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Dr. Ryan Niemiec shares his summaries of the growing body of research in a concise and easily digested form.  He calls them, "One Liners" and professionals find them helpful as they negotiate the growing body of knowledge about how character strengths operate in the human experience.

Character Strengths & Life Satisfaction
Character Strengths & Health and Wellness
Character Strengths & Achievement
Character Strengths & Mental Illness, Problems, and Trauma Recovery
Character Strengths Applications
References

 Character Strengths – Universality, Prevalence, and Other Findings

• Character strengths are universal (Dahlsgaard, Peterson, & Seligman, 2005; Park, Peterson, & Seligman, 2006). High rates of agreement, desirability, and development of VIA character strengths were found in remote cultures (Kenyan Maasai & Inughuit in Northern Greenland) and the U.S. (U. of Illinois students; Biswas-Diener, 2006). VIA character strengths are remarkably similar across 54 nations and across the United States (Park, Peterson, & Seligman, 2006).

• There are 24 strengths of character that meet 8, 9, or all 10 of the following criteria: fulfilling, morally valued, do not diminish others; nonfelicitous opposites; traitlike; distinctiveness; paragons; prodigies; selective absence; institutions/rituals (Peterson & Seligman, 2004).

• Character may occupy the most central role in the field of positive psychology. Pleasure, flow, and other positive experiences are enabled by good character (Park & Peterson, 2009a; Peterson, Ruch, Beerman, Park, & Seligman, 2007).

• The most prevalent character strengths in human beings in descending order are kindness, fairness, honesty, gratitude, judgment (Park, Peterson, & Seligman, 2006).

• The least prevalent character strengths in human beings are prudence, modesty, and self-regulation (Park, Peterson, & Seligman, 2006).

• The most prevalent character strengths in a UK sample were open-mindedness, fairness, curiosity, love of learning, and kindness (Linley et al., 2007).

• The greatest strengths among 2 military samples (US and Norway) were honesty, hope, bravery, perseverance, and teamwork, and the two samples correlated higher with one another than with a civilian sample (Matthews et al., 2006).

• Young adults (ages 18-24) from the US and Japan showed similar distributions of VIA strengths – higher strengths of kindness, humor, and love and lower strengths in prudence, modesty, and self-regulation; in addition females reported more kindness and love while males reported more bravery and creativity (Shimai, Otake, Park, Peterson, & Seligman, 2006).

• The most prevalent character strengths in very young children are love, kindness, creativity, curiosity, and humor (Park & Peterson, 2006a).

• When compared with U.S. adults, youth from the U.S. are higher on the character strengths of hope, teamwork, and zest and adults are higher on appreciation of beauty & excellence, honesty, leadership, open-mindedness (Park & Peterson, 2006b).

• Convergence of strengths between parents and child are modest except for spirituality where it is substantial (Peterson & Seligman, 2004)

• Character strengths with a developmental trajectory (least common in youth and increase over time through cognitive maturation) are appreciation of beauty & excellence, forgiveness, modesty, open-mindedness (Park & Peterson, 2006a; 2006b).

• A small study of male art therapists & students found curiosity and appreciation of beauty/excellence to emerge most frequently as signature strengths (Riddle & Riddle, 2007).

• Focus groups with 459 high school students from 20 high schools found that students largely believe the 24 VIA strengths are acquired and that the strengths develop through ongoing experience, the students cited minimal character strength role models, and they particularly valued the strengths of love of learning, perspective, love, social intelligence, leadership, and spirituality (Steen, Kachorek, & Peterson, 2003).

• Character strengths are moderately heritable (Steger, Hicks, Kashdan, Krueger, & Bouchard, 2007).

• Twin studies show that love, humor, modesty, and teamwork are most influenced by environmental factors (Steger et al., 2007).
• One factor analysis found the 24 character strengths were well represented by both a one and four factor solution in which significant relationships were found between each of the 24 character strengths, the one and four factor solutions, and the Five Factor Model of personality. The four factors were Positivity (teamwork, love, hope, humor, zest, and leadership); Intellect (creativity, appreciation of beauty/excellence, curiosity, love of learning, social intelligence, perspective, and bravery); Conscientiousness (self-regulation, perseverance, judgment, honesty, and prudence); and Niceness (modesty/humility, fairness, kindness, forgiveness, religiousness, and gratitude; Macdonald, Bore, & Munro, 2008).

• Another factor analysis found 5 factors: Interpersonal (humor, kindness, leadership, love, social intelligence, and teamwork); Fortitude (bravery, honesty, judgment, perseverance, perspective, and self-regulation); Cognitive (appreciation of beauty/excellence, creativity, curiosity, and love of learning); Transcendence (gratitude, hope, religiousness, and zest); and Temperance (fairness, forgiveness, modesty/humility, and prudence; Peterson et al., 2008)

• Another factor analysis found 4 factors: Interpersonal, which reflects positive behavior toward others (fairness, teamwork, kindness, forgiveness, love, modesty/humility, leadership, gratitude, and appreciation of beauty/excellence); Fortitude, which reflects openness and bravery (perspective, judgment, creativity, social intelligence, bravery, and love of learning); Vitality, which reflects a global factor of positive qualities (zest, hope, curiosity, and humor); and Cautiousness, which reflects self-control (prudence, self-regulation, perseverance, religiousness, and honesty; Brdr & Kashdan, in press).

• In a theoretical paper, the argument is made that the VIA character strengths should not be treated independently from one another, should be cautioned from overuse, and that a “master” strength of practical wisdom is needed in order to effectively deploy strengths (Schwartz & Sharpe, 2006).

 

Character Strengths and Life Satisfaction

• The 5 character strengths most highly related to life satisfaction are hope (r = .53), zest (r = .52), gratitude (r = .43), curiosity (r = .39), and love (r = .35). These strengths consistently and repeatedly show a robust, consistent relationship with life satisfaction (Park, Peterson, & Seligman, 2004). The correlations given were from a sample of 3907 individuals; see article for data on two additional samples.

• The character strengths least related to life satisfaction (weak association) are modesty/humility, creativity, appreciation of beauty & excellence, judgment/open-mindedness, and love of learning (Park, Peterson, & Seligman, 2004).
  
  
• The pursuit of meaning and engagement are much more predictive of life satisfaction than the pursuit of pleasure (Peterson, Park, & Seligman, 2005).
  
  
• Strengths of character most associated with life satisfaction were associated with an orientation of pleasure, engagement, and meaning (“the full life”; Peterson et al., 2007).
  
  
• The character strengths most associated with the meaning route to happiness are religiousness, gratitude, hope, zest, and curiosity (Peterson et al., 2007).
  
  
• The character strengths most associated with the engagement route to happiness are zest, curiosity, hope, perseverance, and perspective (Peterson et al., 2007).
  
  
• The character strengths most associated with the pleasure route to happiness are humor, zest, hope, social intelligence, and love (Peterson et al., 2007).

• Three groups emerged in a study of 27 nations and routes to happiness: nations high in pleasure & engagement; those high in engagement & meaning; and those low in pleasure, engagement, & meaning. Nations highest in each route were: South Africa (pleasure), Switzerland (engagement), and South Korea (meaning). All pathways predicted life satisfaction, wherein meaning & engagement are most robust (replication; Park, Peterson, & Ruch, 2009).

• Pleasure, engagement, and meaning predicted life satisfaction in both Australian and US samples, and replicated the finding that there are stronger relationships with the latter two (Vella-Brodrick, Park, & Peterson, 2009).

• Replication study finding similarly strong (e.g., hope, zest) and weak (e.g., modesty, appreciation of beauty & excellence) correlations with life satisfaction in a sample of Swiss, Germans, and Austrians; life satisfaction was highest among the Swiss (Ruch et al., 2007).

• Total score on the VIA-IS (all 24 character strengths) correlated positively with life satisfaction (.44) indicating that strong character is associated with happiness and the good life (Ruch et al., 2007).

• Life satisfaction increased with degree of virtuousness (development of character strengths) but was more apparent of an increase for the less virtuous (Ruch et al., 2007).

• Among young adults from the US and Japan, happiness was associated with zest, hope, curiosity, and gratitude (Shimai et al., 2006).

• Among youth, the character strengths most related to life satisfaction are love, gratitude, hope, and zest; very young children (ages 3-9) described by their parents as happy are also noted as showing love, hope, and zest (Park & Peterson, 2009b).

• Parent’s strength of self-regulation was strongly associated with his or her child’s life satisfaction, but not their own (Park & Peterson, 2006a).

• Viewing one’s work as a “calling” in which one’s work is viewed as a source of fulfillment that is socially useful and personal meaningful, rather than as financial reward or career advancement, is predicted by the character strength of zest (Peterson et al., 2009).
  
  
• In a survey of the VIA classification with 839 Croatians, only curiosity and zest were consistently part of the top 5 strengths linked to attaining pleasure, engagement, and meaning (unpublished data from T. Kashdan; cited in Kashdan, 2009).

 

Character Strengths and Health and Wellness

• When an individual has a physical disorder, there is less of a toll on life satisfaction if they are high on the character strengths of bravery, kindness, and humor (Peterson, Park, & Seligman, 2006).

• When an individual has a psychological disorder, there is less of a toll on life satisfaction if they are high on the character strengths of appreciation of beauty & excellence and love of learning (Peterson, Park, & Seligman, 2006).

• The strengths of the “heart” (e.g., love, gratitude) are more strongly associated with well-being than are strengths of the “head” (e.g., creativity, open-mindedness/judgment, appreciation of beauty and excellence; Park & Peterson, 2008b; Park, Peterson, & Seligman, 2004).

• Grateful individuals report higher positive mood, optimism, life satisfaction, vitality, religiousness and spirituality, and less depression and envy than less grateful individuals (McCullough, Emmons, & Tsang, 2002).

• Grateful people tend to be more helpful, supportive, forgiving, empathic, and agreeable (McCullough, Emmons, & Tsang, 2002).

• Hope was a significant predictor of medication adherence among asthma patients between 8 and 12 (Berg, Rapoff, Snyder, & Belmont, 2007).

• Character strengths were associated with lower levels of sexual behaviors and sex-related beliefs among African-American adolescents. Specifically on the VIA, higher love of learning was related to boys’ self-reported abstinence from sexual intercourse and boys’ & girls’ self-reported abstinence from drug use; higher curiosity was related to boys’ & girls’ belief in no premarital sex (love of learning was also significant for boys); prudence was related to reported abstinence from sexual intimacy; judgment was related to sexual initiation efficacy for girls & boys (leadership was also significant for girls; Ma et al., 2008).
  
  
• The practice of gratitude (counting blessings) is linked to fewer physical symptoms, more optimistic life appraisals, and more time exercising and improved well-being and optimal functioning (Emmons & McCullough, 2003).

• Adolescent students who counted blessings reported higher levels of optimism and life satisfaction, less negative affect, and fewer physical symptoms (Froh, Sefick, & Emmons, 2008).

• The practice of gratitude is linked to increases in well-being among those with neuromuscular disease (Emmons & McCullough, 2003).

 

Character Strengths and Achievement

• The character strengths – perseverance, love, gratitude, and hope – predict academic achievement in middle school students and college students (reported in Park & Peterson, 2009a).

• Character strengths are related to achievement, life satisfaction, and well-being in children and youth (Park & Peterson, 2008a).

• Academic achievement among school children is predicted by perseverance and temperance strengths (Peterson & Park, 2009).

• In a study of nearly 1200 kids who wore a beeping watch leading them to write about their thoughts, feelings, and actions eight times per day, the most curious kids were compared with the bored kids (the top 207 and the bottom 207). The curious were more optimistic, hopeful, confident, and had a higher sense of self-determination and self-efficacy believing they were in control of their actions and decisions, than the bored kids who felt like pawns with no control of their destiny (Hunter & Csikszentmihalyi, 2003).
  
  
• Military performance among West Point cadets was predicted by the character strength of love (Peterson & Park, 2009).
  
  
• Military leaders' character strength of humor predicted their followers' trust while followers’ character strength of perspective earned their leaders' trust (Sweeney et al., 2009).
  
  
• Effective teachers (judged by the gains of their students on standardized tests) are those who are high in social intelligence, zest, and humor in a longitudinal study (reported in Park & Peterson, 2009a).

• The combined use of the VIA Survey and The Teacher Behaviors Checklist offers a new approach in faculty development that assists faculty in becoming more reflective and deliberate about their teaching and learning strategies (McGovern & Miller, 2008).
  
  
• After controlling for IQ, strengths of perseverance, fairness, gratitude, honesty, hope, and perspective predicted GPA (Park & Peterson, 2008a)

• Strengths that predicted GPA in college students were perseverance, love of learning, humor, fairness, and kindness (Lounsbury et al., 2009).

• Predictors of college satisfaction were hope, social intelligence, self-regulation, and fairness (Lounsbury et al., 2009).

• Popular students, as identified by teacher ratings, are more likely to score highly on civic strengths such as leadership and fairness, and temperance strengths of self-regulation, prudence, and forgiveness.  Interestingly, none of the humanity strengths such as love and kindness were related to popularity (Park & Peterson, 2009b).

• Higher hope levels are related to greater scholastic and social competence and to creativity levels (Onwuegbuzie, 1999).

Character Strengths and Mental Illness, Problems, and Trauma Recovery

• Hope, zest, and leadership were substantially related to fewer problems with anxiety and depression (Park & Peterson, 2008a).

• Hope is negatively related to indicators of psychological distress and school maladjustment (internalizing and externalizing behaviors; Gilman, Dooley, & Florell, 2006).

• Persistence, honesty, prudence, and love were substantially related to fewer externalizing problems such as aggression (Park & Peterson, 2008a).

• Posttraumatic growth in various dimensions corresponds with particular character strengths: improved relationships with others (kindness, love), openness to new possibilities (curiosity, creativity, love of learning), greater appreciation of life (appreciation of beauty, gratitude, zest), enhanced personal strength (bravery, honesty, perseverance), and spiritual development (religiousness; Peterson et al., 2008; Tedeschi & Calhoun, 1995).

• The more traumatic events an individual reports, the higher the character strength scores (with the exception of gratitude, hope, and love; Peterson et al., 2008).

• Gratitude, hope, kindness, leadership, love, spirituality, and teamwork all increased in a U.S. sample (but not a European sample) two months after the September 11^th (2001) attack on the World Trade Center in New York City; ten months after September 11^th, these character strengths were still elevated but to a lesser degree (Peterson & Seligman, 2003).

• Hope, kindness, social intelligence, self-regulation, and perspective buffer against the negative effects of stress and trauma (Park & Peterson, 2006c; Park & Peterson, 2009a).

 

Character Strengths Applications

• Using one’s signature strengths in a new and unique way is an effective intervention: it increased happiness and decreased depression for 6 months (Seligman, Steen, Park, Peterson, 2005). 

• Using one’s signature strengths in a new way and three good things increased happiness for 6 months and decreased depression for 3 and 6 months, respectively. The early positive memory group and not the early memory group had similar benefits increasing happiness and decreasing depression for 3 months each (Mongrain & Anselmo, 2009).

• Random assignment to a group instructed to use 2 signature strengths or use 1 signature strength and 1 bottom strength revealed significant gains in satisfaction with life compared with a control group but no differences between the 2 treatment groups (Rust, Diessner, & Reade, 2009).

• There is a strong connection between well-being and the use of signature strengths because strengths helps us make progress on our goals and meet our basic needs for independence, relationship, and competence (Linley et al., 2010).

• The use of one’s top strengths leads to a decreased likelihood of depression and stress and an increase in satisfaction in law students (Peterson & Peterson, 2008).

• Most creativity training programs work, especially when divergent thinking – the capacity to generate multiple alternative solutions as opposed to the one correct solution – is  fostered (Scott et al., 2004).

• Many interventions help to increase creativity in older adults, such as cultural/art programs (e.g., music, dance, drawing), poetry, journaling, problem-solving activities, reminiscence, and psycho-educational groups (Flood & Phillips, 2007).

• In an experiment in which participants were instructed to pay attention to three novel features with something disliked (i.e., use their curiosity), the participants changed the way they viewed the activity, and weeks later they were more likely to have done the task again on their own (Langer, 2005).

• Individuals are more likely to engage in active, open-mindedness of multiple views when asked to make decisions around values/goals that are both strong and conflicting (Tetlock, 1986).

• Students are more likely to value and enjoy learning if they’re achieving their grade goal, the subject matter is of personal interest, or the reasons for learning are task-oriented (e.g., markers for how they can improve; Covington, 1999).

• There are three major paths for developing wisdom: Learning from mentors and reading philosophical literature, teaching students skills and wise patterns of thinking and decision-making, and the use of direct, short-term interventions, such as imagined conversation and imagined travel (Gluck & Baltes, 2006).

• Labeling one’s actions in retrospect as courageous can lead to or promote courage, or at least positive states and values that lead to courageous behaviors (Finfgeld, 1999; Hannah et al., 2007).

• Outcome-focused strategies – thinking of the person being helped, reminding oneself of the righteousness of the act, or reflecting on the obligation to act – are the most common ways individuals attempt to increase bravery/courage (Pury, 2008).

• Reinforcement of high effort on tasks results in transfer of effort to other tasks (greater persistence; Eisenberger, 1992; Hickman et al., 1998).

• Honesty, empathy, and courage – conceptualized as academic heroism – predicted academic honesty and noted as three potential routes for developing heroism and virtues (Staats et al., 2008).

• Potential pathways for increasing zest, particularly in the workplace, may be to cultivate optimism, gratitude, or savoring, emphasize good social relationships outside work, and focus on physical health and fitness (Peterson et al., 2009).

• The focus on cultivating love toward oneself and/or others was found to increase feelings of social connection and positivity toward others (Hutcherson et al., 2008), as well as positive emotions, sense of purpose, and mindfulness in general (Fredrickson et al., 2008).

• Kindness and gratitude increased among happy Japanese women who counted their kind acts (Otake et al., 2006).

• Potential pathways to build teamwork and develop successful teams comes from correlational research finding team optimism predicts outcomes for teams that are newly formed and team resiliency and team efficacy predict outcomes for established teams (West et al., 2009).

• Instructors are more likely to be perceived as fair if they present information clearly, give regular feedback, stick to the course syllabus, and give many opportunities to earn a good grade in the course (Chory, 2007).

• Moral reasoning development (fairness) is developed through stimulating and interactive peer discussions that involve moral issues, heterogeneous reasoning, and orient toward consensus or resolution of disagreement (transactive discussions; Berkowitz & Gibbs, 1983).

• The development of 2 or 3 different leadership styles (e.g., directive, participative, coaching) relates to higher leader behavioral flexibility which is an important characteristic of effective leaders (Sumner-Armstrong et al., 2008).

• Writing about the personal benefits of forgiving a transgressor lead to greater forgiveness than writing about the traumatic features of a transgression suffered or an unrelated control topic (McCullough et al., 2006).

• Viewing and working with forgiveness as a process, whether this is done individually or in groups, is crucial for building this strength (Baskin & Enright, 2004).

• A meta-analysis of 65 group intervention conditions found that the amount of time spent empathizing with transgressors, committing to forgive, and practical strategies (e.g., anger management and relaxation) was significantly related to forgiveness outcome (Wade, Worthington, & Meyer, 2005).

• Daily self-control exercises increase a general core capacity for self-control (i.e., our self-regulation “muscle”), such as food monitoring, improving mood, improving posture, physical exercise programs, financial monitoring exercises, and the use of a non-preferred hand to do routine activities (Baumeister et al., 2006).

• Keeping a “beauty log” of writing briefly about the beauty the individual appreciates in nature, art, or morality during the week lead to a higher engagement with moral beauty and trait hope (Diessner et al., 2006).

• A combination of cognitive strategies (e.g., evaluating beliefs) and social problem-solving strategies (e.g., assertiveness training) lead to greater optimism (Gillham, Reivich, Jaycox, & Seligman, 1995).

• Visualizing and writing about one’s best possible self at a time in the future leads to increases in optimism/hope and well-being (King, 2001; Sheldon & Lyubomirsky, 2006).

• Three good things (writing down three positive things that happened during the day) is an effective intervention: it increased happiness and decreased depression for 6 months (Seligman, Steen, Park, Peterson, 2005).

• Three interventions delivered online were not found to have lasting effects: The gratitude visit (benefits for 1 month), simply identifying signature strengths and using them more over the week, and writing about “you at your best.” Nevertheless, if someone is looking for a quick boost of happiness, the gratitude visit is a good option. These three ineffective interventions were delivered in isolation; there might be benefits if these were combined in a multi-exercise program (Seligman, Steen, Park, Peterson, 2005).

• Four studies taken together found that prayer has a causal effect in increasing the strength of gratitude (Lambert et al., 2009).

• Learning from spiritual models or exemplars reduced negative religious coping and images of God as controlling and provides an avenue for learning about spirituality (Oman & Thoresen, 2003; Oman et al., 2007).

 

References:

Baskin, T. W., & Enright, R. D. (2004). Intervention studies on forgiveness: A meta-analysis. Journal of Counseling and Development, 82, 79-80.

Baumeister, R. F., Matthew G., DeWall, C., N., & Oaten, M. (2006). Self-regulation and personality: How interventions increase regulatory success, and how depletion moderates the effects of traits on behavior. Journal of Personality, 74(6), 1773-1802.

Berg, C. J., Rapoff, M. A., Snyder, C. R., & Belmont, J. M. (2007). The relationship of children’s hope to pediatric asthma treatment adherence. Journal of Positive Psychology, 2, 176-184.

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Dahlsgaard, K., Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2005). Shared virtue: The convergence of valued human strengths across culture and history. Review of General Psychology, 9(3), 203–213.

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