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Character Strengths and Virtues:

A Handbook and Classification

CHRISTOPHER PETERSON MARTIN E. P. SELIGMAN

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Character Strengths and Virtues

The work contained herein is that of the Values in Action Institute,

a nonprofit initiative of the Manuel D. and Rhoda Mayerson Foundation,

directed by Dr. Neal H. Mayerson.

  

Donald O. Clifton

Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi

Ed Diener

Raymond D. Fowler

Barbara L. Fredrickson

Howard Gardner

David Myers

C. Rick Snyder

Charles Spielberger

Claude Steele

Robert J. Sternberg

George Vaillant

Ellen Winner

Character Strengths and Virtues A Handbook and Classification

Christopher Peterson & Martin E. P. Seligman

1 2004

3 Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi São Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto

Copyright © 2004 by Values in Action Institute

Published by American Psychological Association 750 First Street, NE, Washington, DC 20002-4242 www.apa.org and Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com

Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Peterson, Christopher, 1950 Feb. 18– Character strengths and virtues : a handbook and classification / Christopher Peterson, Martin E. P. Seligman

p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ). ISBN 0-19-516701-5 1. Character—Handbooks, manuals, etc. 2. Virtues—Handbooks, manuals, etc. I. Seligman, Martin E. P. II. Title. BF818 .P38 2004 155.2'32—dc22 2003024320

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

www.oup.com
www.apa.org
C an we hold hope that positive psychology will be able to help people evolvetoward their highest potential?” The classification described in this book began with this question, posed by Neal Mayerson to Martin Seligman in 1999. The Mayerson Foundation was concerned that inadequate progress was being made from well-worn problem-fixing approaches and that an approach based on recognizing people’s strengths and aspirations might prove more effective. Mayerson turned to Seligman to explore the intersection of the emerging field of positive youth development and Seligman’s new push to articulate a new positive psychology. It soon became clear that two prior questions needed to be answered: (1) how can one define the concepts of “strength” and “highest potential” and (2) how can one tell that a positive youth development program has succeeded in meeting its goals?

These two concerns framed the classification project from its inception. The Manuel D. and Rhoda Mayerson Foundation created the Values in Action (VIA) Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the development of a scientific knowledge base of human strengths. Seligman was the scientific director of the VIA Institute, and he asked Christopher Peterson to be its project director. In September 2000, Peterson temporarily relocated from the University of Michi- gan to the University of Pennsylvania. For the next three years, Seligman and Peterson, with the assistance of a prestigious array of scholars and practitioners, devised a classification of character strengths and virtues (addressing the “good” teenager concern) and ways of measuring them (addressing the program evalu- ation concern). This book describes the results of this collaboration. We remain greatly interested in positive youth development but now believe that the clas- sification and measurement strategies we have created can be applied much more broadly.

We have been helped mightily along the way. Our specal gratitude is of course expressed to the Manuel D. and Rhoda Mayerson Foundation for cre-

Preface

vi 

ating the VIA Institute, which supported this work. Thanks in particular are due to Neal Mayerson for his vision and encouragement.

Thanks are also due more generally to the other benefactors and boosters of positive psychology. Don Clifton of the Gallup Organization, along with Mar- tin Seligman, convened a meeting of scholars to begin a delineation of the strengths. Much of what follows builds on this beginning. The late Robert Nozick as well as Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, George Vaillant, Daniel Robinson, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, and Ed Diener were the heavyweights at this meeting. Three subsequent meetings were held as well, and we thank those in attendance for their important contributions to this project: Bonnie Bernard, Alan Blankstein, Robert Blum, Dale Blyth, Jack Burke, Gaye Carlson, Sonia Chessen, Reginald Clark, Joseph Conaty, Katherine Dahlsgaard, Lucy Davidson, Ed Di- ener, Elizabeth Dunn, Thaddeus Ferber, Raymond Fowler, Carissa Griffing, Daniel Hart, Derek Isaacowitz, Terry Kang, Robert Kendall, Nicole Kurzer, Kenneth Maton, Donna Mayerson, Neal Mayerson, Richard McCarty, Peter Nathan, Heather Johnston Nicholson, Joyce Phelps, Karen Pittman, Jane Quinn, Gordon Raley, Mark Rosenberg, Peter Schulman, David Seligman, Andrew Shatté, Myrna Shure, Susan Spence, Peter Stevens, Philip Stone, Constancia Warren, Alan Williams, Steve Wolin, and Nicole Yohalem.

The Atlantic Philanthropies, the John Marks Templeton Foundation, the Annenberg/Sunnylands Trust Foundation, and the Department of Education all funded aspects of this project and by supporting positive psychology gener- ously created an atmosphere in which our classification project could be seen as a worthy one.

Individual chapters in Section II of this book were drafted by expert social scientists—see the list of contributors (pp. xiii–xiv)—commissioned by us to review what was known about the various character strengths in the classifi- cation. We were fortunate that virtually all of our first choices were able to write these drafts. In a few cases, we commissioned two separate drafts for a given character strength, and these drafts were then melded. All the drafts were thoughtful and thorough, and we think that a fine book would have resulted simply from gathering them together, even without our editing. However, we took a further step and rewrote each draft for consistency in organization and tone. Our editing was deliberately heavy-handed, and the contributors should not be held responsible for any resulting errors.

We were also fortunate to have the advice of distinguished senior social sci- entists—see the Board of Advisors (p. ii)—while we worked on this project. In particular, the wisdom and support of George Vaillant kept us on track.

Very early chapter drafts were reviewed by youth development experts— Bonnie Bernard, Robert Blum, Reginald Clark, Daniel Hart, Heather Johnston Nicholson, and Kenneth Maton—in a process coordinated by Nicole Yohalem and Karen Pittman of the International Youth Foundation. Later chapter drafts were reviewed by Donald K. Freedheim, Jerold R. Gold, William C. Howell,

 vii

Thomas E. Joiner, Randy J. Larsen, and Lee B. Sechrest, and we thank them for their thoughtful suggestions.

We want to thank Gary VandenBos of the American Psychological Asso- ciation and Joan Bossert of Oxford University Press—both organizations are great friends of positive psychology—for working together to publish this book. We also want to thank Marion Osmun of the American Psychological Associa- tion for her editorial work and Susan Ecklund for her thorough copyediting.

We are grateful to Peter Schulman, Terry Kang, Linda Newsted, Chris Jenkins, and Patty Newbold for their help behind the scenes. Lisa Christie and Jennifer Yu brought their sharp eyes and good humor to early drafts of the manuscript. Ilona Boniwell, Tiffany Sawyer, Lauren Kachorek, Tracy Steen, Angela Lee Duckworth, Rachel Kellerman, Robert Biswas-Diener, Emily Polak, Adam Cohen, and Derek Isaacowitz helped with some of the research described here. Katherine Dahlsgaard identifed the six core virtues—wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence—used to organize the spe- cific character strengths in the classification. Nansook Park has been a valued collaborator.

We thank Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, Ed Diener, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, and George Vaillant for their leadership on the Positive Psychology Steering Committee. We are grateful as well to Don Clifton, Jim Clifton, and Marcus Buckingham of the Gallup Organization for pioneering work on strengths and showing us that a psychology of human strengths was possible.

And we of course want to thank the more than 150,000 individuals who completed versions of our measures during the past 3 years.

Last, but certainly not least, our families and friends deserve special men- tion for embodying the strengths that constitute the classification. Virtue may be its own reward, but we too reaped the benefits.

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Contributors xiii

 : BACKGROUND

1 Introduction to a “Manual of the Sanities” 3

2 Universal Virtues?—Lessons From History 33

3 Previous Classifications of Character Strengths 53

 : STRENGTHS OF CHARACTER

Strengths of WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE

Introduction 93

4 Creativity [Originality, Ingenuity] 109

5 Curiosity [Interest, Novelty-Seeking, Openness to Experience] 125

6 Open-Mindedness [Judgment, Critical Thinking] 143

7 Love of Learning 161

8 Perspective [Wisdom] 181

Contents

Strengths of COURAGE

Introduction 197

9 Bravery [Valor] 213

10 Persistence [Perseverance, Industriousness] 229

11 Integrity [Authenticity, Honesty] 249

12 Vitality [Zest, Enthusiasm, Vigor, Energy] 273

Strengths of HUMANITY

Introduction 291

13 Love 303

14 Kindness [Generosity, Nurturance, Care, Compassion, Altruistic Love, “Niceness”] 325

15 Social Intelligence [Emotional Intelligence, Personal Intelligence] 337

Strengths of JUSTICE

Introduction 355

16 Citizenship [Social Responsibility, Loyalty, Teamwork] 369

17 Fairness 391

18 Leadership 413

Strengths of TEMPERANCE

Introduction 429

19 Forgiveness and Mercy 445

20 Humility and Modesty 461

x 

21 Prudence 477

22 Self-Regulation [Self-Control] 499

Strengths of TRANSCENDENCE

Introduction 517

23 Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence [Awe, Wonder, Elevation] 537

24 Gratitude 553

25 Hope [Optimism, Future-Mindedness, Future Orientation] 569

26 Humor [Playfulness] 583

27 Spirituality [Religiousness, Faith, Purpose] 599

 : CONCLUSIONS

28 Assessment and Applications 625

References 645

Index of Names 763

Subject Index 789

 xi

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Roy F. Baumeister (Humility and Modesty; Self-Regulation)

Marvin W. Berkowitz (Fairness)

Jessey H. Bernstein (Vitality)

W. Keith Campbell (Humility and Modesty)

Katherine Dahlsgaard (Lessons from History)

Lucy Davidson (Integrity)

Robert A. Emmons (Gratitude)

Julie Juola Exline (Humility and Modesty)

Constance A. Flanagan (Citizenship)

Jonathan Haidt (Appreciation of Beauty)

Andrew C. Harter (Persistence)

Pamela S. Hartman (Perspective)

Nick Haslam (Prudence)

Cindy Hazan (Love)

Thomas E. Joiner (Humility and Modesty)

Lauren V. Kachorek (Humility and Modesty)

Todd B. Kashdan (Curiosity)

Dacher Keltner (Appreciation of Beauty)

Joachim I. Krueger (Humility and Modesty)

Jacqueline S. Mattis (Spirituality)

Contributors

xiii

xiv 

John D. Mayer (Social Intelligence)

Michael E. McCullough (Forgiveness and Mercy; Kindness)

Nansook Park (Assessment and Applications)

Elizabeth Pollard (Integrity)

Stephen G. Post (Kindness)

K. Ann Renninger (Love of Learning)

Willibald Ruch (Humor)

Richard M. Ryan (Vitality)

Peter Salovey (Social Intelligence)

Carol Sansone (Love of Learning)

Kennon M. Sheldon (Integrity)

Stephen A. Sherblom (Fairness)

Dean Keith Simonton (Creativity)

Jessi L. Smith (Love of Learning)

Tracy A. Steen (Bravery)

Dianne M. Tice (Persistence)

Kathleen D. Vohs (Self-Regulation)

Harry M. Wallace (Persistence)

Monica C. Worline (Bravery)

Stephen J. Zaccaro (Leadership)

Section i

Background

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The classification of strengths presented in this book is intended to reclaimthe study of character and virtue as legitimate topics of psychological inquiry and informed societal discourse. By providing ways of talking about character strengths and measuring them across the life span, this classifica- tion will start to make possible a science of human strengths that goes beyond armchair philosophy and political rhetoric. We believe that good character can be cultivated, but to do so, we need conceptual and empirical tools to craft and evaluate interventions.

In recent years, strides have been made in understanding, treating, and preventing psychological disorders. Reflecting this progress and critically help- ing to bring it about are widely accepted classification manuals—the Diagnos- tic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) sponsored by the American Psychiatric Association (1994) and the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) sponsored by the World Health Organization (1990)—which have generated a family of reliable assessment strategies and have led to demon- strably effective treatments for more than a dozen disorders that only a few decades ago were intractable (Nathan & Gorman, 1998, 2002; Seligman, 1994). Lagging behind but still promising in their early success are ongoing efforts to devise interventions that prevent various disorders from occurring in the first place (e.g., M. T. Greenberg, Domitrovich, & Bumbarger, 1999).

Consensual classifications and associated approaches to assessment pro- vide a common vocabulary for basic researchers and clinicians, allowing com- munication within and across these groups of professionals as well as with the general public. Previous generations of psychiatrists and psychologists had no certainty, for example, that patients in London who were diagnosed with schizo- phrenia had much in common with patients in Topeka receiving the same di- agnosis. They had no reason to believe that an effective psychological or

3

1. Introduction to a “Manual of the Sanities”

4 section i: Background

pharmaceutical treatment of ostensible depressives in Johannesburg would be useful for supposed depressives in Kyoto.

With recent incarnations of the DSM and ICD, matters have begun to change, but only for half of the landscape of the human condition. We can now describe and measure much of what is wrong with people, but what about those things that are right? Nothing comparable to the DSM or ICD exists for the good life. When psychiatrists and psychologists talk about mental health, wellness, or well-being, they mean little more than the absence of disease, distress, and disorder. It is as if falling short of diagnostic criteria should be the goal for which we all should strive. Insurance companies and health maintenance organiza- tions (HMOs) reimburse the treatment of disorders but certainly not the pro- motion of happiness and fulfillment. The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) should really be called the National Institute of Mental Illness because it devotes but a fraction of its research budget to mental health.

This handbook focuses on what is right about people and specifically about the strengths of character that make the good life possible. We follow the ex- ample of the DSM and ICD and their collateral creations by proposing a classi- fication scheme and by devising assessment strategies for each of its entries. The crucial difference is that the domain of concern for us is not psychological ill- ness but psychological health. In short, our goal is “a manual of the sanities” (Easterbrook, 2001, p. 23).

We write from the perspective of positive psychology, which means that we are as focused on strength as on weakness, as interested in building the best things in life as in repairing the worst, and as concerned with fulfilling the lives of normal people as with healing the wounds of the distressed (Seligman, 2002). The past concern of psychology with human problems is of course understandable and will not be abandoned anytime in the foresee- able future. Problems always will exist that demand psychological solutions, but psychologists interested in promoting human potential need to pose dif- ferent questions from their predecessors who assumed a disease model of human nature. We disavow the disease model as we approach character, and we are adamant that human strengths are not secondary, derivative, illusory, epiphenomenal, parasitic upon the negative, or otherwise suspect. Said in a positive way, we believe that character strengths are the bedrock of the hu- man condition and that strength-congruent activity represents an important route to the psychological good life.

What distinguishes positive psychology from the humanistic psychology of the 1960s and 1970s and from the positive thinking movement is its reliance on empirical research to understand people and the lives they lead. Humanists were often skeptical about the scientific method and what it could yield yet were unable to offer an alternative other than the insight that people were good. In contrast, positive psychologists see both strength and weakness as authentic and as amenable to scientific understanding.

chapter 1: Introduction to a “Manual of the Sanities” 5

There are many good examples of ongoing psychological research that fit under the positive psychology umbrella (see collections by Aspinwall & Staudinger, 2003; Cameron, Dutton, & Quinn, 2003; Chang, 2001; Gillham, 2000; Keyes & Haidt, 2003; R. M. Lerner, Jacobs, & Wertlieb, 2003; Snyder, 2000b; Snyder & Lopez, 2002), but this new field lacks a common vocabulary that agrees on the positive traits and allows psychologists to move among in- stances of them. We imagine that positive psychology as a whole would be ben- efited—indeed, shaped and transformed—by agreed-upon ways for speaking about the positive, just as the DSM and ICD have shaped psychiatry, clinical psychology, and social work by providing a way to speak about the negative. We believe that the classification of character presented here is an important step toward a common vocabulary of measurable positive traits.

Our project coincides with heightened societal concern about good char- acter (Hunter, 2000). After a detour through the hedonism of the 1960s, the narcissism of the 1970s, the materialism of the 1980s, and the apathy of the 1990s, most everyone today seems to believe that character is important after all and that the United States is facing a character crisis on many fronts, from the play- ground to the classroom to the sports arena to the Hollywood screen to busi- ness corporations to politics. According to a 1999 survey by Public Agenda, adults in the United States cited “not learning values” as the most important problem facing today’s youth. Notably, in the public’s view, drugs and violence trailed the absence of character as pressing problems.

But what is character? So long as we fail to identify the specifics, differ- ent groups in our society—despite their common concern for human good- ness—will simply talk past one another when attempting to address the issue. For instance, is character defined by what someone does not do, or is there a more active meaning? Is character a singular characteristic of an individual, or is it composed of different aspects? Does character—however we define it—exist in degrees, or is character just something that one happens, like preg- nancy, to have or not? How does character develop? Can it be learned? Can it be taught, and who might be the most effective teacher? What roles are played by families, schools, peers, youth development programs, the media, religious institutions, and the larger culture? Is character socially constructed and laden with idiosyncratic values, or are there universals suggesting a more enduring basis?

The emerging field of positive psychology is positioned to answer these sorts of questions. Positive psychology focuses on three related topics: the study of positive subjective experiences, the study of positive individual traits, and the study of institutions that enable positive experiences and positive traits (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). Our classification project addresses the second of these topics and in so doing hopes to shed light on the first. One even- tual benefit of the classification we propose may be the identification or even the deliberate creation of institutions that enable good character.

6 section i: Background

■ Thinking About Classification: Lessons From Systematics

Like everyday people, social scientists are fond of making lists: for example, enumerating defense mechanisms, emotional disorders, personality traits, job types, psychosexual stages, parenting practices, attachment styles, and so on. Unlike everyday people, social scientists often go on to reify their lists by giving them “scientific” labels like classifications or taxonomies. Scientific credibility is not gained by assertion but by making sure that the label fits. We call our endeavor an aspirational classification. What does this mean?

A scientific classification parses some part of the universe first by demar- cating its domain and second by specifying mutually exclusive and exhaustive subcategories within that domain. Both sorts of parsing rules need to be ex- plicit and demonstrably reliable. The validity of a classification is judged by its utility vis-à-vis one or more stated purposes. Are classifiers more interested in marking the perimeter of a scientific territory or in detailing an already agreed- upon domain? Is the classification intended to catalog already known instances or to accommodate new ones as they are encountered? Is it intended to inspire research or to guide intervention?

A classification should not be confused with a taxonomy, which is based on a deep theory that explains the domain of concern (K. D. Bailey, 1994). Why these entries but not others? What is the underlying structure? That is, how do the entries relate to one another? When melded with evolutionary theory, for example, the Linnaean classification of species becomes a profound theory of life and the course that it has taken over the millennia. A good taxonomy has the benefits of a good theory: It organizes and guides the activity of an entire discipline.

But there is an important caution here. Along with their added value, tax- onomies have a cost not incurred by classifications. Suppose the theory that girds a taxonomy is wrong, contradictory, or inarticulate? Then the activity that is organized and guided becomes self-defeating. Furthermore, it proves highly dif- ficult to change the entries of a taxonomy, even in minor ways, because so much else linked together by the deep theory needs to be altered as a consequence.

Our classification is concerned with human strengths and virtues. From the perspective of positive psychology, itself a new endeavor, the domain of human excellence is largely unexplored. At the beginning of this project, we created a tentative “taxonomy,” but it proved beyond our ability to specify a reasonable theory (as a taxonomy requires). However, our efforts did convince us that it was possible to approach closely the classification goals of staking out territory (i.e., defining virtues valued in most cultures) and subdividing it (i.e., specifying instances of these virtues). Our measurement intent of necessity led us to articulate explicit rules for what counts as a strength or not (inclusion and exclusion criteria) and for distinguishing various strengths from one another. These rules further provide the basis for adding new instances of character strengths to the classification.

chapter 1: Introduction to a “Manual of the Sanities” 7

We already knew our constituencies—psychology researchers and practi- tioners—and their needs kept us on task as we devised assessment strategies. We disavow all intents to propose a taxonomy in the technical sense, even though previous drafts of our work used that term. A modest description of our endeavor—an aspirational classification of strengths and virtues—preserves the flexibility necessary to proceed. A thoughtful classification, even if tenta- tive, will serve the goals of psychology more productively than a flawed tax- onomy, even if the surface entries look exactly the same. We trust to the emerging field of positive psychology as a whole to create one or more theories that will conceptually unify our classification.

■ Thinking About Classification Part Two: Lessons From the DSM

As noted, an older cousin of our classification of strengths and virtues is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) sponsored by the American Psychiatric Association (1952, 1968, 1980, 1987, 1994). A catalog of problematic ways of behaving, the DSM for several reasons has been a runaway success. First, it has made research into psychological disorders possible by providing a common vocabulary that lends itself to scientific operationalization (measurement). More subtly, the DSM has guided research programs by legiti- mizing investigations of some disorders rather than others. Finally, important societal institutions have endorsed the DSM, explicitly or implicitly: the Ameri- can Psychiatric Association with its imprimatur, NIMH with its funding, insurance companies and HMOs with their reimbursement codes, the phar- maceutical industry, psychiatry and clinical psychology journals, and textbook publishers. Whatever one might think of the DSM, one must be conversant with its details in order to function as a mental “health” professional.

The DSM is far from perfect, and its weaknesses as well as it strengths have guided us. What are the positive and negative lessons that can be learned from the various incarnations of the DSM over its 50-year history? On the positive side, the DSM has moved toward behaviorally based criteria and proposed explicit rules for recognizing disorders of interest; it has spawned a family of structured clini- cal interviews and self-report questionnaires that allow these disorders to be re- liably assessed; and, at least in principle, it has moved toward multidimensional (multiaxial) description, doing justice to the complexity of the subject matter it tries to organize. Thus, a full DSM diagnosis notes not only clinical disorders (Axis I) but also personality and developmental disorders (Axis II), medical conditions (Axis III), prevailing stressors (Axis IV), and global level of functioning (Axis V).

Following the DSM example, our classification includes explicit criteria for character strengths, and it has led us to develop a family of assessment devices (chapter 28). Finally, the present classification is multiaxial in the sense that it

8 section i: Background

directs the attention of positive psychology not only to character strengths but also to talents and abilities, to conditions that enable or disable the strengths, to fulfillments that are associated with the strengths, and to outcomes that may ensue from them.

There are also negative lessons of the DSM, especially from the viewpoint of psychology (Schacht & Nathan, 1977). This taxonomy is focused too much on transient symptoms; it is reductionistic and at the same time overly com- plex, shaped by temporary trends within psychiatry (Vaillant, 1984). Even the current version of the DSM lacks an overall scheme, fails to be exhaustive, and— given its medical roots—does not attend much to the individual’s setting and culture. It uses categories rather than dimensions, and mixed or not otherwise specified (NOS) diagnoses are among the most frequently used. Many diagnostic entities are so heterogeneous that two individuals warranting the same diag- nosis could have no symptoms in common. DSM disorders are not well located in their developmental trajectory. Some critics have argued that considerations of reliability have crowded out considerations of validity, and in any event that there are too many disorders (more than 300), perhaps by an order of magni- tude or more (Goodwin & Guze, 1996).