve as an intrinsic motivator for long-term good work performance. The visualization of one’s positive work results and progress may evoke others’ appreciation. In the long run, the collective impacts of everyone’s incremental contribution accumulate and sustain organizational success and thereby lead to a durable pride towards one’s organization.

In conclusion, this paper identifies two main trends in designing for pride experience in the workplace: designers can uplift their vision from self-focused and achievement-oriented interaction with a tool towards fostering engagement-oriented interaction with people, and from event-based emotional pride in momentary interaction towards a long-term organizational attitude of pride. Meanwhile, the role of a tool becomes that of an interactive facilitator for co-experience of pride in activities rather than the passive means of task completion.

This study opens the discussion that experience design researchers need to study external knowledge in order to broaden the understanding of targeted experience, associate multiple dimensions of such experience with the design context, and then transfer the constructed knowledge into experience design strategy for concept generation.

Limitation and Future Development

This study is a primary exploration on how to design for a specific positive experience in a targeted context. From the study approach perspective, the design strategies distilled from the triangulation between theories and empirical data were born with considerable validity which lies in the traceable evidences from available knowledge and concrete design cases. On the other hand, however, the predefined four-type-pride framework might limit the variety of the strategies, because there might be valuable special strategies that could be excluded by the scope of this framework. This limitation reflects that it could be a danger if designers overly rely on the available strategies and thus they might be restricted by the structured framework. In this sense, these identified patterns should serve more for understanding, inspiring and framing new themes, instead of fixing designers’ mindset.

From the data perspective, it is based on the collection of 20 student design cases in one design department from 2012 to 2015, which determines the specificity and limitation of this study. The interference between different design teams and the bias influenced by the earlier cases may be hardly avoided in the design process, which may lead to limitations of experience goal setting and idea generation. Although the fresh eyes of students may generate novel ideas and explore new possibilities, their limited breadth of mature design experience for the workplace may also result in some shallow design concepts. Moreover, a 2-month project can hardly include a long-term evaluation of design results.

From the finding validity perspective, the pride experience design strategies were presented as backup tools in the latest course but without guiding the students to use them. Compared with previous cases, pride was defined more towards durable pride and organizational pride in the recent cases. More importantly, inspired by these cases, the companies have gradually changed their mindset from focusing on usability towards prioritizing experience, and have recognized pride can be designed from not only interaction quality in task but also organizational impact. This impact was manifested in the industrial seminar when two companies presented and referred the student cases as their new path to experience design innovation. At least one design-for-pride case was implemented entirely from the students’ concepts, and got positive feedback from the company’s clients.

Future studies will focus on at least three directions. First, it is worth adding case diversity to the data collection: cases from different programs in different research institutes or companies are needed for both qualitative and quantitative studies to assess whether the two dimensions of design for pride can be applied to a large number of design cases. Second, there is a definite need to trace the real implementation of certain strategies in the client companies to identify the long-term impact on both workers’ subjective wellbeing and business development. Third, it is also meaningful to observe designing for pride in other domains and to identify what kind of strategies are common patterns and to what degree the differences of contexts lead to the specificity of design strategies.

Thanks to the anonymous Reviewer 1.

Bate P, Robert G. Bringing user experience to healthcare improvement: The concepts, methods and practices of experience-based design. Radcliffe Publishing; 2007.

Battarbee K, Koskinen I. Co-experience: user experience as interaction. CoDesign. 2005;1(1):5–18.

Article   Google Scholar  

Calvo RA, Peters D. Positive computing: technology for wellbeing and human potential. Cambridge: MIT Press; 2014.

Google Scholar  

Cross Nigel. Designerly ways of knowing: design discipline versus design science. Des Issues. 2001;17(3):49–55.

Desmet PM. Faces of product pleasure: 25 positive emotions in human-product interactions. Int J Design. 2012;6(2):2012.

Desmet PMA, Schifferstein HNJ. From floating wheelchairs to mobile car parks: a collection of 35 experience-driven design projects. Den Haag: Eleven Publishers; 2011.

Desmet PM, Pohlmeyer AE. Positive design: an introduction to design for subjective well-being. Int J Design. 2013;7(3):2013.

Desmet P, Hassenzahl M. Towards happiness: possibility-driven design. In: Oliveira JV, Zacarias M, editors. Human-computer interaction: the agency perspective. Heidelberg: Springer Berlin; 2012. p. 3–27.

Chapter   Google Scholar  

Frayling C. Research in art and design. Royal Col Art. 1993;1(1):1–5.

Froman L. Positive psychology in the workplace. J Adult Dev. 2010;17(2):59–69.

Gouthier MH, Rhein M. Organizational pride and its positive effects on employee behavior. J Serv Manag. 2011;22(5):633–49.

Haidt J. The moral emotions. In: Davidson RJ, Scherer KR, Goldsmith HH, editors. Handbook of affective sciences. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2003. p. 852–70.

Hassenzahl M. Experience design: technology for all the right reasons. Synth Lecture Hum-Cent Inform. 2010;3(1):1–95.

Hassenzahl M, Eckoldt K, Diefenbach S, Laschke M, Lenz E, Kim J. Designing moments of meaning and pleasure. Experience design and happiness. Int J Design. 2013;7(3):21–31.

Hassenzahl M, Diefenbach S, Göritz A. Needs, affect, and interactive products-facets of user experience. Interact Comput. 2010;22(5):353–62.

Higgins ET, Friedman RS, Harlow RE, Idson LC, Ayduk ON, Taylor A. Achievement orientations from subjective histories of success: promotion pride versus prevention pride. Eur J Soc Psychol. 2001;31(1):3–23.

Hodson R. Pride in task completion and organizational citizenship behaviour: evidence from the ethnographic literature. Work Stress. 1998;12(4):307–21.

Jensen JL. Designing for profound experiences. Design . Issues. 2014;30(3):39–52.

Kaasinen E, Roto V, Hakulinen J, Heimonen T, Jokinen JP, Karvonen H, Turunen M. Defining user experience goals to guide the design of industrial systems. Behaviour Inform Technol. 2015 (ahead-of-print) .

Katzenbach J. Pride: a strategic asset. Strategy Leadersh. 2003a;31(5):34–8.

Katzenbach J. Why pride matters more than money: the power of the world’s greatest motivational force. New York City: Crown Business; 2003b.

Lea SEG, Webley P. Pride in economic psychology. J Econ Psychol. 1997;18(2–3):323–40.

Leffel GM, Fritz ME, Stephens MR. Who cares? generativity and the moral emotions, part 3. A social intuitionist "ecology of virtue". J psychol Theol. 2008;36(3).

Lu Y, Roto V. Towards meaning change: experience goals driving design space expansion. In: Proceedings of the 8th Nordic conference on human–computer interaction: fun, fast, foundational. New York City: ACM; 2014. p. 717–26.

Lu Y, Roto V. Evoking meaningful experiences at work—a positive design framework for work tools. J Eng Design. 2015 (ahead-of-print) .

Mascolo MF, Fischer KW. Developmental transformations in appraisals for pride, shame, and guilt. In: Tangney JP, Fischer KW, editors. Self-conscious emotions: the psychology of shame, guilt, embarrassment, and pride, xvii. New York: Guilford Press; 1995. pp 64–113.

McCullough ME, Kirkpatrick S, Emmons RA, Larson D. Is gratitude a moral affect? Psychol Bull. 2001;127:249–66.

Article   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Michie S. Pride and gratitude how positive emotions influence the prosocial behaviors of organizational leaders. J Leadersh Organ Stud. 2009;15(4):393–403.

Nakamura J. Pride and the experience of meaning in daily life. J Posit Psychol. 2013;8(6):555–67.

Pohlmeyer AE. Design for happiness. Interfaces. 2012;92:8–11.

Riva G, Banos RM, Botella C, Wiederhold BK, Gaggioli A. Positive technology: using interactive technologies to promote positive functioning. Cyberpsychol Behav Soc Network. 2012;15(2):69–77.

Rosso BD, Dekas KH, Wrzesniewski A. On the meaning of work: a theoretical integration and review. Research Organ Behav. 2010;30:91–127.

Roto V, Law E, Vermeeren APOS, Hoonhout J. User experience white paper. Bringing clarity to the concept of user experience. 2011.

Roto V, Lu Y, Nieminen H, Tutal E. Designing for user and brand experience via company-wide experience goals. In: Proceedings of the 33rd annual ACM conference extended abstracts on human factors in computing systems ACM. 2015. p. 2277–82.

Seligman M. Flourish: a new understanding of happiness, well-being-and how to achieve them. Boston: Nicholas Brealey Pub; 2011.

Seligman MEP, Csikszentmihalyi M. Positive psychology: an introduction. Am Psychol. 2000;55:5–14.

Sheldon KM, Elliot AJ, Kim Y, Kasser T. What is satisfying about satisfying events? testing 10 candidate psychological needs. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2001;80(2):325–39.

Tangney JP. Assessing individual differences in proneness to shame and guilt: development of the self-conscious affect and attribution inventory. J Pers Soc Psychol. 1990;59(1):102.

Tangney JP, Stuewig J, Mashek DJ. Moral emotions and moral behavior. Annu Rev Psychol. 2007;58:345.

Tracy JL, Weidman AC, Cheng JT, Martens JP. The fundamental emotion of success, power, and status. In: Tugade M, Shiota M, Kirby L, editors. Handbook of positive emotions. New York: The Guilford Press; 2014. p. 2014.

Tracy JL, Robins RW. Putting the self into self-conscious emotions: a theoretical model. Psychol Inq. 2004;15:103–25.

Tracy JL, Robins RW. Emerging insights into the nature and function of pride. Curr Dir Psychol Sci. 2007a;16(3):147–50.

Tracy JL, Robins RW. The psychological structure of pride: a tale of two facets. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2007b;92:506–25.

Weiner B. An attributional theory of achievement motivation and emotion. Psychol Rev. 1985;92(4):548.

Williams LA, DeSteno D. Pride adaptive social emotion or seventh sin? Psychol Sci. 2009;20(3):284–8.

Yoon J, Desmet PMA, Pohlmeyer AE. Embodied typology of positive emotions: the development of a tool to facilitate emotional granularity in design. Presented at the 5th international congress of international association of sciences of design research, Tokyo, Japan. 2013. p. 1195–206.

Wright P, McCarthy J. Experience-centred design. Designers, Users, and Communities in Dialogue. San Rafael, CA, USA: Morgan Claypool. 2010.  

Zimmerman J, Stolterman E, Forlizzi J. An analysis and critique of research through design: towards a formalization of a research approach. DIS. 2010;2010:310–9.

Download references

Authors’ contributions

YL did the literature review. Both YL and VR set up the experience design courses, collected the design cases, analysed the data, developed the framework and wrote the manuscript together. Both authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Competing interests

This research was carried out as part of the Finnish Metals and Engineering Competence Cluster (FIMECC)’s UXUS programme funded by participating organisations and Tekes.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Dept of Design, School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Aalto University, Hämeentie 135C, Helsinki, Finland

Yichen Lu & Virpi Roto

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yichen Lu .

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article.

Lu, Y., Roto, V. Design for Pride in the Workplace. Psych Well-Being 6 , 6 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13612-016-0041-7

Download citation

Received : 23 September 2015

Accepted : 31 May 2016

Published : 04 July 2016

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s13612-016-0041-7

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

  • Experience design
  • Pride experience
  • Design strategy
  • Other-focus

pride model of problem solving suggested by

IMAGES

  1. An Overview Of 9 Step Problem Solving Model

    pride model of problem solving suggested by

  2. the 6 step problem solving model

    pride model of problem solving suggested by

  3. three stages of problem solving according to traditional models

    pride model of problem solving suggested by

  4. PRIDE Problem Solving (Deutsch) by Dominique Pfeiffer

    pride model of problem solving suggested by

  5. the 6 step problem solving model

    pride model of problem solving suggested by

  6. three stages of problem solving according to traditional models

    pride model of problem solving suggested by

COMMENTS

  1. PDF The Pride Problem Solving Method

    Step 1: "P" What problem do I have to solve? (Without going into a lot of detail, explain what is that you are asked to do? Answer the question in one sentence only.) What are the limitations to solving the problem? (What "hurdles" are there: materials, size limitations, tools, safety, due date?" Research: Step 2: "R"

  2. PDF The Six Step Problem Solving Model

    The Six Steps Define the Problem Determine the Root Cause(s) of the Problem Develop Alternative Solutions Select a Solution Implement the Solution Evaluate the Outcome The process is one of continuous improvement.

  3. Development of a transdiagnostic, low-intensity, psychological

    This paper describes the development of a low-intensity, first-line component of the PRIDE model. ... Each booklet described a different problem-solving step and suggested corresponding practice exercise; these were distributed sequentially to reinforce learning from sessions and encourage skills practice. ...

  4. PDF PRIDE Intervention Manual

    PRIDE Portfolios to hand out Research forms Checklist Set out refreshments, napkins, cups, plates, and utensils (at the back of the room) Set up overhead projector and check focus Set up flip chart, newsprint, and stand/tripod Set out name tags Set out other materials used during the session (colored dots, portfolios, research

  5. PRIDE Methodology

    PRIDE methodology is a Software Development methodology that stands for Planning, Requirements, Implementation, Deployment, and Evaluation. It is a process-oriented approach to software development that emphasizes the importance of careful planning and the systematic gathering of requirements before beginning the implementation phase.

  6. Problem Solving

    Cognitive—Problem solving occurs within the problem solver's cognitive system and can only be inferred indirectly from the problem solver's behavior (including biological changes, introspections, and actions during problem solving).. Process—Problem solving involves mental computations in which some operation is applied to a mental representation, sometimes resulting in the creation of ...

  7. Masculinity, Social Connectedness, and Mental Health: Men's Diverse

    An in-depth understanding of the gendered nature of men's social connections and the ways in which the interplay between masculinity and men's social connections can impact men's mental health is needed. Fifteen life history interviews were undertaken with men in the community. A theoretical framework of gender relations was used to ...

  8. How pride works

    The alternative hypotheses that ratings of a given pride response would correlate across the two countries were more likely than the null for four of five pride responses (pride feeling, BF 10 = 2.51 × 10 3; demand better treatment, BF 10 = 11.2; invest in valued trait, BF 10 = 24.6; pursue new challenges, BF 10 = 17.4) and indeterminate for ...

  9. PRIDE Model of Practice

    The PRIDE Model of Practice is built upon five core competency categories developed through comprehensive role analysis: • Protecting and nurturing children; • Meeting children's developmental needs and addressing their delays; • Supporting relationships with birth families; • Connecting children to safe, nurturing relationships ...

  10. ERIC

    This guide, part of a series of workplace-developed materials for retraining factory workers, provides teaching materials for a workplace course in problem-solving techniques. The course is a review of basic problem-solving techniques focused on helping participants to be comfortable solving problems on the job. Topics covered include the following: defining a problem, writing a problem ...

  11. The PRIDE Model

    The PRIDE Model is built on two key principles. Firstly, recognising the power of the individual to have an impact, to affect change, it looks at life at work from the dual perspective of the organisation and the people that work there.Nothing happens at work unless the employees turn up, physically and mentally, and so the PRIDE Model consciously places them and their interests on a par with ...

  12. The Role of Positive Emotions in Positive Psychology

    The theory and findings suggest that the capacity to experience positive emotions may be a fundamental human strength central to the study of human flourishing. The mission of positive psychology is to understand and foster the factors that allow individuals, communities, and societies to flourish ( Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000 ).

  13. Creative Problem-Solving

    The creative problem-solving process Footnote 1 is a systematic approach to problem-solving that was first proposed by Alex Osborn in 1953 in his landmark book Applied Imagination.The approach went through several refinements over a period of five years. Osborn began with a seven-step model that reflected the creative process (orientation, preparation, analysis, hypothesis, incubation ...

  14. PDF PRIDE: Five Choices for Your Success

    relationships, and life in general when you practice the five specific choices that are part of my PRIDE— Purpose, Resources, Integrity, Discipline, and Equilibrium—Model for Success. So, as you plan your journey and take action to reach your dreams, consider doing so with PRIDE. PURPOSE Know your direction and motivation.

  15. The problem-solving model: A framework for integrating the science and

    In this chapter we (a) review the early development of the problem-solving model for social work practice; (b) discuss the later development of the problem solving model in terms of its extension to and further elaboration by generalist models of social work practice; (c) provide an overview of how the problem-solving model allows for the integration of the scientific and artistic elements of ...

  16. The problem-solving model.

    Psychiatric patients exhibit deficits in interpersonal problem-solving abilities when compared with their healthier compeers. Almost all the models of group psychotherapy attempt to aid patients in buttressing their interpersonal problem-solving capacities, albeit sometimes indirectly. Models range in promoting problem solving—at one extreme exposing, redefining, or resolving unconscious ...

  17. Problem‐oriented policing for reducing crime and disorder: An updated

    Two early experimental evaluations of applications of problem solving in crime hot spots (Braga et al., 1999; Weisburd & Green, 1995) suggested POP interventions, particular those implemented in crime hot spots, could be evaluated rigorously.2 In a randomized trial involving Jersey City violent crime hot spots, Braga et al. examined the impact ...

  18. Design for Pride in the Workplace

    According to the timespans of user experience (Roto et al. 2011), a new challenging goal may evoke an anticipatory pride for a person with a subjective history of success (Higgins et al. 2001); incremental progress in problem solving may elicit a momentary pride; when reflecting on an overcome challenge, a person may feel an episodic pride in ...

  19. Sangath

    PRIDE is a Wellcome Trust-funded programme (2016-22) that aims to develop and test a suite of scalable, evidence-based interventions addressing the major share of the adolescent mental health burden (i.e., anxiety, depression and conduct difficulties) in India.

  20. A dyadic model of motives, pride, gratitude, and helping.

    The model also goes beyond most prior research by acknowledging repeated acts of helping and demonstrates that helper pride and recipient gratitude interact to predict subsequent helping. ... Y. J. (Y.), Van Dyne, L., & Lee, S. M. (2018). A dyadic model of motives, pride, gratitude, and helping. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 39(10), 1367 ...

  21. How Can We Cultivate Less Problematic Forms of Pride?

    1 For it describes an excessive vanity and belief in one's own powers and self-worth. This cuts one off from the humility that in the Christian context is seen as the path of salvation. Modern ...

  22. Design for Pride in the Workplace

    Design for Pride Experience. Recently, design researchers have started to explore how design can contribute to pride experience. Desmet introduced pride among the 25 positive emotions in the scope of human-product interactions: pride may be evoked by owning a unique product, being able to use a complex product, achieving something a product facilitates, or receiving positive feedback from ...

  23. A dyadic model of motives, pride, gratitude, and helping

    test a dyadic model of helping that emphasizes motives and discrete affective responses of both helpers and recipients to providing and receiving help. The model also goes beyond most prior research by acknowledging repeated acts of helping and demonstrates that helper pride and recipient gratitude interact to predict subse-quent helping.