Adversity Quotient

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The concept of Adversity Quotient discovered by Stoltz (1997) is a science theory of human performance deeply rooted in several sciences like cognitive psychology (control and mastery of one’s life), psychoneuroses-immunology (immune function), and neurophysiology (science of the brain). The cognitive psychology research has found that people respond to problems in consistent patterns that do not change unless the individual takes action to modify the behavior. This included several essential concepts for understanding human motivation, effectiveness and performance. Learned helplessness theory of Seligman et.al. (1993) explained why man gives up or stops when faced with life’s challenges. It is about the loss of perceived control over adverse…show more content…
Werner (1992) in her study showed that young people with traumatic childhood had overcome sad experience and had become resilient. Unlike genetics, resilience can be molded or reshaped on children faced with adversity and can overcome future adversities better later in life. Self-efficacy of Bandura, (1995) is the belief in the mastery of one’s life and the ability to meet challenges as they arise. This emphasized that people who have a sense of self-efficacy bounce back from failures, and they approach things in terms of how to handle them rather than worrying about what can go wrong. Locus of control is about the relationship between control over life’s events, motivation and success. AQ begins with individual, but goes beyond as one is exposed to an organization. Stoltz (2000) advised that these skills can be applied to oneself, to others, and to organization. The theory discovered can be measured and enhanced the effectiveness of teams, relationships, families, organizations, communities, cultures, and societies. AQ will strengthen one’s effectiveness as a leader while enhancing the effectiveness of those being…show more content…
They are control, origin and ownership, reach, and endurance embodied in the acronym CO2RE. C stands for control over an adverse event. People who respond to adversity as temporary, external and limited have optimistic explanatory styles and tend to enjoy life’s benefits. With perceived control, hope and action are turned to reality or learned helplessness shall pass. The more control one has, the more likely one has to take positive action. O2 denotes origin and ownership. First O stands for origin and has something to do with blame. Blame has two functions which help one to learn from and adjust behavior causing improvement. This blame leads to guilt obliging one to search own soul and weigh the way one might have hurt others. The feeling of guilt is a powerful motivator when used properly for it can help heal real, perceived or potential damaged to an important relationship. Too much blame can be demoralizing and destructive which can destroy ones energy, hope, self worth and immune system leading one to decide to quit. It is indicative of the level to which one or an external entity is the origin of the event, and to what degree one owns the outcomes. Those with lower AQ scores tend to blame themselves. Higher cores tend to properly place responsibility, and therefore also have high self-worth. An individual having low AQ blame oneself for bad events, but with higher AQ an
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