Character Strengths & Virtues
Character Strengths
Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman (2004) presented a classification of strengths and virtues in their book, “Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification”, intended to reclaim the study of character strengths and virtues as a legitimate topic of psychological inquiry. By providing a standard way of talking about character strengths and measuring them across the lifespan, their classification has made it possible for the science of positive psychology to go beyond armchair philosophy and political rhetoric.
Their book lays the foundation of strengths and virtues classification by discussing a) the scheme, which depends on distinctions among virtues, character strengths and situational themes; b) the process by which they decided their entries; and c) the criteria they used to decide which strengths to include in their six groups (24 character strengths). Their classification groups include the following.
1) Wisdom and knowledge
Wisdom and knowledge include positive traits related to acquiring and using information to achieve a good life. In psychological language, these are cognitive strengths.
Creativity (originality, ingenuity): Creativity is about conceptualising and doing things in novel and productive ways. It includes artistic achievement (but is not limited to it).
Curiosity (interest, novelty-seeking, openness to experience): Taking an interest in ongoing experience for its own sake, finding subjects and topics fascinating, and engaging in exploration and discovery.
Judgement (open-mindedness, critical thinking): Thinking things through and examining them from all sides, not jumping to conclusions, being able to change one’s mind in the light of evidence and weighing all evidence fairly.
Love of learning: Mastering new skills, topics and bodies of knowledge, formally or informally. The love of learning is related to the strength of curiosity but goes beyond it to describe the tendency to add systematically to what one knows.
Perspective (outlook): Being able to provide wise counsel to others; having ways of looking at the world that make sense to themselves and others.
2) Courage
Courage comprises emotional strengths that involve exercising willpower to achieve goals in the face of opposition (external or internal).
Bravery (valour): Not shrinking from threat, challenge, difficulty or pain; speaking up for what is right even if there is opposition; acting on convictions even if unpopular; includes physical bravery (but is not limited to it).
Persistence (perseverance, industriousness): Finishing what one starts; persisting throughout the action despite obstacles; “getting it out the door”; taking pleasure in completing tasks.
Integrity (authenticity, honesty): Speaking the truth but more broadly genuinely presenting oneself and acting sincerely; being without pretence; taking responsibility for one’s feelings and actions.
Vitality (zest, enthusiasm, vigour, energy): Approaching life with excitement and energy; not doing things halfway or half-heartedly; living life as an adventure; feeling alive and activated.
3) Humanity
Humanity is a virtue associated with morality, altruism and justice. It consists of interpersonal strengths that involve making friends with people and taking care of others. It also includes respect, kindness, compassion, love and affection.
• Love: Valuing close relations with others and being close to people, particularly where sharing and caring are reciprocated.
• Kindness (generosity, nurturance, care, compassion, selfless love, “niceness” ): Doing favours and good deeds for others; helping others and taking care of them.
• Social intelligence (emotional intelligence, personal intelligence): Being aware of the motives and feelings of other people and oneself; knowing what to do to fit into different social situations; knowing what makes other people tick.
4) Justice:
Justice is a civic strength that underlies healthy community life. The authors (Peterson and Seligman) explained that they regard powers of justice as broadly interpersonal, relevant to the optimal interaction between the individual and the group or the community. As the group shrinks in size and becomes more personalised, the strengths of justice begin to converge with the one-on-one strengths of humanity.
Teamwork (citizenship, social responsibility, loyalty): Working well as a group member, being loyal to the group, and doing one’s share.
Fairness: Treating all people the same according to the notion of fairness and justice, not letting personal feelings influence their decisions about others, and giving everyone a fair chance.
Leadership: Encouraging members of a group to get things done and, at the same time, maintaining good relations within the group; organising group activities and seeing that they happen.
5) Temperance
strengths that protect against excess. The positive trait that protects us from excess is temperance. For example, hatred, against which forgiveness and mercy protect us. Arrogance is what humility and modesty protect us. The short-term pleasure with long-term costs, against which prudence protects us. Destabilising emotional extremes of all sorts, against which self-regulation protects us. It is worth emphasising that the strengths of temperance temper our activities rather than bringing them to a complete halt.
Forgiveness and mercy: Forgiving those who have done wrong; accepting the shortcomings of others; giving people a second chance; not being vengeful.
Humility or modesty: Letting one’s accomplishments speak for oneself, not seeking the spotlight, and not regarding oneself as more special than one is. This character strength is quiet; modest people let their achievements speak for themselves. People who score high in humility acknowledge their mistakes and imperfections.
Prudence: Being careful about one’s choices, not taking undue risks, not saying or doing things that might later be regretted.
Self-regulation (self-control): Regulating what one feels and does, being disciplined, controlling one’s appetites and emotions.
6) Transcendence
strengths that forge connections to the larger universe and provide meaning. The common theme running through the strengths of transcendence is that each allows individuals to develop connections to the larger universe, thereby giving meaning to their lives. Almost all positive traits reach outside the individual, but transcendence goes beyond other people to embrace the larger universe.
Appreciation of beauty and excellence (awe, wonder, elevation): Noticing and appreciating beauty, excellence and skilled performance in various domains of life, from nature to art to mathematics, science and everyday experiences.
Gratitude: Being aware of and thankful for the good things that happen; taking time to express thanks.
Hope (optimism, future-mindedness, future orientation): Expecting the best in the future and working to achieve it, believing that a promising future can be created.
Humour (playfulness): Liking to laugh and tease; bringing smiles to other people; seeing the light side; making (not necessarily telling) jokes.
Spirituality (religiousness, faith, purpose): Having coherent beliefs about the higher purpose and meaning of the universe; knowing where one fits within the larger scheme; having thoughts about the meaning of life that shape our conduct and provide us with comfort.
Measuring Strengths
Values in Action Inventory of Strengths (VIA-IS) is an assessment tool to identify an individual’s character strengths profile. It was created by Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman and is composed of 240 items (10 per strength for 24 character strengths).
Usually, an individual can complete the VIA-IS in 30 to 40 minutes. Since 2001, the survey has been available online (at www.viacharacter.org), and more than half a million have taken it. Participants are instructed to answer each item on the VIA-IS regarding whether the statement describes them correctly. Participants respond according to a 5-point Likert-type rating scale ranging from (1= very much unlike me, 5= very much like me). For example, “I find the world an interesting place” gauges curiosity, and “I always let bygone be bygones”, which measures forgiveness. People can score anywhere from 10 to 50 points for each strength.
A high score on this scale indicates that the participant strongly identifies with that strength. After completing the survey, a score report is delivered to each participant, and feedback is provided for the signature strengths (often the top five) but not for the lesser strengths. The results rank the participant’s strengths from 1-24, with the top four to seven strengths considered “signature strengths”.
Strengths-based approaches
How people deal with life’s challenges depends on whether they feel they are operating from a position of strength or a place of deficit. A strengths-based coping, coaching or therapeutic approach regards people as survivors rather than victims and emphasises their strengths and survival skills instead of their flaws. This strategy focuses more on people’s internal strengths and resourcefulness and less on their weaknesses, failures and shortcomings. It sets up a positive mindset that helps people build on their best qualities, find their abilities and improve their resilience and flexibility.
Strengths-based approaches value individuals’ and teams’ potential, skills, knowledge and connections. However, focusing on strengths does not mean ignoring challenges or spinning struggles into strengths. Strengths-based approaches promote self-directed initiatives and teamwork to aid recovery, empowerment and independence. Practitioners who use strengths-based methods should collaborate with the clients and help them plan and execute their own transformation (recovery). The practitioner’s role is only to explain alternatives, support the client in identifying their intrinsic strengths (resources), and help them make informed choices. Advocates of this approach see people as experts in their own lives and acknowledge their right to set goals and make decisions for their future. This approach complements solution-focused strategies (such as motivational interviewing, appreciative coaching and outcome-directed questioning) and facilitates autonomy, control and self-efficacy.
Fairness and Justice
Justice is about living with a sense that everyone should be treated equally and fairly. On a day-to-day basis, this could include paying our taxes in full, not demanding special treatment above others and being honest with people. It also means seeing every human being as equal and treating everyone with equal respect and compassion.
In a broader sense, this principle asserts that everyone should have access to adequate food, water, shelter and other resources essential for a good life, such as education and health care. Fairness could bring some interesting moral challenges to our behaviour, such as taking only the resources we need, sharing any excess resources we may have, and having a principle of never exploiting other people.
Hope & Optimism
Hope is an expectation or a desire for a particular outcome. It’s an optimistic state of mind concerning the likelihood of an expected result. It’s a feeling that an event will turn out for the best or that what is desired can be achieved. In other words, hope is about wanting something to happen or be true, and we usually have a good reason to think that way.
Hope is an emotion and a recognised character strength identified by positive feelings about the future and is often associated with high motivation, optimism and a generally elevated mood. When people feel hopeful, they are happier and experience better mental health. Hope is closely related to optimism and is strongly associated with many positive outcomes, including greater well-being, better academic achievement and lower risk of death. However, optimism is only half of hope. While optimism is a general feeling and the belief that good things will happen, hope focuses on specific goals and develops appropriate plans to achieve them. Hope is necessary for getting through tough times and meeting everyday goals.
Having goals is not enough. We must work hard to get to those goals. Amongst all the inevitable twists and turns of life, hope allows us to approach our goals with a positive mindset and proper strategies, thereby increasing our chances of accomplishing them. In positive psychology, hope is our perceived ability to produce pathways to achieve desired goals and to motivate ourselves to use those pathways. In other words, hope involves the will to achieve a goal (agency) and the intended ways to obtain it (pathways). The hopeful person has the will and determination that their goal will be achieved (agency) and a set of strategies to reach their goals (pathways).
Hope Theory
In his article published on hope (1989), Charles Richard Snyder (1944–2006) talked about hope as “the other side of excusing” and described how he discovered a shared pattern related to pursuing goals. His studies around cognitive processes inspired his vision about the importance of pathways in pursuing goals, how people find routes to their goals and the motivation to use those pathways. So, his theory of hope was born as the perceived ability to determine pathways to desired goals and to motivate oneself as a capable agent to use those pathways.
According to Snyder’s Hope Theory, people have hopes or beliefs concerning their ability to set goals and develop specific strategies (pathways) for achieving them and to initiate and sustain the motivations for using such strategy (agency) - (López, 2013; Snyder, 1995; Snyder, 2002; Snyder, Lopez, Shorey, Rand, & Feldman, 2003).
Hope is not a passive emotion that occurs only in life’s darkest moments. According to hope theory (Snyder and colleagues Snyder, Lopez, Shorey, Rand, & Feldman, 2003), it is a goal-directed cognitive process characterised as a human strength that involves one’s capacity to a) conceptualise a goal (goal-directed thinking), b) actively create ways or strategies to achieve those goals (pathways thinking), and c) initiate and sustain motivation for using such strategies (agency thinking) to obtain those goals effectively.
Pathways thinking includes one or more ways an individual identifies potential strategies that enable them to achieve a chosen goal.
Agency thinking refers to an individual evaluating their ability to pursue a goal, including continuing motivation.
Keyes et al. (2002) thought that a high level of hope enables us to work positively through life experiences. Whereas a low level of hope (particularly in adults) is connected with the symptoms of anxiety, depression and behavioural problems (Snyder, Lopez, Shorey, 2003).
Hope is not just a feel-good emotion but a dynamic motivational system and a unique pattern of thinking (cognition or beliefs). True hope leads to action (learning, searching, and planning strategies). Research has shown actions inspired by hope are positively related to success in a wide area of human life, including academic achievements, sports, arts, sciences and business. On the other hand, those lacking hope tend to avoid big goals or challenges, and when they fail, they quit. They feel powerless and out of control and don’t believe in their ability to obtain their desired future. They have no hope.
Measuring Hope
Researchers (Snyder, C. R., Harris, C., Anderson, J. R., Holleran, S. A., Irving, L. M., Sigmon, S. T., et al., 1991) have developed measurement tools to quantify the levels of hope as well as agency and pathway thoughts. They have suggested several benefits for measuring hope, including the possibility of predicting outcomes, which helps us provide extra support for those low in hope (Snyder 1995). One example is using those measures in an educational setting where hope has been identified as a predictor of achievements.
The Adult Dispositional Hope Scale (ADHS) was the first assessment tool (scale) designed to measure hope. It measures dispositional (natural, current or prevailing) hope in youngsters and adults, and it is a self-report questionnaire containing twelve questions. Four relate to agency thoughts, four to pathways thoughts, and the rest to hopefulness in general (as fillers). ADHS questions are scored on an eight-point (Likert-type) scale where individuals express the strength of their agreement or disagreement with each statement. The ADHS (also called the Future Scale) has demonstrated excellent levels of reliability (Snyder et al., 1991).
Factor analysis techniques have shown that hope consists of two factors, as hypothesised by Snyder’s model. Results support the presence of two distinct factors as agency items are loaded heavily on factor one but not on factor two. In contrast, pathway items are loaded heavily on factor two but not factor one.
One drawback to the ADHS is that it only measures dispositional (prevailing) hope. However, the levels of hope may fluctuate in different circumstances. For example, a high-hope individual may experience low levels of hope when faced with a specific stressor. So, an instrument that measures hope levels in a particular set of circumstances would also be helpful.
Researchers developed the Adult State Hope Scale (ASHS) in response to ADHS limitation (i.e., measuring only trait/ prevailing hope). This scale assesses goal-directed thinking in any situation (Lopez et al., 2000). It is a six-item self-report questionnaire designed to measure the state of hopefulness in adults. This scale has three questions for the agency and three for the pathway. Questions are scored using an eight-point scale. The total of all items provides a score for overall hopefulness; summing up the even-numbered questions gives a score for the agency while adding up the odd-numbered questions produce a pathway score. No descriptive statistics are reported for the ASHS, as it is inappropriate to talk about norms for this scale because the scores fluctuate depending on circumstances.
Generating Hope
Hope theory is a strength-based concept in positive psychology, and it reflects individuals’ perceptions of their capacities to devise goals, develop specific strategies to reach those goals (pathway thinking) and initiate and sustain the motivation for using those strategies (agency thinking). In this respect, hope is not simply an emotion but rather a dynamic cognitive system of motivation (Snyder, Lopez, Shorey, Rand & Feldman, 2003).
Ø In 1965, Martin Seligman discovered “learned helplessness”. He found that when animals are subjected to difficult situations that they cannot control, they stop trying. They become hopeless and passive. Humans are the same. If we experience constant devastating defeats in a persistent dire situation that we can’t change or a terrifying event that we cannot control, we may lose our hope and confidence to change our lives or the painful situation (Dr Karyn Hall, 2015).
When we don’t have hope, we have no energy or motivation to change our situation. This painful despair sets up a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we have no hope, no belief in therapy or that any action we take will not make any difference, that may be the outcome. Change is difficult, has multiple ups and downs and requires motivation and commitment. Fortunately, some strategies have proved effective in creating or increasing hope when it’s seriously needed. If we want hope, we must act as if we have it (set a goal, plan carefully and work hard to achieve it) and remember our past successes (even relatively small achievements) that can ignite our hope. Other helpful strategies include:
Use your sense of humour to help you deal better with stressful situations (seriously, avoid sarcasm and putdowns). After all, it doesn’t hurt to look at the world with amusement and wit.
Vividly imagine and envision a specific future goal in a way that makes it come alive (see Visualising Best Possible Self).
Set an exciting dream goal and break it down into executable SMART goals.
Create and use potential pathways (strategies) and work hard towards your goal.
Plan for contingencies to overcome potential stumbling blocks. Hopeful people tend to see multiple solutions (pathways) to a problem.
Ask powerful “how-to” questions and avoid “I cannot” statements.
Practice acts of kindness, self-compassion, acceptance and forgiveness.
Find your purpose and connect with your passion.
Learn some stress reduction strategies, such as meditation or breathing techniques.
Develop your relationships (both close connections and your social network).
Ask for help, and help others bring hope to their lives.
Optimism
Optimism has been conceptualised in several ways. One is dispositional optimism (an inherent quality), which sees optimism as a broad personality trait characterised by a global expectation that more good things will happen than bad. Another theory is the explanatory style, an attitude (a learned outlook) derived from how people explain an event they have experienced. The explanatory style has three dimensions: internal/external, stable/unstable and global/specific.
For example, people with an explanatory style who tend to consider bad events as internal, stable and global are said to have a pessimistic explanatory style. Because they see their negative experience as something that was their fault, fixed (will not change), and universally problematic (rather than specific to that event).
The optimistic explanatory style is quite the opposite. People with an optimistic explanatory style describe the causes of an adverse event as external, unstable and specific. The optimistic person places no blame on themselves, believes there is room for change, and believes that the bad experience was particular to that event and should not be generalised for the rest of their life. On the other hand, if a good event is experienced, an optimist will provide an internal, stable and global explanatory style. In contrast, pessimists will explain it as external, unstable and specific.
Our explanatory style is believed to influence our view of the future and, as a result, our projected perceptions and subsequent behaviour. It is possible to focus on our explanatory styles, and where we find pessimistic thinking, we can learn to dispute these beliefs and generate a more optimistic outlook.
Patience
Patience is about showing forbearance, self-control, restraint and tolerance. Patience can be defined as the quality of self-control, endurance and composure in the face of adversities, desires or needs. Patience is the ability to stay calm while waiting for an outcome that you need or want. According to research by psychologist Sarah Schnitker, it comes in three main varieties: interpersonal patience, life hardship patience, and daily hassles patience.
Exercising patience is indeed difficult but often very useful, and that’s why it’s known as a virtue (the highest good). Perhaps it’s better to consider patience a complex virtue that includes self-control, humility, tolerance, generosity, etc. At the same time, it is an essential part of other virtues, such as hope or love. In all cultures and religions worldwide, patience is highly regarded, praised and recommended repeatedly.
Unfortunately, existing individualistic and materialistic society does not value patience as much. Moreover, there is evidence that modern technology is even fuelling impatience. People demand more goods and faster services and get angry at the suppliers who do not give in to their ever-increasing sense of indulgence.
Our impatient attitude is well demonstrated by the controversial Stanford marshmallow experiment about delaying gratification (being patient), led by Walter Mischel in the 1960s and 1970s. The investigation was conducted on hundreds of four and five-year-old children and involved a simple choice: eat this marshmallow or hold back for fifteen minutes and get a second. After explaining this choice to a child, the experimenter left them with the marshmallow for fifteen minutes. Follow-up studies carried out over forty years found that the minority of children who had been able to hold out for the second marshmallow enjoyed significantly better life outcomes, including higher test scores, better social skills, and less substance abuse.
Patience is more than the ability to hold back for some future gain. It involves hope and works like it, too. It needs a goal, a strategy (a plan), and decisive action. It’s not a passive waiting game; it’s an active endeavour with a dynamic imagination, self-compassion, hope, and tactics that help our endurance.
Impatience is synonymous with weakness, arrogance and gratification. But patience implies power, humanity and understanding. Impatience makes us hostage to indulgence and affluence; patience frees us from impulse and all its troubles. It gives us the calm and foresight to do the right thing in the right way at the right time.
Patience is not apathy. Being patient does not mean disconnecting from our feelings or disengaging from life. Being patient means accepting how we feel about a situation and what we can realistically expect in this world. The engine of patience is hope, which says, stick with it, and there is a reason to wait. Apathy says, give up; there is no hope. We cannot be patient if we’ve given up hope because we think there would be nothing for which we should be patient.
Patience is not passive surrendering. Exercising patience is not the same as waving the white flag and placing ourselves under the control of other people or resigning to circumstances. Gratification and enjoyment may motivate us to start something, but patience gives us the endurance to see it through. Patience has also been considered a decision-making challenge, involving the choice of a small reward in the short term versus a more valuable reward in the future.
Dealing with Impatience
People may become impatient due to physical factors such as hunger, dehydration or fatigue. The next time you start feeling impatient, remember that a simple remedy might be a small snack or a glass of water! Impatience can cause involuntarily physical tension and tightness. So, focus on relaxing and progressively loosening all your muscles (see progressive relaxation exercise).
At the same time, take a deep, slow breath and count to ten. Doing this will slow your heart rate, relax your body and distance you emotionally from the situation. Sometimes, you might need to repeat the process several times. Force yourself to slow down (speak and move slower); pausing briefly will make you feel calmer and promote patience. Acting as if you are patient often makes you more patient.
Remember, you have a choice about how you react to various situations. You can choose to be patient or not. It’s up to you. Challenge your negative assumptions instead of letting your impatience roam free. Aim to reframe the circumstances in a more positive light.
Unexpected displays of impatience may indicate underlying problems such as stress, exhaustion or burnout. If you think this may apply to you, seek advice from a qualified health professional. Paradoxically, impatience and impulsivity prolong mental distress.
Grit
Grit (perseverance, tenacity, mettle or determination) is the behavioural aspect of the defiant power of the human spirit against misfortune, natural miseries and manmade sufferings in protecting and defending what matters in life (our values, integrity and humanity). Angela Duckworth (a psychologist who has studied grit for many years) defines grit as “a passion and sustained persistence applied toward long-term achievements, with no particular concern for rewards or recognition. It combines resilience, ambition, and self-control in the pursuit of the goals that may take months, years or even decades.” (see Sisu, below) Dr Duckworth said: “It’s the gritty folks who finish what they start”.
To boost our grit, we should: a) develop a growth mindset rather than having a fixed mindset (see growth mindset). b) develop optimism, i.e., seeing setbacks as external, temporary and local (limited). c) think about our thoughts (metacognition) and change them (where necessary), using cognitive behavioural methods(CBT), including reframing techniques and putting thoughts and assumptions into perspective, to generate useful alternatives. d) Reflect on what matters, learn about our strengths, and set goals.
Sisu (an action mindset)
Sisu (a Finnish word) gives rise to what Emilia Lahti (MAPP, Helsinki – Finland) calls an action mindset, a courageous attitude that contributes to tackling challenges. Sisu is a way of life to actively transform the obstacles that come our way into opportunities and build a bridge toward our best possible future.
Lahti described having an action mindset as akin to signing up for a marathon or an ironman before you know whether you have what it takes. Before trying, we simply don’t know how strong (gritty) we are. When we act virtuously and see people around us value qualities such as sisu, grit, resilience, compassion and integrity, we adopt these as the desired qualities, and they become the norm.
Aesthetics
Our sense of aesthetics or esthetics is our ability to perceive and appreciate all kinds of beauty in the world. It’s considered a character strength and used as a positive psychological intervention. Aesthetics is about our fascination with an object (or phenomenon) and involves a set of emotions, behaviours and thoughts which reflect our appreciation of a particular quality or style. In other words, it is our worldview (judgement) as expressed through our outward appearance and actions.
The scope of aesthetics (as our subjective and emotional appraisal of the object of our attention) extends from the appreciation of arts and nature to a range of other positive experiences. Our responses to seeing a sunset or hearing waves crashing onto a shore can include all the components of our aesthetic response (fascination).
Works of art were often defined as anything which may produce fascination (aesthetic response) in some people. Our aesthetic sense opens areas of our perception (both emotional and intellectual) which are seldom experienced otherwise. It has the power to transform and transcend us, to help us share abstract insights, to inspire us to ask profound questions, to excite us to learn new things, to give us new ways of expressing ourselves, and to encourage us to take on and tolerate a broad range of human relationships.
When we are too stressed, we often lose our aesthetic sense. Life becomes less pleasurable and less meaningful, and we no longer have the energy and drive that could help us move forward. When stressed, we cannot see the beauty of things around us; we lose interest in listening to music, have no desire for conversation and have no sensitivity to others. The result is a loss of imagination and the inability to envision positivity in any situation. Beauty can wake us up and has the power to guide and inspire us in our quests to do better and be better in all aspects of our lives.
