Where does thriving collide?

Thriving treated as growth that carries a person above the level at which they functioned before a hardship: not merely coping or bouncing back, but ending up better off in some respect than before the stressor struck. O'Leary and Ickovics's 1995 Resilience and thriving in response to challenge named this outcome and set it apart from survival and recovery, and Carver's 1998 Resilience and thriving: Issues, models, and linkages sharpened the line, defining resilience as a return to the prior baseline and thriving as a gain beyond it. Here the word names an outcome judged against a pre-adversity baseline, which is distinct from the ongoing workplace state of vitality and learning, from a general profile of well-being, and from the physical growth of a young child.[1][2]

Unit

A person's gain in functioning above the pre-stressor baseline after a hardship

Recovery means

The construct is defined by rising above the prior baseline, not by returning to it, which sets it apart from resilience

Measured by

Inferred from change relative to a pre-adversity baseline across psychological, social, or physical functioning

Thriving at work treated as the joint psychological state of feeling energised and alive while also learning and getting better at what one does: a worker who is thriving has both vitality and a growing grasp of the job at the same time. Spreitzer, Sutcliffe, Dutton, Sonenshein, and Grant's 2005 A socially embedded model of thriving at work defined thriving as the combined experience of vitality and learning, and traced how workplace features such as decision latitude and information sharing produce it. Here the word names an ongoing state of an employee inside an organisation, which differs from the broad flourishing measured in general well-being research, from the growth beyond a prior baseline studied after hardship, and from the physical growth of an infant.[3]

Unit

A worker's joint state of felt vitality and continued learning, rated over time

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Rated by self-report scales of felt vitality and of learning at work, combined into a thriving score

A pattern of healthy growth across the teenage years in which a young person's strengths line up with the resources of their family, school, and community so that development moves toward an idealised, contributing adulthood: this meaning is tied to the study of positive youth development and is often described through markers such as caring, competence, and connection rather than the mere absence of problems. Benson and Scales's 2009 The definition and preliminary measurement of thriving in adolescence set out this account and began to build indicators for it, alongside Lerner and colleagues' longitudinal work. The referent is a developmental trajectory of a young person over years, not an employee's momentary state or an adult's gain after a specific hardship.[4][5]

Unit

One young person's developmental trajectory across adolescence

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Assessed by longitudinal indicators of youth strengths and developmental assets, often via multi-item youth surveys

Thriving treated as the adequate physical growth of an infant or young child: a baby who is thriving is gaining weight and length as expected, and the clinical opposite, failure to thrive, marks growth that falls short. Jaffe's 2011 Failure to thrive: Current clinical concepts reviewed how inadequate weight gain is defined against growth references and worked up in the clinic. Here the word names a measurable pattern of bodily growth in a child, tracked on growth charts, which shares nothing with a worker's felt vitality, a general profile of well-being, or growth beyond a baseline after hardship, apart from the word itself.[6]

Unit

An infant's expected gain in weight and length along growth references

Recovery means

Catch-up growth once adequate nutrition and care are restored

Measured by

Tracked on standard growth charts by weight, length, and weight-for-length percentiles and their trajectory

Thriving treated as broad optimal human functioning: a person is thriving when many parts of life are going well at once, including feeling good, having purpose and mastery, and being connected to others. Su, Tay, and Diener's 2014 The development and validation of the Comprehensive Inventory of Thriving defined thriving as a wide profile of psychological, social, and subjective well-being, and built inventories to score it. Here the word names a general state of a whole person across life, which is broader than the workplace-specific mix of vitality and learning, is not tied to any preceding hardship, and has nothing to do with an infant's bodily growth.[7]

Unit

A person's overall standing across many facets of well-being, combined into a thriving score

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Measured by the Comprehensive Inventory of Thriving or its brief form, covering subjective, psychological, and social well-being