Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification PDF
Preview Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification
Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification CHRISTOPHER PETERSON MARTIN E. P. SELIGMAN OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Character Strengths Virtues and 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 Virtues and 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 Preface C an we hold hope that positive psychology will be able to help people evolve toward 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- 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. This page intentionally left blank Contents 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
The list of books you might like
