Do Virtues Influence Well-Being: The Role of Perceived Stress

The positive results of life satisfaction among university students have been well studied in the literature. However, the forecasters of the phenomenon have not been thoroughly investigated. In the current study, multiple models were tested to investigate the mediating role of perceived stress in the relationships between virtues and life satisfaction to fill this gap. When testing the model, the effect of demographic variables was controlled. Data were collected through an online survey from a sample of 235 undergraduates. The participants responded to measures of character strengths, perceived stress, and life satisfaction. The findings reveal that perceived stress partially mediates the relationship between leadership, wisdom and life satisfaction controlling for age and gender. The leadership skills of students can be improved, and age and gender should be considered when studying life satisfaction.

Adaptation and Preliminary Validation of a Positive Psychology Assessment Tool: Character Strengths Semantic Differential Scale

Character strengths are a protective factor against psychological symptoms. However, there is a lack of research that has investigated the psychometric properties of abbreviated character strengths scales. The purpose of this study was to adapt and validate the Character Strengths Semantic Differential Scale (CS-SDS) with a sample of 235 college students. Using the back-translation method, the CS-SDS was translated from English into Turkish and then adapted. Next, exploratory factor analysis was conducted to determine the factorial structure of the Turkish version of CS-SDS (T-CS-SDS). The results indicated that the T-CS-SDS had a four-factor structure, namely, leadership, humanity, wisdom, and vitality. Significant moderate correlations were found for the character strengths factors with perceived stress, depression, and life satisfaction. Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the factors were above .70. This is the first study that supported the use of the T-CS-SDS as a positive psychology assessment tool to design and implement innovative interventions to increase the well-being of college students.

Character Strengths Across Disabilities: An International Exploratory Study and Implications for Positive Psychiatry and Psychology

The purpose of this study was to examine the differences in character strengths for people with disabilities by using an international dataset by the VIA Institiute on Character. Specifically, we aimed to explore (a) the top and bottom five character strengths reported by different disability groups and all people with disabilities more broadly, and (b) group differences in each character strength and total character strengths. The investigator contacted the VIA Institute on Character (http://www.viacharacter.org/) for obtaining the dataset for the current study. After data cleaning, our sample size resulted in 11,699 people with disabilities. Among most people with disabilities, the top five character strengths scores were love of learning, honesty, appreciation of beauty and excellence, kindness, and fairness. The bottom five character strengths scores were self-regulation, perseverance, zest, spirituality, and prudence. Knowing that there is heterogeneity in character strengths across groups gives us a better understanding of the areas that people with different disabilities and conditions might thrive and provides clinicians and practitioners with a more nuanced understanding for how to possibly intervene with their clients. Positive psychiatry and psychology implications are discussed.

Do Strengths Converge into Virtues? An Item-, Virtue-, and Scale-Level Analysis of the Italian Values in Action Inventory of Strengths-120

The Values in Action Inventory of Strengths (VIA-IS) is a widely-used measure for character. Its factorial structure is still debated, however, and previous validation studies usually failed to examine the unidimensionality of the single character strengths. In addition, no studies to date have examined its Italian version. We validated the structure of the Italian short form of the VIA-IS in a sample of 16722 participants. Using confirmatory factor analysis and treating items as ordinal variables, we followed three simple, but too often neglected, steps: we studied the unidimensionality of the single strengths first, then their convergence into second-order virtues, and then fitted a hierarchical model that includes items, strengths and virtues, as originally proposed by Peterson and Seligman. All strengths except "love of learning" were unidimensional, and both the virtues and the final hierarchical models showed acceptable fit indices, unlike three models derived from an exploratory factor analysis. The same findings emerged for a smaller sample of 1035 participants. Finally, both character strengths and virtues showed positive relations with general mental health and negative relations with psychological distress. These results are discussed considering previous studies on the factorial structure of the VIA-IS.

Perceived stress of the COVID-19 pandemic and adolescents' depression symptoms: The moderating role of character strengths

The outbreak of COVID-19 could increase adolescents' psychological distress and have a detrimental effect on their mental health. However, the negative effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on adolescents' mental health might be moderated by their existing psychological resources. The present study sought to investigate whether the relationship between adolescents' perceived stress of the COVID-19 pandemic and their depression symptoms was alleviated by their character strengths. A total of 617 adolescents were recruited and completed the online survey during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results indicated that adolescents' perceived stress of the COVID-19 pandemic was significantly positively correlated with their depression symptoms. Character strengths were significantly negatively correlated with adolescents' perceived stress of the COVID-19 pandemic and their depression symptoms. Moreover, the moderating effect of character strengths on the relationship between adolescents' perceived stress of the COVID-19 pandemic and their depression symptoms was significant. Therefore, adolescents' character strengths as a protective factor could buffer the effect of perceived stress of the COVID-19 pandemic on their depression symptoms and contribute to maintaining their mental health.