Special Issue: Character Strengths, Well-Being, and Health in Educational and Vocational Settings

Abstract

The evidence-based promotion of well-being for individuals, institutions and societies is a common goal amongst quality of life researchers. Central research concerns in psychology can be described as what qualities from Bwithin^a person, or what aspects of an individuum's personality, contribute to health and well-being? Are there stable, interindividual differences that enable and promote flourishing? And what are necessary requirements (context factors) to bring forth the qualities from Bwithin^a person? About 15 years ago Peterson and Seligman published their seminal book BCharacter Strengths and Virtues. A Handbook and Classification^(Peterson and Seligman 2004). Combining cross-cultural, philosophical and theological traditions concerning the Bgood life^with recent psychological inquiries they developed the Values in Action (VIA) classification of strengths and virtues. They identified 24 strength presumed to contribute to the fulfillments that constitute the good life, for oneself and for others. Character strengths are personality traits that are positively valued, and represent different routes to the superordinate virtues. Short descriptions of the character strengths are provided in Table 1.To be included in the VIA classification and considered a character strength, a potential strength had to fulfill a minimum set out of ten criteria, including being morally valued in its own rights; being traitlike, manifest in thoughts, feelings, and behavior, and somewhat consistent across situations and time; and being distinct from the other character strengths in the classification (Peterson and Seligman 2004).Thereby the authors reclaimed the study of character and virtue as legitimate topics of psychological research that has been neglected for a long time, since psychology focused on studying value-neutral personality traits (see for example Allport 1921). However, when we are interested in studying positive outcomes, in particular health Applied Research in Quality of Life (2020) 15:301-306 https://doi.

Character Strengths and Ethical Engagement in Online Faculty

“…These 24 character strengths manifest in one’s behavior through thoughts, feelings, and actions (McGrath, 2015b ; Peterson & Seligman, 2004 ). They also tend to be consistent across situations and time (Höfer et al, 2020 ; Peterson & Seligman, 2004 ). Because character strengths are behavioral dispositions that represent virtuous character, they offer opportunities for the empirical investigation of normative ethics (Crossan et al, 2013 ).…”

Reframing the Individual Stress Response

“…The VIA inventory is a robust psychometric assessment designed to identify top strengths within the individual. VIA factors such as persistence, love of learning, and self-regulation, all contribute to positive outcomes in attitudes, beliefs, and resilience (Hausler, Strecker, Huber, Brenner, Höge, & Höfer, 2017;Höfer, Gander, Höge, & Ruch, 2019).…”

Psychological Well-Being Sustainable during Entrepreneurial Process—The Moderating Role of Entrepreneurial Creativity

“…Creativity is closely aligned with agency in which it requires the exertion of free will and challenges the current situation [40]. It is considered to be relatively stable across time and situation [41].…”