Guidelines for Use and Interpretation
As applied work continues, we would like to provide some guidelines for those interested in using the VIA survey.
1. The VIA measures are reliable and have promising validity, although
the relevant work is ongoing. We therefore believe that the most
appropriate uses of the measures in applied settings are to gain
insight into groups of people—aggregated data—and to provide points of
departure in discussing the lives of individuals.
2. In particular, the VIA measures should not be used for personnel
selection or for placement decisions. Doing so at present would be
irresponsible from a scientific point of view.
3. The measures are thoroughly transparent, which means that they
can be faked if there is a payoff for given results. In our basic
research, we worry about such issues under the rubric of social
desirability and try to establish a frame in which respondents are
candid. We believe that they usually are, but payoffs for given results
would drastically alter the frame.
4. Despite the accumulating validity of the scales, we implore users
of these measures not to treat the results as more “real” than the
traits and habits that the scales attempt to measure. Psychology has
gone down that road with respect to IQ scores and intelligence, and we
should learn some lessons from that sorry story. So, if someone scores
relatively low on the VIA scale of kindness yet lives a life of obvious
charity and benevolence, the scale does not trump the life. The
discrepancy points to the less-than-perfect success of the measure and
not to anything about the individual.
5. Feedback is often provided to individuals about their top
(“signature”) VIA strengths, which is but convenient shorthand for
capturing what an individual may do well. But the comparison is to
other measured strengths of the individual and not to the strengths of
other people.
6. Furthermore, we conceive character strengths as dimensions and
not as categories, a point that simple feedback can obscure. People
have more-or-less of all the strengths and not simply a set of discrete
strengths versus weaknesses.
Request
We have a request of those who have used the VIA measures in various
practical applications (as opposed to personal information and
insight). If you would be so kind, could you please complete the form
located on the VIA Pioneers page of our site or send us a message at info@viacharacter.org and let us know what you have done and what you have learned. We
are preparing a paper on applications of a strength approach and in
particular of the VIA Classification and measures and would find this
information invaluable. We hope to follow-up with some of you and—with
your permission—describe what you have done.