Character Strengths and Virtues in Positive Psychology

Last Updated May 23, 2026

Character strengths and virtues constitute one of the foundational theoretical frameworks of positive psychology because they ask what is best, most capable, and most ethically developed in human beings. Developed through the Values in Action classification, the framework identifies psychological and moral capacities that enable people to live meaningful lives, exercise judgment, sustain relationships, act with courage, contribute to institutions, and participate in forms of flourishing that are not reducible to pleasure or success alone.

For much of the twentieth century, psychological research was organized primarily around pathology, dysfunction, disorder, and treatment. That work remains essential. But positive psychology emerged partly as a corrective to the idea that psychology should only study what goes wrong. It asked a wider question: what psychological capacities allow people and communities to live well? Within that broader project, character strengths and virtues offered one of the field’s most ambitious answers.

The VIA framework, developed by Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman and presented in Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification, attempted to catalogue positive traits of human character in a systematic way. Its classificatory ambition deliberately echoed diagnostic manuals, but with a different purpose. Instead of identifying disorders, the VIA framework sought to identify morally and psychologically valued capacities: wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, transcendence, and the twenty-four more specific strengths through which these virtues may be expressed.

The framework matters because character is not merely private personality. Character shapes how people interpret difficulty, respond to power, sustain commitments, regulate impulses, treat others, pursue truth, repair harm, lead institutions, and orient themselves toward meaning. A serious account of character strengths must therefore be psychological, ethical, relational, cultural, and institutional at the same time.

This article examines the intellectual origins of the VIA framework, the six core virtues, the twenty-four character strengths, signature strengths, the measurement of character, the relationship between strengths and flourishing, the application of strengths in education, leadership, organizations, and institutions, and the debates that arise when moral language is translated into psychological science.

What Are Character Strengths?

Character strengths are positive psychological capacities that shape how people think, feel, choose, relate, act, and pursue meaningful lives. They include traits such as curiosity, bravery, kindness, fairness, prudence, gratitude, hope, and humility. In the VIA framework, these strengths are not merely preferences or talents. They are morally valued capacities that can support flourishing when expressed wisely and contextually.

The distinction between a talent and a character strength is important. A person may be highly skilled at mathematics, public speaking, strategy, negotiation, or music, but those talents are not automatically moral strengths. Character strengths concern the quality of the person’s orientation: curiosity toward truth, fairness toward others, courage under difficulty, humility under success, gratitude in relation to life, prudence in action, or kindness in social life.

This is why character strengths belong at the intersection of psychology and ethics. They are psychological because they can be studied as patterns of motivation, cognition, emotion, and behavior. They are ethical because they concern what kinds of persons people become and how those persons affect others.

A character-strength framework also avoids a narrow view of well-being as happiness alone. Character matters because people do not flourish merely by feeling good. They flourish by developing capacities that help them pursue truth, sustain care, regulate desire, keep promises, practice courage, act justly, appreciate beauty, cultivate hope, and contribute to a larger social world.

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The Intellectual Origins of the VIA Framework

The VIA classification emerged from a foundational question: if psychology can systematically identify and classify mental disorders, can it also identify and classify the psychological traits that help life go well? Peterson and Seligman approached this question by reviewing moral philosophy, religious traditions, cultural narratives, classical ethics, and historical accounts of human excellence.

The project examined traditions such as Aristotelian virtue ethics, Confucian thought, Buddhist teachings, Abrahamic moral traditions, classical humanism, and other sources of moral reflection. The goal was not to impose one sectarian moral system. It was to identify recurring patterns in how cultures have described admirable human qualities.

From this comparative work emerged six broad virtues: wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence. These virtues were then expressed through twenty-four more specific strengths. The result was a psychological taxonomy of character: a way of operationalizing, measuring, and studying virtues empirically.

This move was intellectually significant because it reconnected modern psychology with one of the oldest questions in moral philosophy: what qualities of character enable human beings to live well? It also reframed positive psychology as more than a science of happiness. The VIA framework brought moral seriousness into the study of flourishing.

The VIA framework should therefore be understood as both ancient and modern. It draws from long-standing moral traditions, but it translates those traditions into constructs that can be studied with the tools of psychological science.

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The Six Core Virtues

The VIA classification organizes character around six broad virtues: wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence. These virtues provide the conceptual architecture of the framework, while the twenty-four strengths offer more specific expressions of each virtue.

Wisdom

Wisdom refers to cognitive strengths involved in acquiring, organizing, evaluating, and applying knowledge. It includes creativity, curiosity, judgment, love of learning, and perspective. Wisdom is not merely intelligence. A highly intelligent person may still lack sound judgment, humility, or perspective. Wisdom involves knowing how to use knowledge well.

The wisdom strengths matter because flourishing depends on interpretation. People must make sense of experience, evaluate evidence, learn from mistakes, consider consequences, imagine alternatives, and recognize complexity. Wisdom helps prevent action from becoming impulsive, narrow, or uninformed.

Courage

Courage encompasses emotional strengths that allow people to act in pursuit of valued goals despite fear, difficulty, adversity, or uncertainty. The VIA courage strengths include bravery, perseverance, honesty, and zest.

Courage is not the absence of fear. It is the capacity to act rightly when fear, pressure, pain, fatigue, or opposition might otherwise prevent action. Perseverance sustains effort. Honesty aligns speech and action with truth. Bravery confronts threat. Zest brings vitality and energetic participation to life.

Humanity

Humanity refers to interpersonal strengths that sustain empathy, care, and meaningful relationship. Love, kindness, and social intelligence all belong here. These strengths matter because flourishing is not solitary. People live through families, friendships, communities, teams, institutions, and forms of mutual dependence.

Humanity strengths help people recognize others as persons rather than obstacles, instruments, or abstractions. They support compassion, trust, intimacy, mutual aid, and social repair.

Justice

Justice includes civic strengths that allow groups and institutions to function well. Teamwork, fairness, and leadership are not merely organizational skills. They are moral-social capacities that shape collective life.

Fairness concerns equal regard, impartiality, and appropriate treatment. Teamwork concerns cooperative participation and shared responsibility. Leadership concerns guiding collective action in ways that are legitimate, responsible, and oriented toward common aims. These strengths matter because human beings flourish within social systems, not outside them.

Temperance

Temperance involves strengths that regulate impulse, emotion, pride, desire, resentment, and excess. Forgiveness, humility, prudence, and self-regulation belong to this virtue cluster. Temperance does not mean passivity or weakness. It means disciplined self-governance.

These strengths are especially important where power, anger, ambition, status, pleasure, or fear could distort action. Humility limits arrogance. Prudence slows reckless action. Self-regulation enables sustained commitment. Forgiveness can release cycles of resentment while still requiring justice and accountability.

Transcendence

Transcendence refers to strengths that connect people to meaning, beauty, hope, gratitude, humor, spirituality, and realities beyond immediate self-interest. These strengths help individuals experience life as significant, ordered, beautiful, hopeful, and connected to something larger.

Transcendence is not limited to formal religion. It may be spiritual, philosophical, aesthetic, ecological, civic, familial, artistic, or existential. What matters is that the person’s life is oriented beyond the narrow self.

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The Twenty-Four Character Strengths

Within the VIA framework, each virtue is expressed through specific character strengths. The twenty-four strengths provide the practical language of the classification because they are more behaviorally and psychologically specific than the six virtue categories.

Wisdom Strengths

• Creativity: producing original, useful, or meaningful ideas and approaches.
• Curiosity: seeking novelty, knowledge, exploration, and deeper understanding.
• Judgment: evaluating evidence, weighing alternatives, and avoiding premature conclusions.
• Love of learning: sustained enjoyment of acquiring knowledge and developing skill.
• Perspective: seeing the larger picture and offering wise counsel.

Courage Strengths

• Bravery: acting despite fear, threat, opposition, or difficulty.
• Perseverance: continuing effort toward worthwhile goals despite obstacles.
• Honesty: living and speaking truthfully with integrity.
• Zest: approaching life with energy, vitality, and wholehearted participation.

Humanity Strengths

• Love: valuing close relationships and mutual care.
• Kindness: helping, generosity, compassion, and benevolent action.
• Social intelligence: understanding social situations, emotions, motives, and interpersonal dynamics.

Justice Strengths

• Teamwork: working responsibly and cooperatively with others.
• Fairness: treating people with justice, impartiality, and equal regard.
• Leadership: organizing collective effort and supporting shared direction.

Temperance Strengths

• Forgiveness: reducing destructive resentment and making space for repair where appropriate.
• Humility: accurate self-understanding without arrogance or false grandiosity.
• Prudence: choosing carefully, considering consequences, and avoiding unnecessary harm.
• Self-regulation: governing impulses, habits, emotion, and attention in service of valued aims.

Transcendence Strengths

• Appreciation of beauty and excellence: noticing and valuing beauty, skill, virtue, and excellence.
• Gratitude: recognizing gifts, benefits, dependence, and sources of good beyond the self.
• Hope: expecting and working toward possible good futures.
• Humor: seeing and sharing what is playful, humanizing, and perspective-giving.
• Spirituality: relating life to ultimate meaning, sacred order, transcendence, or deep existential purpose.

The twenty-four strengths are best understood as a vocabulary rather than a rigid moral ranking. People differ in their profiles. Some may show strong curiosity and love of learning. Others may show kindness, fairness, and social intelligence. Others may be marked by perseverance, hope, or spirituality. The practical question is not simply which strengths a person has, but how they are expressed, balanced, developed, and supported by context.

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Signature Strengths and Authentic Expression

VIA materials and strengths-intervention research often emphasize the idea of signature strengths. These are strengths that a person experiences as especially authentic, energizing, and central to their identity. Signature strengths are not merely high scores. They are strengths people recognize as deeply their own.

A person’s signature strengths may feel natural to express, meaningful to use, and energizing rather than depleting. Someone high in curiosity may feel most alive when exploring new ideas. Someone high in kindness may feel most authentic when caring for others. Someone high in fairness may feel compelled to correct inequity. Someone high in creativity may experience original problem-solving as central to who they are.

Signature-strength use is important because it connects character to meaning and purpose. When people use their central strengths in work, education, family, community, or creative life, their actions may feel more coherent and self-endorsed. Strengths become not merely traits but pathways of participation.

Signature strengths should not be treated as fixed identities that limit growth. A person can develop weaker strengths, balance overused strengths, and learn to express strengths more wisely. The value of signature strengths lies in helping people identify capacities that feel meaningful and authentic while still recognizing the need for moral balance and context.

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Measuring Character Strengths

The empirical study of character strengths relies heavily on the VIA Survey and related instruments. The adult VIA Survey has been described as a self-report questionnaire assessing the twenty-four strengths in the VIA classification. This measurement system was a major methodological innovation because it made virtue-related traits available for empirical study at scale.

Measurement, however, introduces several challenges. Character is not merely what people say about themselves. It is also how people act under pressure, how they relate to others, how they use power, how they respond to difficulty, and how they behave when virtues come into conflict. Self-report measures can capture perceived strengths, identity, and endorsement, but they cannot fully capture embodied character.

For example, a person may endorse honesty but avoid truthful action when status is at risk. A person may value fairness but fail to recognize unfairness in institutions that benefit them. A person may report humility while using humility language to avoid accountability. A person may score high on leadership but use leadership in controlling or self-serving ways.

Measurement is therefore useful, but interpretation must remain careful.

Later factor-analytic and measurement-invariance work has also complicated the clean six-virtue structure. The twenty-four strengths remain a widely used vocabulary, but researchers continue to debate whether the six virtue categories are psychometrically stable in the same way they are conceptually elegant.

This is not a failure of the framework. It is a sign that moral-psychological constructs are complex. Virtues may be conceptually meaningful even when statistical structures vary by sample, culture, language, age, or context. Measurement should illuminate character, not reduce it to a simple score.

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The Psychology of Character

Character strengths influence how people interpret experience, regulate behavior, make decisions, pursue goals, and relate to others. They function as psychological resources, but they are not merely internal assets. They are enacted through situations, habits, relationships, institutions, and moral choices.

Perseverance supports sustained effort in the face of difficulty. Gratitude deepens awareness of dependence and benefit. Perspective supports wise interpretation. Humility protects against inflated self-importance. Fairness supports legitimate social order. Prudence helps people choose with care. Kindness strengthens care and trust. Hope sustains future orientation. Self-regulation supports disciplined action across time.

These strengths often interact. Perseverance without prudence can become stubbornness. Honesty without kindness can become cruelty. Kindness without judgment can become enabling. Leadership without humility can become domination. Hope without realism can become denial. Courage without justice can become recklessness. Character is therefore not a list of isolated traits. It is a pattern of capacities that must be balanced by practical wisdom.

A serious psychology of character must therefore study strength configurations, not only isolated strengths. The question is not simply whether someone has a strength, but whether that strength is expressed at the right time, in the right way, toward the right end, and in relationship to other strengths.

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Character Strengths and Human Flourishing

Character strengths are closely connected to contemporary theories of flourishing. They provide pathways through which people pursue engagement, relationship, meaning, accomplishment, and positive emotion. They also help explain why flourishing is not only an emotional state, but a way of living.

Gratitude and hope may support positive emotion. Curiosity and love of learning support engagement. Love, kindness, and social intelligence deepen relationships. Perspective, spirituality, and appreciation of beauty support meaning. Perseverance and self-regulation support accomplishment. Fairness, teamwork, humility, and leadership support institutions and shared life.

This connection is especially clear in the PERMA model. Character strengths can be understood as capacities that help people enact PERMA dimensions in practice. They do not replace well-being dimensions; they help explain how those dimensions become livable.

Strengths also support resilience. Courage helps people confront difficulty. Hope sustains future orientation. Perspective helps people interpret adversity. Gratitude may help people recognize sources of support. Self-regulation helps maintain action under stress. Love and social intelligence support connection during hardship.

But strengths should not be treated as guarantees. A person may possess strong character and still suffer under unjust, unsafe, or exhausting conditions. Character supports flourishing, but it does not eliminate the need for supportive relationships, fair institutions, material security, health, rest, and public capacity.

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Development, Practice, and Moral Formation

Character strengths are not simply discovered; they are also cultivated. People develop character through practice, imitation, reflection, feedback, discipline, community norms, cultural narratives, religious or philosophical traditions, education, family life, institutional expectations, and repeated action over time.

This developmental dimension matters because character is not fixed. A person may become more patient, courageous, honest, grateful, disciplined, or fair through repeated practice and supportive conditions. Conversely, environments can deform character by rewarding cowardice, dishonesty, cruelty, vanity, cynicism, recklessness, or indifference.

Moral formation is therefore both personal and social. People cultivate strengths through choices, but those choices are shaped by the environments in which they live. A school can cultivate curiosity or suppress it. A workplace can reward honesty or punish it. A political culture can strengthen fairness or normalize corruption. A family can model gratitude or entitlement. An institution can encourage humility or status performance.

Development also requires balance. Strengths can be underdeveloped, overused, misdirected, or expressed without wisdom. The goal is not maximum intensity of every strength. The goal is appropriate, mature, context-sensitive expression in service of flourishing and ethical life.

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Applications in Education, Leadership, and Organizations

The VIA framework has been applied in education, coaching, leadership development, organizational life, counseling, positive education, and strengths-based intervention work. Its practical appeal lies in giving people a language for identifying capacities rather than only deficits.

In education, strengths-based approaches can help students understand themselves as capable learners and moral agents. A strengths framework can support curiosity, perseverance, kindness, fairness, love of learning, gratitude, and hope. It can also help educators recognize that student development involves more than grades, test scores, or compliance.

In leadership, character strengths matter because leadership is never only technical. Leaders make decisions under uncertainty, shape institutional cultures, use power, distribute recognition, respond to conflict, and influence what is rewarded or punished. Fairness, humility, prudence, bravery, social intelligence, honesty, and perspective are especially important in leadership contexts.

In organizations, strengths-based work can support engagement when people are able to use authentic capacities in meaningful roles. But this must be handled carefully. Strengths language should not be used to individualize structural problems, disguise exploitation, or pressure employees to perform enthusiasm under poor conditions. A worker’s strengths do not compensate for unfair workload, surveillance, discrimination, unsafe conditions, or lack of dignity.

The strongest applications of character strengths do not merely ask individuals to “use their strengths.” They design environments where good character can be practiced, recognized, protected, and sustained.

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Institutions, Culture, and the Ecology of Character

Character is often discussed as an individual trait, but it is expressed within social environments. Institutions can enable, reward, distort, or suppress strengths. A person may possess honesty but work in a culture where truth-telling is punished. A person may value fairness but operate inside an institution with unequal rules. A person may show humility but be overlooked in a status-driven environment. A person may possess courage but lack protection from retaliation.

This means character has an ecology. It depends on power, incentives, norms, roles, cultural narratives, legal protections, leadership behavior, and social expectations. The expression of character is not simply a matter of personal will.

Culture also shapes what counts as virtue. Some cultures emphasize humility, filial duty, and social harmony. Others emphasize individual courage, authenticity, and self-expression. Some place moral weight on religious devotion, hospitality, honor, compassion, learning, public service, or stewardship. A responsible psychology of character should study these differences rather than imposing a single cultural model.

Character strengths therefore need both psychological measurement and contextual interpretation. The question is not only “What strengths does this person have?” It is also “What does this setting reward, suppress, require, or punish?”

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Debates and Conceptual Critiques

Despite its influence, the VIA framework has generated ongoing scholarly debate. One major issue concerns universality. The original project proposed that the six virtues recur across cultures, but researchers continue to examine how strongly the model generalizes across languages, societies, religious traditions, age groups, and institutional contexts.

A second issue concerns psychometric structure. The six-virtue classification is conceptually elegant, but factor-analytic studies have often found more complicated empirical structures. This raises an important distinction between philosophical taxonomy and statistical structure. A virtue category may be meaningful as moral theory even if survey responses do not always cluster neatly into six factors.

A third issue concerns moral depth. Some critics worry that measuring character through self-report can flatten virtue into personality preference. Virtue traditionally involves practice, habit, judgment, community, moral conflict, and action over time. A survey can contribute evidence, but it cannot exhaust the moral reality of character.

A fourth issue concerns institutional context. Strengths can be distorted when removed from power and social conditions. For example, resilience language can be used to ask people to adapt to injustice. Gratitude language can be misused to discourage criticism. Humility can be demanded from those with less power while arrogance is tolerated from those with more power. Courage can be celebrated rhetorically while actual truth-telling is punished.

These critiques do not make the VIA framework unimportant. They make it more serious. Character is too deep a subject to be captured by any single instrument, taxonomy, or intervention. The VIA framework remains valuable when it is used as a structured vocabulary for research and practice rather than as a complete theory of moral life.

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A Semi-Formal Framework for Character Strengths

Character strengths can be expressed semi-formally as a structured profile of morally and psychologically valuable capacities. Let flourishing at time \(t\) be represented as:

A more granular model can treat signature-strength expression as a pathway to well-being:

Institutional moderation can be represented as:

A balance model can represent the fact that strengths require practical wisdom:

A context-sensitive model can be expressed as:

These equations are not meant to reduce virtue to mathematics. They clarify the structure of the theory: character strengths are multidimensional, developmental, context-sensitive, morally interpretable, and expressed through action rather than self-description alone.

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Data Design and Measurement Notes

A serious evaluation of character strengths should measure more than a single strengths score. It should preserve the twenty-four strengths, the six virtue clusters, signature-strength use, context support, strength balance, authenticity, overuse, institutional conditions, and flourishing outcomes.

Several design principles follow:

• Preserve the strength profile. A total character score can hide meaningful variation across strengths.
• Measure signature-strength use separately from strength endorsement. A person may endorse a strength but not have opportunities to practice it.
• Measure context. Character expression depends on institutional support, safety, role expectations, and power.
• Watch for overuse and misapplication. More of a strength is not always better.
• Use mixed methods where possible. Character is expressed through narrative, action, habit, and relationships, not only survey response.
• Protect privacy and avoid misuse. Character data can easily become evaluative, moralizing, or coercive in schools and workplaces.

The purpose of measurement is not to rank people morally. It is to understand how strengths are perceived, practiced, supported, balanced, and connected to flourishing.

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R: Modeling Character Strengths and Flourishing

The following R workflow illustrates how a researcher might model VIA-style strengths profiles in panel data while examining whether signature-strength use predicts later flourishing under different levels of contextual support.

# Character strengths and flourishing longitudinal modeling workflow
#
# Purpose:
#   Model VIA-style strength profiles, broad virtue clusters,
#   signature-strength use, contextual support, institutional suppression,
#   authenticity, overuse risk, and flourishing outcomes.
#
# Notes:
#   This workflow is for research, teaching, and exploratory analysis.
#   It is not a clinical, diagnostic, therapeutic, employment-selection,
#   workplace-screening, student-ranking, employee-evaluation,
#   disciplinary, benefits-eligibility, or individual moral assessment tool.

library(tidyverse)
library(lme4)
library(lmerTest)
library(broom.mixed)
library(emmeans)
library(performance)

# Expected columns:
# id, wave, context,
# creativity, curiosity, judgment, love_learning, perspective,
# bravery, perseverance, honesty, zest,
# love, kindness, social_intelligence,
# teamwork, fairness, leadership,
# forgiveness, humility, prudence, self_regulation,
# appreciation_beauty, gratitude, hope, humor, spirituality,
# signature_strength_use, authenticity_score,
# contextual_support, institutional_suppression,
# strength_overuse_risk, flourishing_score, wellbeing_score,
# meaning_score, relationship_quality, engagement_score

df <- read_csv("data/character_strengths_panel.csv")

panel <- df %>%
  mutate(
    id = as.factor(id),
    wave = as.integer(wave),
    context = as.factor(context)
  ) %>%
  filter(complete.cases(
    flourishing_score,
    signature_strength_use,
    authenticity_score,
    contextual_support,
    institutional_suppression,
    strength_overuse_risk
  )) %>%
  mutate(
    wave_c = as.numeric(scale(wave, center = TRUE, scale = FALSE)),
    wisdom = rowMeans(select(., creativity, curiosity, judgment, love_learning, perspective), na.rm = TRUE),
    courage = rowMeans(select(., bravery, perseverance, honesty, zest), na.rm = TRUE),
    humanity = rowMeans(select(., love, kindness, social_intelligence), na.rm = TRUE),
    justice = rowMeans(select(., teamwork, fairness, leadership), na.rm = TRUE),
    temperance = rowMeans(select(., forgiveness, humility, prudence, self_regulation), na.rm = TRUE),
    transcendence = rowMeans(select(., appreciation_beauty, gratitude, hope, humor, spirituality), na.rm = TRUE),
    virtue_profile_mean = rowMeans(
      select(., wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, transcendence),
      na.rm = TRUE
    ),
    wisdom_c = as.numeric(scale(wisdom, center = TRUE, scale = FALSE)),
    courage_c = as.numeric(scale(courage, center = TRUE, scale = FALSE)),
    humanity_c = as.numeric(scale(humanity, center = TRUE, scale = FALSE)),
    justice_c = as.numeric(scale(justice, center = TRUE, scale = FALSE)),
    temperance_c = as.numeric(scale(temperance, center = TRUE, scale = FALSE)),
    transcendence_c = as.numeric(scale(transcendence, center = TRUE, scale = FALSE)),
    signature_use_c = as.numeric(scale(signature_strength_use, center = TRUE, scale = FALSE)),
    authenticity_c = as.numeric(scale(authenticity_score, center = TRUE, scale = FALSE)),
    support_c = as.numeric(scale(contextual_support, center = TRUE, scale = FALSE)),
    suppression_c = as.numeric(scale(institutional_suppression, center = TRUE, scale = FALSE)),
    overuse_c = as.numeric(scale(strength_overuse_risk, center = TRUE, scale = FALSE)),
    virtue_profile_c = as.numeric(scale(virtue_profile_mean, center = TRUE, scale = FALSE)),
    strength_expression_index =
      signature_strength_use +
      authenticity_score +
      contextual_support -
      institutional_suppression -
      strength_overuse_risk
  )

model_flourishing <- lmer(
  flourishing_score ~
    wave_c +
    wisdom_c +
    courage_c +
    humanity_c +
    justice_c +
    temperance_c +
    transcendence_c +
    signature_use_c +
    authenticity_c +
    support_c -
    suppression_c -
    overuse_c +
    signature_use_c:support_c +
    authenticity_c:suppression_c +
    (1 + wave_c | id),
  data = panel,
  REML = FALSE
)

model_meaning <- lmer(
  meaning_score ~
    wave_c +
    signature_use_c +
    transcendence_c +
    wisdom_c +
    authenticity_c +
    support_c -
    suppression_c +
    (1 + wave_c | id),
  data = panel,
  REML = FALSE
)

model_relationships <- lmer(
  relationship_quality ~
    wave_c +
    humanity_c +
    justice_c +
    forgiveness +
    gratitude +
    social_intelligence +
    support_c -
    suppression_c +
    (1 + wave_c | id),
  data = panel,
  REML = FALSE
)

model_engagement <- lmer(
  engagement_score ~
    wave_c +
    creativity +
    curiosity +
    love_learning +
    perseverance +
    zest +
    signature_use_c +
    support_c -
    overuse_c +
    (1 + wave_c | id),
  data = panel,
  REML = FALSE
)

summary(model_flourishing)
summary(model_meaning)
summary(model_relationships)
summary(model_engagement)

performance::check_model(model_flourishing)
performance::check_model(model_meaning)
performance::check_model(model_relationships)
performance::check_model(model_engagement)

emm_strengths_support <- emmeans(
  model_flourishing,
  ~ signature_use_c | support_c,
  at = list(
    signature_use_c = c(-1, 0, 1),
    support_c = c(-1, 0, 1),
    wisdom_c = 0,
    courage_c = 0,
    humanity_c = 0,
    justice_c = 0,
    temperance_c = 0,
    transcendence_c = 0,
    authenticity_c = 0,
    suppression_c = 0,
    overuse_c = 0,
    wave_c = 0
  )
)

emm_authenticity_suppression <- emmeans(
  model_flourishing,
  ~ authenticity_c | suppression_c,
  at = list(
    authenticity_c = c(-1, 0, 1),
    suppression_c = c(-1, 0, 1),
    wisdom_c = 0,
    courage_c = 0,
    humanity_c = 0,
    justice_c = 0,
    temperance_c = 0,
    transcendence_c = 0,
    signature_use_c = 0,
    support_c = 0,
    overuse_c = 0,
    wave_c = 0
  )
)

dir.create("outputs", showWarnings = FALSE)

write_csv(
  broom.mixed::tidy(model_flourishing, effects = "fixed", conf.int = TRUE),
  "outputs/character_strengths_flourishing_fixed_effects.csv"
)

write_csv(
  broom.mixed::tidy(model_meaning, effects = "fixed", conf.int = TRUE),
  "outputs/character_strengths_meaning_fixed_effects.csv"
)

write_csv(
  broom.mixed::tidy(model_relationships, effects = "fixed", conf.int = TRUE),
  "outputs/character_strengths_relationships_fixed_effects.csv"
)

write_csv(
  broom.mixed::tidy(model_engagement, effects = "fixed", conf.int = TRUE),
  "outputs/character_strengths_engagement_fixed_effects.csv"
)

write_csv(
  as.data.frame(emm_strengths_support),
  "outputs/signature_strength_use_by_support_margins.csv"
)

write_csv(
  as.data.frame(emm_authenticity_suppression),
  "outputs/authenticity_by_suppression_margins.csv"
)

context_summary <- panel %>%
  group_by(context) %>%
  summarize(
    mean_wisdom = mean(wisdom, na.rm = TRUE),
    mean_courage = mean(courage, na.rm = TRUE),
    mean_humanity = mean(humanity, na.rm = TRUE),
    mean_justice = mean(justice, na.rm = TRUE),
    mean_temperance = mean(temperance, na.rm = TRUE),
    mean_transcendence = mean(transcendence, na.rm = TRUE),
    mean_signature_use = mean(signature_strength_use, na.rm = TRUE),
    mean_authenticity = mean(authenticity_score, na.rm = TRUE),
    mean_contextual_support = mean(contextual_support, na.rm = TRUE),
    mean_institutional_suppression = mean(institutional_suppression, na.rm = TRUE),
    mean_overuse_risk = mean(strength_overuse_risk, na.rm = TRUE),
    mean_flourishing = mean(flourishing_score, na.rm = TRUE),
    .groups = "drop"
  )

write_csv(
  context_summary,
  "outputs/character_strengths_context_summary.csv"
)

This workflow is useful because it lets the analyst examine both broad virtue clusters and the more practical question of whether signature-strength use predicts flourishing differently under supportive versus suppressive conditions.

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Python: Network Analysis of Character Strengths

The following Python example treats character strengths as a connected system rather than a flat list. It estimates a sparse partial-correlation network across selected strengths, signature-strength use, contextual support, institutional suppression, overuse risk, and flourishing.

"""
Character strengths network workflow

Purpose:
    Estimate a sparse network of character-strength variables using
    partial correlations, then summarize centrality, edge structure,
    and strength-expression indices.

Use:
    Research, teaching, exploratory systems analysis, strengths research,
    positive education design, leadership research, and institutional
    character-context analysis.

Not for:
    Clinical diagnosis, therapeutic decision-making, employment selection,
    workplace screening, employee evaluation, student ranking, school
    discipline, benefits decisions, moral ranking, or individual assessment.
"""

from pathlib import Path

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import networkx as nx
import numpy as np
import pandas as pd

from sklearn.covariance import GraphicalLassoCV
from sklearn.decomposition import PCA
from sklearn.impute import SimpleImputer
from sklearn.preprocessing import StandardScaler

DATA_PATH = Path("data/character_strengths_network.csv")
OUTPUT_DIR = Path("outputs")
OUTPUT_DIR.mkdir(exist_ok=True)

cols = [
    "creativity",
    "curiosity",
    "perseverance",
    "honesty",
    "kindness",
    "social_intelligence",
    "fairness",
    "leadership",
    "humility",
    "self_regulation",
    "gratitude",
    "hope",
    "signature_strength_use",
    "authenticity_score",
    "contextual_support",
    "institutional_suppression",
    "strength_overuse_risk",
    "flourishing_score",
]

df = pd.read_csv(DATA_PATH)

missing_cols = [col for col in cols if col not in df.columns]
if missing_cols:
    raise ValueError(f"Missing expected columns: {missing_cols}")

imputer = SimpleImputer(strategy="median")
X = pd.DataFrame(imputer.fit_transform(df[cols]), columns=cols)

scaler = StandardScaler()
X_scaled = pd.DataFrame(scaler.fit_transform(X), columns=cols)

X_scaled["strength_expression_index"] = (
    X_scaled["signature_strength_use"] +
    X_scaled["authenticity_score"] +
    X_scaled["contextual_support"] -
    X_scaled["institutional_suppression"] -
    X_scaled["strength_overuse_risk"]
)

X_scaled["civic_character_index"] = (
    X_scaled["fairness"] +
    X_scaled["leadership"] +
    X_scaled["humility"] +
    X_scaled["honesty"] +
    X_scaled["self_regulation"]
) / 5

X_scaled["relational_character_index"] = (
    X_scaled["kindness"] +
    X_scaled["social_intelligence"] +
    X_scaled["gratitude"] +
    X_scaled["honesty"]
) / 4

glasso = GraphicalLassoCV()
glasso.fit(X_scaled[cols])

precision = glasso.precision_
partial_corr = -precision / np.sqrt(np.outer(np.diag(precision), np.diag(precision)))
np.fill_diagonal(partial_corr, 0)

partial_df = pd.DataFrame(partial_corr, index=cols, columns=cols)

threshold = 0.08
G = nx.Graph()

for node in cols:
    G.add_node(node)

for i, source in enumerate(cols):
    for j, target in enumerate(cols):
        if j > i:
            weight = partial_df.iloc[i, j]
            if abs(weight) >= threshold:
                G.add_edge(source, target, weight=weight)

degree = nx.degree_centrality(G)
betweenness = nx.betweenness_centrality(G, weight="weight")

try:
    eigenvector = nx.eigenvector_centrality_numpy(G, weight="weight")
except nx.NetworkXException:
    eigenvector = {node: np.nan for node in G.nodes()}

centrality = pd.DataFrame({
    "node": list(G.nodes()),
    "degree_centrality": [degree[node] for node in G.nodes()],
    "betweenness_centrality": [betweenness[node] for node in G.nodes()],
    "eigenvector_centrality": [eigenvector[node] for node in G.nodes()],
}).sort_values(
    ["eigenvector_centrality", "degree_centrality"],
    ascending=False
)

edge_table = pd.DataFrame([
    {
        "source": source,
        "target": target,
        "partial_correlation": data["weight"],
        "absolute_weight": abs(data["weight"]),
        "sign": "positive" if data["weight"] > 0 else "negative",
    }
    for source, target, data in G.edges(data=True)
]).sort_values("absolute_weight", ascending=False)

pca = PCA(n_components=4)
pca.fit(X_scaled[cols])

pca_summary = pd.DataFrame({
    "component": [1, 2, 3, 4],
    "variance_explained": pca.explained_variance_ratio_,
    "cumulative_variance_explained": np.cumsum(pca.explained_variance_ratio_),
})

centrality.to_csv(OUTPUT_DIR / "character_strengths_network_centrality.csv", index=False)
edge_table.to_csv(OUTPUT_DIR / "character_strengths_network_edges.csv", index=False)
partial_df.to_csv(OUTPUT_DIR / "character_strengths_partial_correlations.csv")
pca_summary.to_csv(OUTPUT_DIR / "character_strengths_pca_summary.csv", index=False)
X_scaled.to_csv(OUTPUT_DIR / "character_strengths_scaled_indices.csv", index=False)

print("\nCentrality summary:")
print(centrality)

print("\nStrongest edges:")
print(edge_table.head(15))

plt.figure(figsize=(13, 10))
pos = nx.spring_layout(G, seed=42, k=0.85)

positive_edges = [(u, v) for u, v in G.edges() if G[u][v]["weight"] > 0]
negative_edges = [(u, v) for u, v in G.edges() if G[u][v]["weight"] < 0]

nx.draw_networkx_nodes(G, pos, node_size=1700)
nx.draw_networkx_labels(G, pos, font_size=8)

nx.draw_networkx_edges(
    G,
    pos,
    edgelist=positive_edges,
    width=[abs(G[u][v]["weight"]) * 5 for u, v in positive_edges],
    alpha=0.75,
)

nx.draw_networkx_edges(
    G,
    pos,
    edgelist=negative_edges,
    width=[abs(G[u][v]["weight"]) * 5 for u, v in negative_edges],
    style="dashed",
    alpha=0.75,
)

plt.title("Partial Correlation Network of Character Strengths Variables")
plt.axis("off")
plt.tight_layout()
plt.savefig(OUTPUT_DIR / "character_strengths_network.png", dpi=300)
plt.close()

This type of analysis can reveal whether gratitude, perseverance, fairness, humility, contextual support, or signature-strength use functions as a more central leverage point in a given population. That matters because the practical expression of character may depend on how specific strengths cluster, reinforce one another, and interact with institutions.

Network models should not be interpreted as causal proof. They are exploratory tools for identifying patterns that may deserve longitudinal testing, qualitative interpretation, ethical review, or institutional analysis.

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Interpretation and Responsible Use

Character-strength language is powerful, which means it can be misused. Strengths can help people recognize capacities, build confidence, clarify values, and practice meaningful forms of contribution. But strengths can also become labels, rankings, branding tools, workplace-screening instruments, or moralized judgments if used carelessly.

The code examples above are designed for research, teaching, exploratory modeling, and strengths-system analysis. They should not be used as clinical diagnostic instruments, therapeutic decision tools, workplace-screening systems, employment-selection tools, student-ranking systems, employee-evaluation systems, school disciplinary tools, benefits eligibility tools, moral ranking systems, or individual psychological assessments.

Several principles follow:

• Do not rank people morally. Character-strength measures should not become moral status scores.
• Do not use strengths for selection or discipline. Strengths data can be coercive in schools, workplaces, and institutions.
• Do not ignore context. Strength expression depends on safety, incentives, autonomy, culture, and institutional support.
• Do not equate high scores with virtue. Character is expressed through action, judgment, balance, and time.
• Watch for overuse and distortion. Strengths require practical wisdom and contextual fit.
• Protect privacy. Strength profiles, moral self-concepts, spirituality, humility, honesty, and leadership data can be sensitive.
• Use findings to improve environments. Strengths research should support education, flourishing, trust, dignity, fairness, and responsible institutions.

A responsible character-strength framework treats strengths as capacities to be cultivated and supported, not as labels to be imposed. It asks how people can practice wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence in real social worlds.

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GitHub Repository

The companion repository for this article organizes the R, Python, data-schema, and documentation materials into a reproducible workflow for character strengths and virtues research. It includes sample data dictionaries, scripts for longitudinal strengths modeling, network-analysis outputs, validation notes, and guidance for responsible interpretation.

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Conclusion

Character strengths and virtues represent one of the most influential conceptual frameworks within positive psychology for understanding what is best in human beings. By identifying six core virtues and twenty-four character strengths, the VIA classification provides a systematic vocabulary for studying ethical behavior, resilience, meaning, relationships, engagement, and human flourishing.

The framework’s importance lies in its refusal to reduce flourishing to mood, pleasure, or achievement alone. People flourish by becoming capable of certain forms of life: seeking wisdom, acting with courage, caring for others, practicing justice, governing themselves with temperance, and connecting life to meaning beyond immediate self-interest.

At the same time, character must be interpreted carefully. Strengths are not merely self-report scores. They are expressed through practice, relationships, institutions, and culture. They can be supported or suppressed by social systems. They can be overused, misdirected, or distorted. They can be invoked responsibly to support human development, or irresponsibly to rank, pressure, or instrumentalize people.

The strongest use of the VIA framework therefore keeps psychology connected to moral life. It treats character as a set of capacities that can be measured, studied, cultivated, and practiced, while recognizing that virtue is always more than a test result. Character becomes real when strengths are expressed wisely, relationally, and institutionally in the service of human flourishing.

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Related articles

• Positive Psychology article map
• The PERMA Model of Well-Being
• Meaning and Purpose in Positive Psychology
• Gratitude and Wellbeing in Positive Psychology
• Hope Theory in Positive Psychology
• Self-Determination Theory in Positive Psychology
• Positive Education
• Flow and Optimal Experience
• The Science of Flourishing

Further reading

• Niemiec, R.M. (2018) Character Strengths Interventions. Boston: Hogrefe.
• Peterson, C. (2006) A Primer in Positive Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Peterson, C. and Seligman, M.E.P. (2004) Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Ruch, W. and Stahlmann, A.G. (2019) ‘15 years after Peterson and Seligman (2004): A brief narrative review of the research on the 12 criteria for character strengths’, Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 26, pp. 142–146.
• VIA Institute on Character (n.d.) Character strengths and virtues handbook. Available at: https://www.viacharacter.org/character-strengths-and-virtues.
• VIA Institute on Character (n.d.) 24 character strengths list. Available at: https://www.viacharacter.org/character-strengths.
• Positive Psychology Center (n.d.) VIA Survey of Character Strengths. Available at: https://ppc.sas.upenn.edu/resources/questionnaires-researchers/survey-character-strengths.

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References

• McGrath, R.E. (2013) ‘Integrative conceptualization of the VIA classification of character strengths’, technical factor-analysis materials hosted by VIA. Available at: https://www.viacharacter.org/pdf/VIA%20factor%20analysis%20-%20item%20%20scale%20level%20-%20McGrath%20%282013%29.pdf.
• Niemiec, R.M. (2018) Character Strengths Interventions. Boston: Hogrefe.
• Peterson, C. (2006) A Primer in Positive Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Peterson, C. and Seligman, M.E.P. (2004) Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Positive Psychology Center (n.d.) VIA Survey of Character Strengths. Available at: https://ppc.sas.upenn.edu/resources/questionnaires-researchers/survey-character-strengths.
• Ruch, W. and Stahlmann, A.G. (2019) ‘15 years after Peterson and Seligman (2004): A brief narrative review of the research on the 12 criteria for character strengths’, Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 26, pp. 142–146.
• VIA Institute on Character (n.d.) 24 character strengths list. Available at: https://www.viacharacter.org/character-strengths.
• VIA Institute on Character (n.d.) Character strengths and virtues handbook. Available at: https://www.viacharacter.org/character-strengths-and-virtues.
• VIA Institute on Character (n.d.) The VIA classification of 24 character strengths. Available at: https://www.viacharacter.org/resources/activities/the-via-classification-of-twenty-four-character-strengths.

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