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Validation of the Values in Action Inventory of Strengths for Youth (VIA-Youth) Among South African learners
Abstract
This study investigated the reliability and validity of the Values in Action Inventory for Youth (VIA-Youth) of Park and Peterson (2006) in a total multi-cultural group of South African learners aged 13 to 17 years (N=1691: male = 703, female = 988). Descriptive statistics, reliability coefficients and correlations were calculated, and confirmatory and exploratory factor analyses were performed. Acceptable reliability coefficients were obtained for most of the strengths subscales. Criterion-related validity was supported by correlations in expected directions between VIA-Youth subscales and indices of psychological well-being and pathology. Exploration of construct validity by testing of structural equation models and confirmatory and exploratory factor analyses suggested that the VIA-Youth is more homogeneous or uni-dimensional than multi-dimensional. Findings did not support the theoretically hypothesized six virtue-cluster model of character strengths.
... Gratitude is also considered a prosocial emotion that impacts prosocial behaviors and interpersonal relationships. Examples of other prosocial emotions include embarrassment, guilt, and forgiveness (Vaish & Hepach, 2019;van der Wal, Karremans, & Cillessen, 2016). Whereas these prosocial emotions function to redress for one's own social mistakes, promote reparation for a fractured relationship, and respond to other's social transgressions, respectively, gratitude fosters interpersonal relationship maintenance (Algoe, 2012). ...
... Life satisfaction was exclusively measured using the Satisfaction with Life Scale (Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985), the Students' Life Satisfaction Scale (Huebner, 1991), or the Brief Multidimensional Students' Life Satisfaction Scale (Seligson, Huebner, & Valois, 2003), all self-report questionnaires with five to seven items. In considering cross-sectional data, gratitude was found to be consistently positively related to life satisfaction with effect sizes primarily in the medium to large range regardless of whether gratitude was measured as a trait (Chan, 2012;Chen, 2013;Chen & Kee, 2008;Froh, Emmons et al., 2011;Froh, Fan et al., 2011;Hoy et al., 2013;Israel-Cohen et al., 2015;Poelker et al., 2017;Rey et al., 2018;Tam & Lai, 2017;Tam et al., 2018;You et al., 2018;Zeng, Ling, Huebner, He, & Lei, 2017), a character strength (Park & Peterson, 2006;Ruch, Weber, Park, & Peterson, 2014;van Eeden, Wissing, Dreyer, Park, & Peterson, 2008), a mood (Froh, Yurkewicz et al., 2009) or gratitude for life (Proctor et al., 2010). These correlational findings come from samples of children ranging in ages from 6 to 19 years from America, China, Guatemala, Israel, South Korea, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom. ...
... Consistent with previous findings (Renshaw & Olinger Steeves, 2016), children's gratitude was robustly positively correlated with positive affect (PA). This association was found when gratitude was measured as a trait (Kern, Waters, Adler, & White, 2015;Israel-Cohen et al., 2015;Froh, Fan et al., 2011), a character strength (Chaves et al., 2016;van Eeden et al., 2008), a mood (Froh, Yurkewicz et al., 2009), and gratitude for life (Proctor et al., 2010) in samples of children ranging in age from 7 to 19 years from America, Australia, Israel, South Africa, and primarily the United Kingdom. These correlational results provide a basis to support the broaden-and-build hypothesis that gratitude may promote further positive emotion. ...
Positive psychology has highlighted the importance of personal positive qualities such as gratitude for human thriving. Reviews of research on gratitude are predominantly based on work with adults. We address this gap by considering the familial roots and well-being implications of gratitude in children. We conducted two systematic reviews examining children’s gratitude as it relates to parent–child relationships (N = 10) and children’s gratitude and well-being (N = 38). Children’s gratitude was higher when parents modeled gratitude, there was a more secure parent–child attachment, and parents employed more supportive, autonomy granting, and warm parenting. These findings align with attachment theory, social learning and emotion socialization theories, and the find-remind-and-bind theory. Additionally, children’s gratitude was positively related to greater life satisfaction, positive affect, and mental well-being in cross-sectional and intervention studies. These findings provide some support for the broaden-and-build theory, the adaptive cycle model, and the schematic hypothesis. The reviewed theoretical frameworks and empirical findings formed the basis of our proposed model whereby children’s gratitude is posited to mediate the relation between parent–child relationship factors and children’s well-being. Further, we identified several testable mechanisms that might explain why gratitude is related to well-being. Our proposed model is an important contribution to the current literature because it provides a novel, overarching synthesis of existing work on children’s gratitude that is intended to be a framework for future research to test potential mechanisms relevant to children’s gratitude development and well-being outcomes.
... Research related to the VIA-Youth have been conducted in several countries in order to demonstrate the credibility of the scale in the identification and evaluation of the character strengths of adolescents (Grinhauz & Castro Solano, 2013;Park & Peterson, 2006;Ruch, Weber, Park, And Peterson, 2014;Toner, Haslam, Robinson, & Williams, 2012;Van Eeden, Wissing, Dreyer, Park, & Peterson, 2008). Table 1 shows international studies that translated and/or adapted VIA-Youth in their country of origin, and the results of these surveys indicated four to six factors for the scales. ...
... This suggests different interpretations of each factor extracted depending on the culture in which the VIA-IS instrument was applied. However, it is worth mentioning that, through the Hull method, the unifactoral solution was indicated as the best result, because the factors were correlated (MacDonald, Bore, & Munro, 2008;Van Eeden et al., 2008). Noronha and Barbosa (2016) developed the Character Strengths Scale (CSS), based on the VIA. ...
... Regarding the VIA, it should be noted that, in the studies that sought to replicate the model, none of them found the six virtues proposed by Peterson and Seligman (2004). Despite the agreement between the investigations by Park and Peterson (2006), Ruch et al. (2014) and Toner et al. (2012), the studies by Noronha et al. (2015), Seibel et al. (2015), as well as Van Eeden et al. (2008) should also be considered. The latter authors used the South African version of the VIA-Youth in 1.691 adolescents aged 13 to 17 years and, through factorial and confirmatory analysis, found only one factor, with an alpha coefficient of .93 affirming the unidimensionality of the instrument. ...
Character strengths are positive individual characteristics that may be expressed through thoughts, feelings and actions. The present study aimed to build an instrument to assess the virtues and character strengths of adolescents and to seek psychometric evidence for the scale. A total of 836 adolescents participated, between the ages of 14 and 18 and enrolled in high school, being 60.4% girls. Students responded to the Character Strengths Scale for Youth (CSS-Youth). Judges’ analysis indicated that CSS-Youth has evidence of content validity. Confirmatory factorial analysis allowed the extraction of five factors, and the alpha coefficient showed good accuracy. The initial psychometric data for CSS-Youth is promising, but further studies are necessary to find other validity evidence, as well as new analyses to test the factorial structure of the model used.
... In the frame of character strengths, if there is a theoretical background in the process of developing inventories, using CFA is emphasized (Park & Peterson, 2006a). Similarly, in the process of adaptation to different cultures, CFA is commonly used (Van Eeden, Wissing, Dreyer, Park & Peterson, 2008). As such, VanEeeden et al.'s approach has been taken as a base for this study, and therefore, CFA is used to analyze the VIA-Youth's factor structure. ...
... In this vein, it has been stated that other factor analysis studies for measuring character strengths (Eg. Shryack, Stoeger, Krueger Kallie, 2010;Singh & Choubisa, 2010;Toner, Haslam, Robinson & Williams, 2012;Van Eeden, Wissing, Dreyer, Park, and Peterson, 2008) have verified the model of the six virtues and 24 character strengths subscales theory. ...
... thus showing that the model comprising of 24 subscales adapts well in terms of all dimensions. In previous studies that examined the validity of the VIA-Youth in different cultures through adaptation, it is remarkable that structures different from the theoretical structure of 24 subscales and 6 dimensions; such as a onedimensional (Van Eeden, Wissing, Dreyer, Peterson, & Park, 2008) or 5 dimensional (Dahiya, 2013;Toner, Haslam, Robinson & Williams, 2012) structure, had been reached. This study can be said to be the first study confirming the original theoretical 6 factor structure . ...
The character strengths and virtues approach is a classification system to examine the characteristics of good character in terms of twenty-four strengths and six virtues. This study was designed to investigate the psychometric properties regarding the reliability and validity of the Turkish version of the VIA-Youth. A tool developed to evaluate the character strengths of youth. In addition, character strengths were examined in terms of life satisfaction, values and demographic characteristics. 1963 high school students between 14-19 years participated in this study by completing VIA-Youth and the Human Values and Life Satisfaction inventories. The results confirm the six-factor model in the theoretical framework. It has also been concluded that character strengths affect life satisfaction and values and that socio demographic features are related to strengths. The adaptation of this inventory into Turkish culture contributes to the current understanding of the universal aspects of character strengths for studies within the context of positive youth development. Besides the adaptation, the relationships between character strengths, values, demographic characteristics and life satisfaction were discussed and suggestions were made.
... Cada una de las fortalezas consta de un total de siete a nueve ítems. Se han realizado adaptaciones, tanto de la versión para adultos (VIA-IS) como de la versión para adolescentes, en diferentes países como: España (Giménez, 2010), Japón (Otake et al., 2003citado en Shimai, Otake, Park, Peterson, & Seligman, 2006, Reino Unido (Linley et al., 2007), Croacia (Brdar & Kashdan, 2010), Alemania (Ruch, Weber, Park, & Peterson, 2014), Australia (Toner et al., 2012), Sudáfrica (Khumalo, Wissing, & Temane, 2008;Van Eeden, Wissing, Dreyer, Park, & Peterson, 2008) e Israel (Littman-Ovadia & Lavy, 2012) indicando que se trata de un constructo relevante a nivel mundial. No obstante, aún queda mucho por avanzar en la operacionalización de las fortalezas, debido a que la estructura factorial del cuestionario no es clara y no se ha podido replicar en los diferentes estudios (Niemiec, 2013). ...
... Por otro lado, se desconoce si puede sostenerse una única estructura para adultos y para adolescentes (Toner et al., 2012). Específicamente para población adolescente, un estudio sugiere que la estructura del VIA-Youth es más homogénea o unidimensional que multidimensional (Van Eeden et al., 2008). ...
... Peterson y Seligman (2004) observaron que las fortalezas de templanza (e.g. autorregulación, prudencia, humildad, integridad) eran las más difíciles de medir, y a lo largo de las adaptaciones, fueron las que obtuvieron los coeficientes de consistencia interna más bajos (Giménez, 2010;Toner et al., 2012;Van Eeden et al., 2008). Asimismo, se trata de las escalas que presentan, tanto en adolescentes argentinos como en los de otras poblaciones, los puntajes medios más bajos, por lo que habría que indagar si se trata de aspectos positivos evaluables en esta etapa vital (Van Eeden et al., 2008). ...
... Gratitude was a robust predictor of life satisfaction for the US sample, while perseverance was a strong predictor for the Swiss sample. A recent study used a Croatian sample of 881 individuals to study character strengths and well-being, and compared their results to similar studies which used sample populations from the United States (Park, Peterson, & Seligman, 2004), the United Kingdom (Linley et al., 2007), Switzerland , South Africa (Van Eeden, Wissing, Dreyer, Park, & Peterson, 2008) and Japan (Shimai, Otake, Park, Peterson, & Seligman, 2006). Their study supported the idea that the strengths such as zest, curiosity, gratitude, and hope are most closely associated with well-being, which is similar to the findings of the other studies mentioned. ...
... Furthermore, researchers disagree on the six-factor arrangement of virtues posited by the pioneering authors. Early factor analysis efforts mostly uncovered a five-factor model (Park, Peterson, & Seligman, 2004;Van Eeden, Wissing, Dreyer, Park, & Peterson, 2008). Peterson (2006) later discovered a two-factor solution based on the analysis of ipsative data. ...
... It is also worth noting that studies dealing with the factor structure of the VIA inventory have not been able to confirm the existence of the six-factor virtue structure theorized by the authors of the inventory (Macdonald, Bore, & Munro, 2008;Van Eeden, Wissing, Dreyer, Park, & Peterson, 2008;Brdar & Kashdan, 2010). In general, the positive psychology community has accepted the six virtue factor structure of the VIA Inventory of Strengths. ...
... The growing interest in studying virtues in adolescence [20]. This measure, which has been widely used, includes a subscale of the virtue of temperance [21][22][23]; the subscale consists of four first-order factor measures that include forgiveness, modesty, prudence, and self-regulation [20]. However, research shows that the factorial structure of the scale is inconsistent. ...
... That is, some studies reported it as a three-factor scale [9,23] and others [20,21] reported it as a four-factor, five-factor [24], or even six-factor scale [19]. In addition, a study conducted by Van Eeden et al. [22] showed no clustering of the strengths, contradicting the theory. Second, the evidence for second-order models is scarce [21,23]. ...
Abstract: Recent research has shown the relevance of measuring the virtue of temperance. The present study tested a multidimensional and second-order structure scale to assess temperance using a sub-scale of the Values in Action Inventory of Strengths for Youth (VIA-Youth). Scale properties were tested using data from a sample of 860 adolescents aged from 12 to 18 years old (M = 14.28 years, SD = 1.65). The sample was randomly split into two subsamples for model cross-validation. Using the first sample, we assessed scale dimensionality, measurement invariance, and discriminant and concurrent validity. A second sample was used for model cross-validation. Confirmatory factorial analysis confirmed the fit of one second-order factor temperance virtue model, with the dimensions of forgiveness, modesty, prudence, and self-control. The results indicate scale measurement equivalence across gender and stage of adolescence (early vs. middle). Latent means difference tests showed significant differences in forgiveness, modesty, and self-regulation by gender, and modesty according to adolescence stage. Moreover, the scale showed discriminant and concurrent validity. These findings indicate that this scale is helpful for assessing temperance in adolescents and suggest the value of temperance as a multidimensional and second-order construct.
... Schiavon et al. (2020) identificaram, por meio de uma revisão de literatura, que as intervenções educacionais para crianças e adolescentes focadas no desenvolvimento das forças de caráter/pessoais e outros construtos específicos (resiliência e satisfação com a vida, por exemplo) podem resultar em maiores atributos psicológicos positivos e mudanças positivas que contribuiriam com melhores relações sociais entre pais, alunos e professores. Ademais, as forças de caráter/pessoais são associadas positivamente à satisfação com a vida, aos afetos positivos, ao desenvolvimento da resiliência, de habilidades sociais e traços positivos da personalidade (por exemplo, extroversão e sociabilidade) em infantes, o que contribui com a manutenção da saúde (Gasparetto, Bandeira, & Giacomoni, 2017; Van Eeden,Wissing, Dreyer, Park, & Peterson, 2008;Park & Peterson, 2006;Ruch et al., 2014b), tal como afirmado anteriormente. ...
... A proposta do presente estudo se justifica em razão das lacunas relacionadas às medidas que avaliam características fortes e positivas das pessoas no Brasil, sobretudo crianças Contextos Clínicos, v. 14, n. 1, jan./abr. 2021 (Pires et al., 2015;Pureza et al., 2012;Scorsolini-Comin & Santos, 2010), além do fato das evidências de que as forças possivelmente ajudam as pessoas a serem mais felizes e saudáveis (Noronha & Batista, 2020a;Park & Peterson, 2006;Peterson & Seligman, 2004;Ruch et al., 2014b;Van Eeden et al., 2008). (Lietz, Dix, Tarabashkina, O'Grady, & Ahmed, 2020;Weber, Brandenburg, & Viezzer, 2003), da aprendizagem, da autoestima e da forma de enxergar o mundo (Lo, Kwok, Yeung, Low, & Tam, 2017;Noronha & Batista, 2017). ...
The objective of the present study was to identify the measures used to evaluate the strengths of character in children up to 12 years of age through an integrative review of literature. The period between 2008 and 2020 was considered and CAPES, ScieLO and Redalyc were the databases used. Nine articles were analyzed, considering year of publication, instruments used, sample characteristics and constructs related to strengths. The years 2013, 2014 and 2015 were the ones with highest number of publications. The samples of the analyzed studies were composed by students. The variable associated with the school context and constructs such as satisfaction with life and optimism were more frequently associated with character strengths. In addition to being the most widely used instrument, Values in Action-Youth seems to be the most accepted instrument for assessing strengths in children. It is concluded that the school context has been considered an important space for the development of children's personal strengths, health preservation and coping with life problems.
... In general, for the various instruments proposed, the six virtues from the original classification have not emerged in the empirical analyses that were conducted until recently. Models with one (van Eeden, Wissing, Dreyer, Park, & Peterson, 2008), two (Ng, Cao, Marsh, Tay & Seligman, 2016) and three factors (McGrath, 2015) were also noted. In Brazil, the adaptation conducted by Seibel et al. (2015) identified that different methods of analysis could lead to different factor solutions with one, three or four factors. ...
... Factor loadings ranging from 0.40 (Item 23 -Humor) to 0.68 (Item 09 -Vitality) were observed (see Table 1). Additionally, goodness-of-fit indexes for the exploratory structure were RMSEA = 0.057 These results corroborate with previous findings that have detected one-factor solutions when using the VIA Survey (van Eeden et al., 2008) as main instrument. Regarding the Brazilian adaptation of VIA-IS (Seibel et al., 2015) and the development of the Character Strengths Scale (Noronha & Barbosa, 2016), both studies observed one-factor structures, suggesting that the different character strengths seem to present a strong link in Brazil. ...
This study aimed at presenting the development and psychometric evidence of the Importance and Perception of Character Strengths Scale (IPCSS)-Professor Version. Two quantitative studies were conducted. In Study 1 the respondents were 214 college professors (mean age = 39.21; SD = 9.77; 55.6 % females), who answered the IPCSS-Professor and sociodemographic questions. Exploratory analysis suggested a one-factor structure for both subscales. Respondents in Study 2 were 262 college professors (mean age = 41.80; SD = 9.81; 50.8 % male). Confirmatory factor analysis suggested the adequacy of the six-factor structure theoretically proposed for both subscales after comparison with the alternative single-factor model. The IPCSS-Professor presented satisfactory reliability indexes and it is applicable for teachers of different sectors in order to understand their character strengths.
... Across the globe young peoples' character strengths are associated with different aspects of positive functioning in life (e.g., Park & Peterson, 2006a;Ruch, Weber, Park, & Peterson, 2014;Van Eeden, Wissing, Dreyer, Park, & Peterson, 2008;Weber, Ruch, Littman-Ovadia, Lavy, & Gai, 2013). In the following, the relations between students' character strengths and school-relevant characteristics will be presented. ...
... Thinking within a framework of an "engine" model, the character strength of zest emerges as being a very relevant "fuel" for a good life in general (e.g., Harzer, 2016;Gillham et al., 2011;Park & Peterson, 2006a, b;Park et al., 2004;Ruch et al., 2010;Van Eeden et al., 2008;Weber & Ruch, 2012a, b;Weber et al., 2013), but also in the context of positive schooling. In both groups (i.e., students and teachers) zestful individuals report about characteristics, which are indicative for positive schooling experiences. ...
... We also expected that specific strengths such as love, honesty, leadership, zest, hope, persistence, self-regulation, and prudence would make a significant and unique contribution to children's wellbeing. These strengths have been positively associated with positive relationships, positive life attitudes, and adaptive behavior in several studies (Dahlsgaard, 2005;van Eeden et al., 2008;Park & Peterson, 2006a;Wagner & Ruch, 2015). ...
... Other studies have found that higher character strength scores in adolescents were associated with greater positive affect for 18 of the 24 character strengths, and all strengths, except modesty, were related to ego resilience which reflects the effectiveness of adaptation to environmental stress, uncertainty and change (van Eeden, Wissing, Dreyer, Park, & Peterson, 2008). Studies have also documented robust relationships between perseverance and self-regulation and children's achievement across a variety of domains (e.g. ...
The Character Strengths Inventory for Early Childhood (CSI-EC) is a parent report inventory that was developed to measure pre-school children’s character strengths consistent with the VIA Classification of Strengths and Virtues. The inventory consists of 96 items that measure 24 character strengths. The CSI-EC was administered to 2274 parents of children aged 3–6 in two large samples from Israel. Parents also completed questionnaires assessing their child’s emotional and behavioral problems and emotional well-being. Principal component analyses and confirmatory factor analyses of the CSI-EC supported 24 primary character strengths factors and four second-order factors. Children’s transcendence, intellectual and interpersonal strengths were positively associated with children’s emotional well-being, and children’s temperance and interpersonal strengths were negatively associated with socio-emotional difficulties. The findings are discussed in terms of future research and practical implication.
... Thus, although it has been demonstrated that gratitude has at least small-to-moderate, positive associations with several subjective well-being outcomes and similarly negative associations with subjective distress outcomes (e.g., van Eeden et al., 2008), it is unclear how these correlations vary in magnitude across assessment instruments (e.g., the Gratitude Questionnaire-6 [GQ-6] vs. the Gratitude Adjective Checklist [GAC]), as well as whether different measures of the construct have practically meaningful associations with other types of measures, such as informant-rated or performance-based assessments of student well-being that are highly valued within school contexts (e.g., teachers' perceptions of student behavior or direct measures of academic skill proficiency). Considering the importance of such well-being measures within school-based service delivery frameworks that are guided by the problem-solving model and multitiered systems of student support (Ervin, Gimpel Peacock, & Merrell, 2010;Hawkins, Barnett, Morrison, & Musti-Rao, 2010), a systematic understanding of the correlates of gratitude in children and adolescents could help inform best practices relative to promoting positive youth psychology in schools. ...
... To date, 11 empirical studies targeting gratitude in youth were conducted in the United States, five were carried out in Asia, three in Europe, and one in Africa. The largest investigation (N = 1,691) was a survey study of youths' gratitude that was embedded within a multidimensional measure of character strengths (van Eeden, Wissing, Dreyer, Park, & Peterson, 2008), and the smallest study (N = 69) was a gratitude-based intervention with elementary-age children (Owens & Patterson, 2013). For the correlation studies, as well as the one intervention study that used a gratitude measure (Froh, Kashdan, Ozimkowski, & Miller, 2009), the GQ-6 (McCullough, Emmons & Tsang, 2002) was the Thomas & Watkins, 2003; two studies). ...
The development of gratitude in youth has received increasing attention during the past several years, and gratitude-based interventions have often been recommended for use in schools. Yet, the empirical status of the correlates of gratitude and the effects of gratitude-based interventions on youths’ outcomes remains unclear. The present study addressed this ambiguity by systematically reviewing and meta-analyzing original empirical journal articles investigating gratitude in youth through September 2014 (N = 20). Findings from the meta-analysis of correlates indicate small-to-moderate convergent and discriminant evidence for gratitude as a subjective well-being indicator in youth, yet other results indicate that gratitude measures have relatively poor test–retest reliability and/or predictive validity and that they have questionable concurrent validity with other gratitude measures. Moreover, findings from the meta-analysis of intervention outcomes indicate that gratitude-based interventions are, as a whole, generally ineffective and that much more intervention research is warranted. Implications of these findings for theory, future research, and the practice of school psychology are discussed.
... Our findings did not support the theoretically hypothesized six virtue cluster model of character strengths. The VIA was almost unidimensional rather than multi-dimensional (Partsch et al., 2022;van Eeden et al., 2008); 5 dimensional , or with five strength factors (Arbenz et al., 2023;Azañedo et al., 2021;McGrath, 2023;McGrath & Wallace, 2021;Ruch et al., 2010;Toner et al., 2012). Najderska and Cieciuch (2018) used the International Personality Item Pool-Values in Action (IPIP-VIA) questionnaire in Poland. ...
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View of Factor Structure and Measurement Invariance of the Values in Action Inventory of Strengths Reduced Set for Nine Arab Countries
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... in Study 2 of the 276 possible intercorrelations exceeded r = .50). Past research suggested several different solutions for deriving factor scores from the VIA-Youth (e.g., McGrath & Walker, 2016;Park & Peterson, 2006;Ruch, Weber et al., 2014;van Eeden et al., 2008). ...
In two studies, we establish the association between different assessments of character strengths (i.e., traits, habitual and daily behavior at school) with school-related well-being and achievement. Study 1 (N = 414, mean age = 14.14 years) demonstrated that habitual strengths-related behavior at school accounted for unique variance in well-being at school and in achievement beyond the influence of the respective character strength trait. Further, the desirability of certain strengths (e.g., perseverance, fairness, forgiveness, and humor) at the classroom level accounted for additional variance in students’ well-being. Study 2 (N = 186, mean age = 14.27 years) used a diary design across five days to replicate the between-person associations and study within-person associations. Results revealed that daily strengths-related behavior predicted well-being on the following day. Overall, the results underline the importance of strengths-related behavior at school and suggest that all 24 character strengths are relevant for well-being at school.
... Abundant evidence from diverse cultures supports the association of character strengths with well-being among children and youth (e.g. Gillham et al., 2011;Ruch et al., 2014;Van Eeden et al., 2008). In fact, nurturing good character promotes flourishing and positive outcomes and mitigates adverse outcomes (Park & Peterson, 2009). ...
The present study aimed to evaluate the impact of Strengths Gym (Proctor & Fox Eades, in Strengths gym: Year 8, Positive Psychology Research Centre, Pennsylvania, 2009; Proctor et al., in J Posit Psychol, 6:377–388, 2011)—an intervention based on the Values in Action (VIA; Peterson & Seligman in Character strengths and virtues: A handbook and classification, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2004) classification of character strengths among Indian students. Participants in this classroom-based intervention were 121 students from grades 7 and 8 (Age = 11–13 years, M = 11.22 years, SD = 1.61, 53% male) from two schools in the National Capital Region of India. Using quasi-experimental design, participating classrooms in each school were randomized into intervention or control conditions. Intervention group engaged in 24 sessions—one corresponding to each character strength, spread over 12 weeks. All participants completed a questionnaire comprising measures of well-being, life satisfaction, happiness, affect, and self-esteem at pre- and post-test. Participants reported significant gains in happiness, life satisfaction, and positive affect at post-test. Findings suggest promising evidence for character strength interventions among Indian students, while also contributing to research evidence about cross-cultural relevance and validity of an existing intervention. Fostering character strengths and well-being among Indian students emerges as an area of tremendous importance in the face of the stressors and challenges faced by this demographic group in the present times.
... It has to be noted that many of the 24 character strengths (as assessed by the VIA-Youth) showed substantial intercorrelations (though not more than 9.4% in Study 1 and 9.1% in Study 2 of the 276 possible intercorrelations exceeded r = .50). Past research suggested several different solutions for deriving factor scores from the VIA-Youth (e.g., McGrath & Walker, 2016;Park & Peterson, 2006;Ruch, Weber et al., 2014;Van Eeden et al., 2008). However, we have decided to use the 24 scales instead of factor scores of the VIA-Youth for a number of reasons-most importantly three. ...
In two studies, we establish the association between different assessments of character strengths (i.e., traits, habitual and daily behavior at school) with well-being and achievement at school. Study 1 (N = 414, mean age = 14.14 years) demonstrated that habitual strengths-related behavior at school accounted for unique variance in well-being at school and in achievement beyond the influence of the respective character strength trait. Further, the desirability of certain strengths (e.g., perseverance, fairness, forgiveness, and humor) at the classroom level accounted for additional variance in students’ well-being. Study 2 (N = 186, mean age = 14.27 years) used a diary design across five days to replicate the between-person associations and study within-person associations. Results revealed that daily strengths-related behavior predicted well-being on the following day. Overall, the results underline the importance of strengths-related behavior at school and suggest that all 24 character strengths are relevant for well-being at school.
... Previous research has established that character strengths are already present in young children (Park and Peterson, 2006a) and can be reliably and validly measured using self-reports from the age of 10 years (e.g., Park and Peterson, 2006b;Ruch et al., 2014). A number of studies using those instruments established robust associations between character strengths and well-being among adolescents across different cultures (e.g., van Eeden et al., 2008;Gillham et al., 2011;Toner et al., 2012;Ruch et al., 2014). ...
While character strengths have been found to predict educational outcomes beyond broad personality traits and cognitive ability, little is known about their differential contribution to success and positive learning experiences in different school settings. In this study, we use trait activation theory to investigate the relationships of students’ character strengths with achievement, flow experiences, and enjoyment in different learning situations (i.e., teacher-centered learning, individual tasks, and group work). In studying these relationships, we controlled for psychometric intelligence. Secondary school students (N = 255; 46.3% male; mean age = 14.5 years) completed a self-report measure of character strengths, the VIA-Youth (Park and Peterson, 2006b). Cognitive ability was assessed using a standardized intelligence test (PSB-R; Horn et al., 2003) at baseline. Three months later, students completed the Flow Short Scale (Rheinberg et al., 2003) adapted to the three learning situations and indicated their typical enjoyment of these situations. Both the students and their teachers (N = 18; 50% male; mean age = 44.8 years) provided ratings on school achievement in each of the three learning situations. Results indicate that, as expected, (a) certain character strengths (love of learning and perseverance) show consistent relationships with achievement and positive learning experiences (flow and enjoyment) above and beyond cognitive ability across all learning situations, whereas (b) other character strengths show differential trait-outcome relationships (e.g., the character strength of teamwork was predictive of achievement and positive learning experiences in group work). Taken together, these results suggest that different character strengths play a role in different school situations and that their contribution to explaining variance in educational outcomes is incremental to the contribution of cognitive ability.
... Ruch et al., 2010). Studies on the factor structure of VIA-IS have explored the underlying virtue dimensions from strengths scales and yielded diverse findings on the number of virtues ranging from one to five (Dahlsgaard, 2005;McGrath, 2014McGrath, , 2015aNg, Cao, Marsh, Tay, & Seligman, 2017;Peterson, Park, Pole, D'Andrea, & Seligman, 2008;Ruch et al., 2010;Shryack, Steger, Krueger, & Kallie, 2010;Singh & Choubisa, 2009Van Eeden, Wissing, Dreyer, Park, & Peterson, 2008). Strength-to-virtue level structure of VIA-IS is still tentative and awaits confirmation across different samples. ...
Values in Action is a classification of 24 character strengths grouped under six virtue categories. This classification is claimed to be universal across cultures and religions (Peterson & Seligman, 2004) and its measure that is, Values in Action Inventory of Strengths (VIA-IS) has been translated and validated in many languages. The present study aimed at its Urdu translation and validation on Pakistani adults taken from different educational institutes and workplaces. Study comprised two parts. Part I dealt with the translation and cross-language validation while in Part II, Construct validation on a sample of 542 adults and convergent validity on a sample of 210 adult participants were determined. Findings revealed satisfactory alpha coefficients for Urdu version. Significant positive correlations with positive affect and life satisfaction and negative correlations with negative affect were indicators of its convergent validity. Age was negatively associated with five strengths whereas significant gender differences were found on seven strengths. Social desirability effects were nonsignificant. Strength-to-virtue level factor structure exploration resulted in a theoretically meaningful four factor structure. Factors were named as Interpersonal, Cognitive, Vitality, and Transcendence and were comparable to factor structures proposed in studies on VIA-IS from a few other cultures. The study offers a valid Urdu translation for use in future studies with adult Urdu speaking population.
... Concerning life satisfaction, previous studies showed that the strengths with higher levels of correlation are hope, gratitude, love, and zest (Grinhauz, 2015;Harzer, 2016;Park & Peterson, 2006;Ruch et al. 2014;Van Eeden, Wissing, Dreyer, Park, & Peterson 2008). ...
The relations between character strengths and subjective well-being (SWB) were assessed in 826 high school students, attending public schools in Sao Paulo, Brazil (aged 14 to 18, 60.3% female). This study explored gender and age differences as well. Results revealed significant correlations between gratitude, hope and zest, and SWB, with coefficients between .52 and .56. Girls presented higher averages on integrity, kindness, and beauty. Adolescents with 17 years old showed higher means on love and curiosity, whereas social intelligence and humility indicated higher levels for adolescents with 18 years old. The research data allowed us to verify that character strengths are directly related to aspects of SWB and can be considered important resources for people's happiness.
... Gratitude research, carried out with children and youth, has identified various positive correlates with gratitude and aspects of well-being and social success. Gratitude has been shown to have positive correlations with well-being and life satisfaction (Park & Peterson, 2006;van Eeden, Wissing, Dreyer, Park, & Peterson, 2008;Datu, 2014;Tian, Du, & Huebner, 2015) and ...
The review investigated what school based interventions currently exist for supporting pupils sense of school belonging (SoSB). The search yielded 20 articles to be included in the review, and from these studies, 21 different intervention programmes were identified. Whilst all interventions aimed to increase SoSB, they were variable in many other aspects. To support synthesis of results, interventions were categorised as universal or targeted programmes and further divided based on common themes. Twelve studies reported a positive and significant effect of experimental condition on SoSB scores and one study reported a negative effect of experimental condition. Results support the notion that SoSB is malleable and can be enhanced through intervention support. All studies appear to incorporate aspects of teacher support and/ or personal characteristics, identified as having the largest effects with SoSB within Allen and colleagues’ meta-analysis (2016). In addition, the data presents a trend towards targeted interventions being more effective than universal interventions, presenting particularly positive effects of SoSB for ‘atrisk’ students. Implications are discussed in regards to the utility and effectiveness of having SoSB interventions being led by members of the school community, and in regards to the potential negative effect of peer contagion when running a group intervention with ‘at-risk’ youth.
The empirical paper examined the effectiveness of two experimental school-based diary conditions (gratitude diary and appreciation diary) on the promotion of SoSB and positive affect (PA), in comparison to a control condition (event diary). Participants aged 7 to 11 years (M = 8.76) were recruited from five primary schools in the South of England (N = 287). The intervention was carried out as a class, with pupils randomly allocated to either the gratitude, appreciation or event diary condition. Participants completed the diaries daily for three weeks, leading to 15 possible diary entries. Measures of gratitude, SoSB and PA were obtained at pre-intervention, postintervention and at a three-week follow-up, in addition to a pre-intervention measure of nostalgia proneness. Findings revealed that the intervention had been unsuccessful in manipulating gratitude, and ANOVAs for SoSB and PA revealed no significant effect of condition. However, a moderate positive correlation between gratitude, SoSB and PA change scores was noted, suggesting the existence of a relationship between change in gratitude and change in SoSB and PA. Possible explanations for the lack of condition effect in the current study are presented, in addition to limitations of the study in regards to the validity of the gratitude measures used and fidelity to intervention conditions.
... Factor structure of the VIA-240 has been explored in studies across different cultures (for example Dahlsgaard 2005;McGrath 2014McGrath , 2015bPark et al. 2006;Peterson et al. 2008;Ruch et al. 2010;Shryack et al. 2010;Singh and Choubisa 2010;Van Eeden et al. 2008). None of these studies confirmed the initial six-factor (virtue) structure proposed by Peterson and Seligman (2004). ...
Values in Action Inventory of Strengths (VIA-IS) has been established as a key measure for assessment of character strengths and virtues. However its use in multiple measure studies is problematic due to its length. The present study developed a short form of the VIA, VIA-72-Urdu, in Pakistani context and conducted its first validation. Items in short form were retained on the basis of high factor loadings to respective strengths and finalized after verification of cultural validity. The new measure VIA-72-Urdu yielded acceptable reliabilities for research purpose (r values ranging from .64 to .78). Strengths correlated positively with positive affect (median r = .22) and life satisfaction (median r = .20) and negatively with negative affect (median r = −.19). Four factors were derived after exploratory factor analysis and factor structure invariance with long form was determined through multi group confirmatory factor analysis. All virtue factors were positively related with extraversion, conscientiousness and openness to experience and negatively related with neuroticism. Agreeableness was only negatively related with virtue factor of cognitive strengths (median absolute r between virtues and big five traits = .37). The new measure, VIA-72-Urdu provides basis for validation of the same in other languages. The VIA-72 will facilitate future research and assessment on character strengths and virtues.
... These authors categorized and described six clusters of "universal" human strengths (Wisdom and Knowledge, Courage, Humanity, Justice, Temperance, and Transcendence). However, subsequent studies failed to find the same structure (Park & Peterson, 2006;Ruch, Weber, Park, & Peterson, 2014;Toner, Haslam, Robinson, & Williams, 2012;van Eeden, Wissing, Dreyer, Park, & Peterson, 2008). Given that alternative solutions have been proposed to encompass the different virtues embodied by different cultures, this study explores the structure proposed by Peterson and Seligman in the collectivistic culture of Brazil. ...
The structure of character strengths and virtues in different cultural contexts across the globe has failed to recover the six-factor solution originally proposed by Peterson and Seligman. This study aims to assess the structure of the Character Strengths Scale, a test created to assess character strengths and virtues and the association between these strengths and personality factors in the Brazilian context. The sample was made up of 981 undergraduate students (60.5% female) aged between 17 and 26 years (M = 20.7, SD = 2.2), who responded the Character Strengths Scale and Personality Factors Battery. Exploratory factor analysis indicated that the three-factor solution was the most theoretically appropriate, identifying the following factors: Intellectual Strengths, Intrapersonal Strengths and Collectivism, and Transcendence. Regression analysis showed that three personality factors (conscientiousness, extraversion and neuroticism) are relevant predictors of these strengths, explaining a considerable amount of variance. The implications of the findings are presented, suggesting that high levels of neuroticism may impair the flourishing of strengths.
... Literature also illustrated positive associations between character strengths and positive affect (PA) (Van Eeden et al., 2008;Littman-Ovadia and Lavy, 2012;Shoshani and Slone, 2013;Weber et al., 2013;Mart?nez-Mart? and Ruch, 2014). ...
The study was designed to explore the relationships among character strengths, strengths use, future self-continuity and subjective well-being. A total of 225 undergraduates completed paper-and-pencil questionnaires assessing character strengths, strengths use, future self-continuity, and subjective well-being. Results suggested several character strengths were correlated with subjective well-being and the strongest correlations were found for hope, curiosity, zest, perseverance and love. All character strengths were significantly correlated with strengths use. Strengths use and future self-continuity were robustly correlated with subjective well-being. The mediation analysis showed that strengths use mediates the relationship between character strengths and subjective well-being, and specifically, the indirect effects of strengths use varies from different character strengths. The moderated mediator suggested that future self-continuity moderated the mediation of strengths use because future self-continuity moderates the effect of strengths use on subjective well-being. Furthermore, the indirect effect of strengths use was stronger with high level of future self-continuity than those with low level of future self-continuity. The present findings make a contribution to understand the underlying mechanisms involving in character strengths are associated with higher level of well-being. Additionally, the findings expand knowledge about future self-continuity and its relation to strengths use and subjective well-being among undergraduates, having significant implications in the educational context.
... Literature also illustrated positive associations between character strengths and positive affect (PA) (Van Eeden et al., 2008;Littman-Ovadia and Lavy, 2012;Shoshani and Slone, 2013;Weber et al., 2013;Martínez-Martí and Ruch, 2014). MartínezMartí and Ruch (2014) found that the strengths of hope, zest, humor, gratitude and love yielded the highest correlation with PA, whereas the lowest correlations were modesty, religiousness, appreciation of beauty and excellence, prudence, and open- minded. ...
The study was designed to explore the relationships among character strengths, strengths use, future self-continuity and subjective well-being. A total of 225 undergraduates completed paper-and-pencil questionnaires assessing character strengths, strengths use, future self-continuity, and subjective well-being. Results suggested several character strengths were correlated with subjective well-being and the strongest correlations were found for hope, curiosity, zest, perseverance and love. All character strengths were significantly correlated with strengths use. Strengths use and future self-continuity were robustly correlated with subjective well-being. The mediation analysis showed that strengths use mediates the relationship between character strengths and subjective well-being, and specifically, the indirect effects of strengths use varies from different character strengths. The moderated mediator suggested that future self-continuity moderated the mediation of strengths use because future self-continuity moderates the effect of strengths use on subjective well-being. Furthermore, the indirect effect of strengths use was stronger with high level of future self-continuity than those with low level of future self-continuity. The present findings make a contribution to understand the underlying mechanisms involving in character strengths are associated with higher level of well-being. Additionally, the findings expand knowledge about future self-continuity and its relation to strengths use and subjective well-being among undergraduates, having significant implications in the educational context.
... One crucial goal in youths' lives is to live a satisfied life (e.g., Gilman & Huebner, 2003). Character strengths like zest, love, gratitude, and hope were consistently found to be the strongest predictors of higher global life satisfaction of young people from the US, Spain, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Israel, and South Africa (e.g., Gimenez, Hervas, & Vazquez, 2010;Ruch, Weber, Park, & Peterson, in press;Van Eeden, Wissing, Dreyer, Park, & Peterson, 2008;Weber, Ruch, Littman-Ovadia, Lavy, & Or, 2013). ...
... A solução unifatorial está em consonância com os resultados de estudos anteriores com o VIA-IS (e.g., Brdar & Kashdan, 2009;MacDonald et al., 2008). Além disso, outro estudo realizado na África do Sul com a versão para jovens do instrumento (VIA-Youth) também apresentou solução unifatorial (Van Eeden, Wissing, Dreyer, Park, & Peterson, 2008). ...
Este estudo objetivou: (1) realizar a adaptação transcultural do 240-item VIA Inventory of Strengths (VIA-IS) para o Brasil; (2) investigar a estrutura fatorial do VIA-IS em uma amostra brasileira; e (3) reportar dados descritivos de escores de forças no VIA-IS nessa amostra. A adaptação da escala para uso no Brasil seguiu diretrizes padronizadas para adaptação transcultural de instrumentos psicológicos, gerando uma versão brasileira do VIA-IS similar à original. As análises de estrutura fatorial e descritivas foram realizadas com uma amostra de 1.975 brasileiros, com média de idade de 35,0 anos (DP = 10,8). Os resultados encontrados sugerem o uso do instrumento como uma medida unidimensional de potencialidades. A amostra apresentou médias altas de escores em todas as forças avaliadas, com mulheres relatando escores mais altos que homens, na maioria delas. São discutidas implicações para a avaliação em Psicologia Positiva de forças e virtudes com o VIA-IS em contexto brasileiro.
... Park, Peterson, & Seligman, 2004;Ruch et al., 2010). Though the VIA-IS was originally developed for use in the USA, a number of studies have demonstrated that the character strengths have cross-generational and cross-cultural utility, even in cultures beyond the traditions that served as the basis for the original model of virtues (Biswas-Diener, 2006;Toner, Haslam, Robinson, & Williams, 2012;van Eeden, Wissing, Dreyer, Park, & Peterson, 2008). ...
... Similarly, many emotional and interpersonal constructs—such as kindness, love, nurturance, compassion, forgiveness, mercy, humility, modesty, social intelligence, and prudence—that are typically viewed as feminine or " soft " constructs are considered to be character strengths in the VIA Institute on Character's (2013) character strengths framework. Although cross-cultural analyses of the VIA character strengths have found cultural and gender differences in how they are valued and expressed (Biswas-Diener, 2006; van Eeden, Wissing, Dreyer, Park, & Peterson, 2008), research based on the VIA strengths highlights that these constructs are desirable by indicating that their presence is likely to be predictive of wellbeing, life satisfaction, and growth (Donaldson et al., 2015). This suggests that positive psychological research has the potential to investigate, validate, and bring back into focus topics that have historically been marginalized or considered inferior to more " masculine " topics such as aggression, dominance, and power. ...
This study aimed to preliminary examine the psychometric properties of the Chinese version 96-item VIA Inventory for Youth (VIA Youth-96) by analyzing the internal consistency, factorial validity, and criterion validity, and to examine the age-related changes in character strengths (CSs) among adolescents. The sample consisted of 959 adolescents aged 10–17 (49.5% boys). Participants completed the Chinese version VIA Youth-96, along with the Perceived Parental Autonomy Support Scale, and questionnaires assessing life satisfaction and self-efficacy online. The Chinese version VIA Youth-96 showed a good fit for the original four-factor structure, and CS scores were significantly correlated with life satisfaction and self-efficacy indicating a good criterion validity of the scale. The internal consistency was 0.54–0.86 for subscales. Moreover, this study revealed significant age-related changes in CSs among adolescents, eight CSs significantly linearly declined by age. These results suggested that the Chinese version VIA Youth-96 is a valid tool for assessing CSs in adolescents and that CSs are declined linearly by age during adolescence.
This study is embedded in the theoretical framework of the engine model of positive schooling. Accordingly, relations were investigated between students’ endogenous input variables (i.e., character strengths), process variables (i.e., school satisfaction, enjoyment of learning, and academic self-efficacy), and school achievement as an outcome variable. A sample of 300 students (between 10 and 17 years of age) completed web-based self-report measures for all key variables. Specific character strengths (e.g., love of learning, zest, hope, perseverance, and perspective) were substantially positively related to school satisfaction, enjoyment of learning, academic self-efficacy, and/or school achievement. Exploratory mediation analyses supported the basic assumption that processes (i.e., school satisfaction, enjoyment of learning, and academic self-efficacy) mediate the relations between character strengths as input variables and school achievement as an outcome variable. The findings underline the benefit of studying inputs, processes, and outcomes simultaneously to better understand the interplay among relevant variables in the context of positive schooling.
Purpose
This study aims to review the development of strengths assessment in mental health services and evaluate the features of those newly developed strengths assessments.
Method
A systematic literature review approach was adopted to identify relevant articles from September 2010 to August 2021.
Results
The results reveals that 1) the Value in Action Inventory of Strengths is the most widely studied strengths assessment but contains shortcomings in the application of mental health services; 2) 12 strengths assessments have been newly developed, which demonstrated quantitative measure, brief questionnaire, and contextual consideration are the tendency of measure development; 3) domains of strengths assessments were categorized into individual strengths, environmental strengths, and interpersonal strengths, in which individual strengths was the most commonly focus; 4) strengths conceptualization and psychometric properties are two remained limitations of existing strengths assessments.
Discussion
Developing a brief, quantitative, holistic, contextualized, recovery-oriented, psychometrically sound, and strengths-based assessment for people with mental illnesses is promising.
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.
Good character is a principal area in Positive Psychology. The current thesis assesses character strengths with mixed method: quantitative though factor analysis and qualitative using content analysis. Main purpose is evaluate and analyze the character strengths factors in participants from Ecuador, Peru and Paraguay to identify whether international findings are replicated; and verify replication in each country independently. A non probabilistic intentional sample was used: 854 university students (273 Ecuadorians, 277 Peruvians and 304 Paraguayan). Participants completed Inventario de Virtudes y Fortalezas del Carácter IVyF (Cosentino & Castro Solano, 2012) and Protocolo de Cualidades Positivas (Castro Solano & Cosentino, 2013). Main results show three character strengths factors: moderation, progress and fraternity. Secondly, this three factor model is the most parsimonious and replicable despite some differences. Finally, dimensional structure has intercultural differences because each countries have specific relations. Main conclusion show three factors of character strengths and intercultural differences in dimensional structure of each country. Data has limitations: used sample could not be an average citizen of each culture and countries were considered as national culture. Future studies should research intracultural differences in character strengths, identify causes of intercultural differences in each population and analyze character strengths in others Latin-American countries.
This brief overview focuses on the relations between character strengths and subjective well-being in children and adolescents. The VIA classification of good character encompasses 24 character strengths, positive personality traits that contribute to a good life, which includes but is not limited to satisfaction, happiness, and success. Subjective well-being is a multi-dimensional construct that can be differentiated into positive and negative affect as well as global and domain-specific satisfaction. Cross-national results show that specific character strengths are positively related to positive affect, global life satisfaction, and domain-specific satisfaction. Furthermore, specific character strengths are negatively related to negative affect. Effect sizes are typically small to medium in magnitude. It is concluded that character strengths are clearly relevant correlates of young people's subjective well-being. Because most-albeit not all-of the results are based on cross-sectional data, more longitudinal studies are needed to further validate these important findings. Nevertheless, the reported findings suggest that it could be very helpful for health-related and other youth-related professionals to be aware of a child or adolescent's character strengths in order to better interpret their level of subjective well-being.
Character strengths are an important foundation for positive development and thriving in adolescence. Most research on character strengths has been conducted with youths in Western cultures. We examined character strengths in relation to positive and negative well-being indicators in a sample of Iranian youths. We investigated the reliability and validity of the Farsi version of the Values in Action Inventory of Strengths for Youth (VIA Y-96)—a self-report survey commonly used in Western contexts. Participants were adolescents in Iran ( N = 1,359; 48.5% female; M age = 13.54, SD = 1.00) who completed the VIA Y-96 and questionnaires assessing life satisfaction, positive/negative experiences, depression, anxiety, and stress. We found that reliability coefficients were acceptable for most of the VIA subscales. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), as well as a second-order CFA, supported the construct validity of the Farsi VIA Y-96. Correlations between the character strengths and positive and negative well-being indicators supported convergent validity. Measurement invariance for the VIA Y-96 was established in this study comparing boys’ and girls’ response patterns. Sex and grade level differences were found for some of the subscales. Overall, the Farsi VIA Y-96 had acceptable psychometric properties, suggesting that it can be used in research on character strengths with Iranian youths.
Purpose: The aim of this study was to predict Predicting flourish in female adolescents by maternal character strengths: the mediating role of emotional regulation. Methodology: This was an applied study conducted based on a descriptive-correlational design. The statistical population consisted of 3996 secondary high school students from Rey city during the academic year of 2018-2019. For sample size, a total of 350 students were chosen according to Kerjcie and Morgan's table and using multi-stage cluster sampling. Research tools included an actualization questionnaire developed by Soleymani et al. (2015), Seligman and Peterson's character strengths questionnaire (2004), and emotion regulation questionnaire (Gross and Jhon, 2003). The reliability of questionnaires was confirmed by professors and their credibility by Cronbach's alpha (α = 0.85). Data were analyzed through correlational tests and structural equations in Spss24 and Amos20. Findings: From the results, maternal character strengths directly (by a path coefficient of 0.65) and indirectly (through emotion regulation; with a Path coefficient of 0.21) influences girls' actualization (p<0.001). Also, emotion regulation affects actualization with a Path coefficient of 0.58. Research variables predicted 51 % of the variance of secondary high school girls' actualization (R 2 =0.51). Conclusion: Education and empowering character strengths, as well as regulating maternal emotions, improves girls' actualization.
El constructo de las virtudes y fortalezas del carácter surge a raíz de la investigación emprendida por Peterson y Seligman. Con base en esta teoría, García-Álvarez propuso una alternativa de medición conocida como «creciendo fuertes», escala dirigida a evaluar dicha variable en adolescentes. Los objetivos del trabajo fueron determinar las propiedades psicométricas de este instrumento en adolescentes marabinos, así como también establecer diferencias según sexo, edad y esclarecer cuáles de estas fortalezas eran predictores de las estrategias de afrontamiento y del bienestar psicológico. Se llevó a cabo una investigación instrumental, transaccional, correlacional y no experimental, la cual contó con la participación de 528 adolescentes. El análisis factorial confirmatorio sugiere que los datos concuerdan con el modelo hexadimensional teórico, encontrándose cifras de ajuste adecuadas. Se encontraron además evidencias de validez convergente, discriminante e índices globales elevados de consistencia in- terna, aunque algunos de los coeficientes de las subescalas fueron bajos. Las adolescentes exhibieron mayores puntajes que los adolescentes en rasgos como la mente abierta, perspectiva, honestidad, amabilidad, inteligencia social, equidad, perdón, gratitud y espiritualidad; mientras que los varones puntuaron por encima solo en el entusiasmo. También hubo diferencias de acuerdo con la edad, favoreciendo la adolescencia tardía. Todas las fortalezas resultaron predictores significativos de las estrategias de afrontamiento, a excepción de la vinculada al uso del alcohol y drogas. Asimismo, estos atributos predijeron el bienestar psicológico en la muestra adolescente de manera global y en lo que concierne a sus dimensiones. Se concluye que la escala «creciendo fuertes» es una opción adecuada para medir el constructo en adolescentes, tanto para fines de investigación, como para la atención terapéutica, promoción de la salud mental y otras modalidades de prevención en el campo de salud adolescente
Purpose:
This study assessed a disposition of gratitude, and clinical practice stress and satisfaction in nursing students, to determine the relationship between them and provide some basic information towards improving their satisfaction with clinical practice.
Design and methods:
This descriptive research was conducted on 171 nursing students from three universities in South Korea using a structured questionnaire.
Findings:
Students who had a stronger disposition of gratitude (t = 3.482; P < .001), lower clinical practice stress (t = -2.998; P < .003), and better health (t = 2.900; P < .004) were more satisfied with their Clinical practice (R2 = 0.298; F = 13.853; P < .001).
Practice implications:
The findings emphasized the development of programs to improve disposition of gratitude in curriculum or extracurricular activity to enhance Clinical practice satisfaction.
Introduction:
Although typically considered a stable trait, character strengths may be subject to temporal changes. Whereas research has investigated these changes across adulthood, the pivotal period of adolescence remains relatively understudied.
Method:
To identify potential developmental differences in character strengths, we conducted a cross-sectional exploratory analysis of 24 Character strengths, assessed by the VIA-Youth, across youth between ages 10 and 17 from four highly represented countries (N = 12,871).
Results:
The general pattern was for older adolescents to generate lower scores in many traits compared to younger adolescents. When considering gender as a potential moderator, girls, on average, scored higher on most strengths, but also showed more consistently lower scores across ages.
Conclusion:
Findings provide a nuanced understanding of developmental differences in character across adolescence in a large-scale study. We frame these findings in the context of recent work investigating how character strengths develop throughout adolescence and offer suggestions for future research and interventions.
Character strengths are an integral component of positive youth development that can promote flourishing. Developmental principles posit constructs become increasingly complex with age, yet this process has not been examined with character. Using a socioeconomically and ethnically diverse sample of 2,467 youth ages 9–19, bifactor models were estimated across elementary, middle, and high school-age groups to examine age differences in character structure and function. With successive age, a greater number of specific character strength factors were identified, suggesting character structure becomes more differentiated across adolescence. Results linking character bifactor models to indicators of positive functioning also supported differentiation in character function across ages. Findings point to the need for theoretical and empirical considerations of character structure and function across development.
These psychology articles were commissioned by an editorial board as part of our former online-only review article series. We are offering them here as a freely available collection.
Considering strengths when planning for postschool outcomes is critically important for all youth, including youth with disabilities, as strengths should guide the identification of meaningful postschool goals. However, there are a limited number of strengths-based assessment tools that have been validated with youth with disabilities. This article reports the results of a pilot study of the application of the short form of the VIA Inventory of Strengths for Youth (VIA—Youth) to secondary students with and without disability labels. Although the VIA-Youth has been studied in youth without disabilities, it has not been applied to youth with disabilities. Similarities in the reliability of the scores were found across youth with and without disabilities. However, students with disabilities tended to score lower on character strengths than students without disabilities. We were unable to replicate, using confirmatory factor analysis, the theoretical structure used to develop the VIA-Youth, although youth with and without disabilities did demonstrate measurement invariance when fitting a one-factor model. Further work is needed to merge theoretical and empirical models for the factor structure of the VIA-Youth. Implications for future research and practice related to strengths-based assessment and intervention are discussed.
There has been limited focus in the disability field on assessing and intervening to promote strengths of character. However, character strengths have received significant attention in the broader field of positive psychology. This paper provides an overview of the growing science of character strengths and explores why and how character strengths are relevant to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and a strengths-based perspective in the disability field. We offer key concepts, research findings, and interventions from the science of character that can provide a framework for the intellectual and developmental disabilities field to begin to build on strengths of character to enhance the systems of supports and quality of life outcomes experienced by people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
The aim of this chapter is to review research on self-regulation as psychological strength within South Africa over the past 15 years (1996–2010). Key words related to self-regulation were searched through Ebscohost, Science Direct, SA ePublications, and Google Scholar. In general, it was found that there is a lack of dedicated self-regulation research in South Africa, and that most research focuses on related concepts, such as coping and resilience. Further, most studies focus on coping with adverse situations; for example, living with HIV/AIDS, bereavement, poverty, racial conflict, crime, and violence. In contrast, self-regulation as promotion and preventive strength is extremely scarce. Social context—specifically, social support and culture—emerged as an important factor in self-regulation, especially within the domains of racial relations and sexual risk behavior. Finally, some recommendations are provided regarding future self-regulation research in South Africa.
The constructs of intelligence and ego-resiliency are discussed. The personality implications of “pure intelligence” and “pure ego-resilience” were identified. Intelligence (IQ) was indexed by the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale–Revised and ego-resiliency by an inventory scale. Residual scores measuring “pure intelligence” and “pure ego-resilience” were correlated with the items of the observer-based California Q-sort, used to describe participants. Persons relatively high on ego-resilience tend to be more competent and comfortable in the “fuzzier” interpersonal world; persons defined primarily by raw IQ tend to be effective in the “clearer” world of structured work but tend also to be uneasy with affect and less able to realize satisfying human connections. Gender differences exist in the relations of ego-resilience and intelligence and in their adaptive relevance.
The primary objectives of this article are (a) to put forth an explicit operational formulation of positive human health that goes beyond prevailing "absence of illness" criteria; (b) to clarify that positive human health does not derive from extant medical considerations, which are not about wellness, but necessarily require a base in philosophical accounts of the "goods" in life; (c) to provoke a change of emphasis from strong tendencies to construe human health as exclusively about the mind or the body toward an integrated and positive spiral of mind-body influences; (d) to delineate possible physiological substrates of human flourishing and offer future directions for understanding the biology of positive health; and (e) to discuss implications of positive health for diverse scientific agendas (e.g., stress, class and health, work and family life) and for practice in health fields (e.g., training, health examinations, psychotherapy, and wellness intervention programs).
It has long been believed that personality traits vary by geographicallocation, but few studies have examined the worldwide distribution of personality profiles. Using the five-factor model of personality—a comprehensive and apparently universal trait structure—we conducted secondary analyses of data from 36 cultures. Distance from the equator and mean temperature were not meaningfully related to personality factors. However, cluster analysis showed that geographically proximatecultures often have similar profiles, and multidimensional scaling showed a clear contrast of European and American cultures with Asian and African cultures. The former were higher in extraversion and openness to experience and lower in agreeableness. A second dimension reflected differences in psychological adjustment. Observed differences between cultures may be the result of differences in gene pools or in features of culture; acculturation studies and the analyses of other natural experiments are needed to understand the origins of geographical differences in personality traits.
The Concept of CuriosityA Framework for Factors that Support CuriosityElaborating the Framework for Curiosity Supportive FactorsCuriosity InterventionsConclusion
The relative importance of emotions versus normative beliefs for life satisfaction judgments was compared among individualist and collectivist nations in 2 large sets of international data (in total, 61 nations,
N = 62,446). Among nations, emotions and life satisfaction correlated significantly more strongly in more individualistic nations (
r = .52 in Study 1;
r = .48 in Study 2). At the individual level, emotions were far superior predictors of life satisfaction to norms (social approval of life satisfaction) in individualist cultures, whereas norms and emotions were equally strong predictors of life satisfaction in collectivist cultures. The present findings have implications for future studies on cultural notions of well-being, the functional value of emotional experiences, and individual differences in life satisfaction profiles. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This chapter explores the concept of optimal human functioning among people of color and suggests implications for the field of applied psychology. Several major assumptions guide the authors' imagery. First, optimal human functioning among people of color may differ from the culture-bound goals of happiness, hope, subjective well-being, and self-determination posited by White EuroAmerican theorists and researchers. Second, definitions of optimal human functioning cannot be separated from the cultural context in which they arise. As a result, definitions from one culture may not be comparable to another. Third, optimal human functioning must consider a systemic perspective, in addition to focusing on the individual or self. Fourth, for people of color, overcoming adversity can provide valuable clues to optimal human functioning. Fifth, optimal human functioning may be discerned from studying cultural values of a group that seem to immunize them from stress and other forms of race-related adversities. Last, counseling psychology is uniquely positioned to play a leadership role within the larger field of applied psychology by helping to integrate cultural diversity into psychological theory, research and practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
American ethnic groups are often thought of as discrete categories to which people belong and that explain some aspects of psychological functioning. However, ethnicity is a complex multidimensional construct that, by itself, explains little. To understand its psychological implications, it is necessary to identify and assess those aspects of ethnicity that may have an impact on outcomes of interest. In this article, the author examines 3 key aspects of ethnicity: cultural norms and values; the strength, salience, and meaning of ethnic identity; and the experiences and attitudes associated with minority status. These aspects are best understood in terms of dimensions along which individuals and samples vary, rather than as categories into which individuals can be classified. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Responds to comments by A. C. Bohart and T Greening, S. B. Shapiro, G. Bacigalupe, R. Walsh, W. C. Compton, C. L. McLafferty and J. D. Kirylo, N. Abi-Hashem, A. C. Catania, G. K. Lampropoulos, and T. M. Kelley (see records
2002-15384-010,
2002-15384-011,
2002-15384-012,
2002-15384-013,
2002-15384-014,
2002-15384-015,
2002-15384-016,
2002-15384-017,
2002-15384-018, and
2002-15384-019, respectively) on the January 2000, Vol 55(1) special issue of the
American Psychologist dedicated to positive psychology. M. E. P. Seligman and M. Csikszentmihalyi expand on some of the critical themes discussed in the commentaries. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This study examined the comparability of Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) [Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985, Social Indicators Research, 34: 7–32] scores across U.S. and Russian student and community groups. Criteria for weak measurement invariance were met
when comparing U.S. and Russian groups (combining student and community samples). Criteria for weak and strong measurement
invariance were met when comparing the U.S. and Russian student samples. However, when comparing the U.S. and Russian community
samples, the results showed a significant statistic for a baseline model, indicating a lack of comparability across samples.
The costs of failing to meet criteria for weak, strong, and strict measurement invariance are discussed.
Positive Psychology has demonstrated its usefulness in studying and contributing to individual well being. The next big challenge for this new field is to help improving the social and cultural conditions in which people live. Three specific goals are discussed: A more complete understanding of human nature; forging a more sustainable and more fair social contract; and a rediscovery of the joys of existence. If Positive Psychology will be able to support these goals, it will become an important contributor to the evolution of human consciousness and the evolution of culture.
Four hundred and fiftynine students from 20 different high school classrooms in Michigan participated in focus group discussions about the character strengths included in the Values in Action Classification. Students were interested in the subject of good character and able to discuss with candor and sophistication instances of each strength. They were especially drawn to the positive traits of leadership, practical intelligence, wisdom, social intelligence, love of learning, spirituality, and the capacity to love and be loved. Students believed that strengths were largely acquired rather than innate and that these strengths developed through ongoing life experience as opposed to formal instruction. They cited an almost complete lack of contemporary role models exemplifying different strengths of character. Implications of these findings for the quantitative assessment of positive traits were discussed, as were implications for designing character education programs for adolescents. We suggest that peers can be an especially important force in encouraging the development and display of good character among youth. Peer Reviewed http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/45293/1/10964_2004_Article_379439.pdf
Recently, psychologists have begun to shift their research attention to positive topics historically overlooked by the profession.
The study of character strengths is a major research interest of positive psychologists. A classification of 24 character
strengths, called the Values in Action (VIA) Classification, has recently been developed, and the current study evaluates
these character strengths across cultures. Among 123 members of the Kenyan Maasai, 71 Inughuit in Northern Greenland, and
519 University of Illinois students, we found high rates of agreement about the existence, desirability, and development of
these strengths of character. Despite these strong similarities, there were differences between and within cultures in terms
of gender, the perceived importance of specific strengths (such as modesty), and the existence of cultural institutions that
promote each strength.
The structure of subjective well-being has been conceptualized as consisting of two major components: the emotional or affective component and the judgmental or cognitive component (Diener, 1984; Veenhoven, 1984). The judgmental component has also been conceptualized as life satisfaction (Andrews & Withey, 1976). Although the affective component of subjective well-being has received considerable attention from researchers, the judgmental component has been relatively neglected. The Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS; Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985) was developed as a measure of the judgmental component of subjective well-being (SWB). Two studied designed to validate further the SWLS are reported. Peer reports, a memory measure, and clinical ratings are used as external criteria for validation. Evidence for the reliability and predictive validity of the SWLS is presented, and its performance is compared to other related scales. The SWLS is shown to be a valid and reliable measure of life satisfaction, suited for use with a wide range of age groups and applications, which makes possible the savings of interview time and resources compared to many measures of life satisfaction. In addition, the high convergence of self- and peer-reported measures of subjective well-being and life satisfaction provide strong evidence that subjective well-being is a relatively global and stable phenomenon, not simply a momentary judgment based on fleeting influences.
The constructs of intelligence and ego-resiliency are discussed. The personality implications of "pure intelligence" and "pure ego-resilience" were identified. Intelligence (IQ) was indexed by the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised and ego-resiliency by an inventory scale. Residual scores measuring "pure intelligence" and "pure ego-resilience" were correlated with the items of the observer-based California Q-sort, used to describe participants. Persons relatively high on ego-resilience tend to be more competent and comfortable in the "fuzzier" interpersonal world; persons defined primary by raw IQ tend to be effective in the "clearer" world of structured work but tend also to be uneasy with affect and less able to realize satisfying human connections. Gender differences exist in the relations of ego-resilience and intelligence and in their adaptive relevance.
A science of positive subjective experience, positive individual traits, and positive institutions promises to improve quality of life and prevent the pathologies that arise when life is barren and meaningless. The exclusive focus on pathology that has dominated so much of our discipline results in a model of the human being lacking the positive features that make life worth living. Hope, wisdom, creativity, future mindedness, courage, spirituality, responsibility, and perseverance are ignored or explained as transformations of more authentic negative impulses. The 15 articles in this millennial issue of the American Psychologist discuss such issues as what enables happiness, the effects of autonomy and self-regulation, how optimism and hope affect health, what constitutes wisdom, and how talent and creativity come to fruition. The authors outline a framework for a science of positive psychology, point to gaps in our knowledge, and predict that the next century will see a science and profession that will come to understand and build the factors that allow individuals, communities, and societies to flourish.
Positive psychology has flourished in the last 5 years. The authors review recent developments in the field, including books, meetings, courses, and conferences. They also discuss the newly created classification of character strengths and virtues, a positive complement to the various editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (e. g., American Psychiatric Association, 1994), and present some cross-cultural findings that suggest a surprising ubiquity of strengths and virtues. Finally, the authors focus on psychological interventions that increase individual happiness. In a 6-group, random-assignment, placebo-controlled Internet study, the authors tested 5 purported happiness interventions and 1 plausible control exercise. They found that 3 of the interventions lastingly increased happiness and decreased depressive symptoms. Positive interventions can supplement traditional interventions that relieve suffering and may someday be the practical legacy of positive psychology.
This article reports the development and validation of a scale to measure global life satisfaction, the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS). Among the various components of subjective well-being, the SWLS is narrowly focused to assess global life satisfaction and does not tap related constructs such as positive affect or loneliness. The SWLS is shown to have favorable psychometric properties, including high internal consistency and high temporal reliability. Scores on the SWLS correlate moderately to highly with other measures of subjective well-being, and correlate predictably with specific personality characteristics. It is noted that the SWLS is Suited for use with different age groups, and other potential uses of the scale are discussed.
The effect of a grateful outlook on psychological and physical well-being was examined. In Studies 1 and 2, participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 experimental conditions (hassles, gratitude listing, and either neutral life events or social comparison); they then kept weekly (Study 1) or daily (Study 2) records of their moods, coping behaviors, health behaviors, physical symptoms, and overall life appraisals. In a 3rd study, persons with neuromuscular disease were randomly assigned to either the gratitude condition or to a control condition. The gratitude-outlook groups exhibited heightened well-being across several, though not all, of the outcome measures across the 3 studies, relative to the comparison groups. The effect on positive affect appeared to be the most robust finding. Results suggest that a conscious focus on blessings may have emotional and interpersonal benefits.
In this meta-analysis, 9 published studies (N = 330) that investigated the efficacy of forgiveness interventions within counseling were examined. After a review of theories of forgiveness, it was discovered that the studies could logically be grouped into 3 categories: decision-based, process-based group, and process-based individual interventions. When compared with control groups, for measures of forgiveness and other emotional health measures, the decision-based interventions showed no effect, the process-based group interventions showed significant effects, and the process-based individual interventions showed large effects. Consequently, effectiveness has been shown for use of forgiveness in clinical and other settings.
The Values in Action Classification of StrengthsAssessment of the Via StrengthsThe Via Inventory of StrengthsImplications for PracticeConclusion
Psychology after World War II became a science largely devoted to healing. It concentrated on repairing damage using a disease model of human functioning. This almost exclusive attention to pathology neglected the idea of a fulfilled individual and a thriving community, and it neglected the possibility that building strength is the most potent weapon in the arsenal of therapy. The aim of positive psychology is to catalyze a change in psychology from a preoccupation only with repairing the worst things in life to also building the best qualities in life. To redress the previous imbalance, we must bring the building of strength to the forefront in the treatment and prevention of mental illness.
In this meta‐analysis, 9 published studies (N = 330) that investigated the efficacy of forgiveness interventions within counseling were examined. After a review of theories of forgiveness, it was discovered that the studies could logically be grouped into 3 categories: decision‐based, process‐based group, and process‐based individual interventions. When compared with control groups, for measures of forgiveness and other emotional health measures, the decision‐based interventions showed no effect, the process‐based group interventions showed significant effects, and the process‐based individual interventions showed large effects. Consequently, effectiveness has been shown for use of forgiveness in clinical and other settings.
The purpose of this article is to review several popular, structured, personality questionnaires in terms of their applicability in cross-cultural assessment contexts. Prior to our review, we describe the types of psychometric data that can be used to support claims of a measure's cross-cultural applicability. More important, we list several factors, not all of which have to do with the measure itself, that can undermine such cross-cultural evidence. We then review relevant cross-cultural data on the California Psychological Inventory, the Comrey Personality Scales, the 16 Personality Factors Questionnaire, the Pavlovian Temperament Survey, the Personality Research Form, and the Nonverbal Personality Questionnaire. We show that those inventories have each demonstrated mostly replicable factor structures across cultures. In contrast, relatively little data are available regarding the cross-cultural generality of their criterion validities.
We investigated the relationship between various character strengths and life satisfaction among 5,299 adults from three Internet samples using the Values in Action Inventory of Strengths. Consistently and robustly associated with life satisfaction were hope, zest, gratitude, love, and curiosity. Only weakly associated with life satisfaction, in contrast, were modesty and the intellectual strengths of appreciation of beauty, creativity, judgment, and love of learning. In general, the relationship between character strengths and life satisfaction was monotonic, indicating that excess on any one character strength does not diminish life satisfaction.
This article proposes a strength-based model for counseling at-risk youth. The author presents the assumptions, basic concepts, and values of the strength perspective in counseling and offers strength categories as a conceptual model for viewing clients’ behavior. Propositions leading toward a theory of strength-based counseling and stages of this model are given, representative strength-based counseling techniques are examined, and a case study is used to illustrate risk factors, protective factors, and strength assessment. Ethical, research, and training implications of the strength-based model of counseling are discussed.
The positive youth development (PYD) perspective is a strength-based conception of adolescence. Derived from developmental systems theory, the perspective stressed that PYD emerges when the potential plasticity of human development is aligned with developmental assets. The research reported in this special issue, which is derived from collaborations among multiple university and community-based laboratories, reflects and extends past theory and research by documenting empirically (a) the usefulness of applying this strength-based view of adolescent development within diverse youth and communities; (b) the adequacy of conceptualizing PYD through Five Cs (competence, confidence, connection, character, and caring); (c) the individual and ecological developmental assets associated with PYD; and (d) implications for community programs and social policies pertinent to youth.
In every cross-cultural study, the question as to whether test scores obtained in different cultural populations can be interpreted in the same way across these populations has to be dealt with. Bias and equivalence have become the common terms to refer to the issue. Taxonomy of both bias and equivalence is presented. Bias can be engendered by the theoretical construct (construct bias), the method such as the form of test administration (method bias), and the item content (item bias). Equivalence refers to the measurement level at which scores can be compared across cultures. Three levels of equivalence are possible: the same construct is measured in each cultural group but the functional form of the relationship between scores obtained in various groups is unknown (structural equivalence), scores have the same measurement unit across populations but have different origins (measurement unit equivalence), and scores have the same measurement unit and origin in all populations (full scale equivalence). The most frequently encountered sources of bias and their remedies are described. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) (journal abstract)
An analysis of the literature revealed that conceptualizations of the nature of psychological well-being are very diverse, and that it is still unclear what the nature and / or dimensions of psychological well-being are. Scales based on several models and constructs from diverse theoretical traditions were completed by a multicultural group of 550 participants. The validity of the scales for use in this particular group was determined. The manifestations of psychological well-being in different gender, cultural and age groups were compared. Similarities and differences were found. In a factor analysis on the data of the total group, a general psychological well-being factor was identified. Psychological well-being seems to be multidimensional with regard to facets of self that are involved ( e.g. , affect, cognition, behaviour), as well as with regard to the domains of life in which these facets manifest themselves ( e.g. , intra- and interpersonal, social and contextual, in love and work). A sense of coherence, satisfaction with life and affect-balance are strong indicators of general psychological well-being. Findings from this perspective may point to new directions for capacity building.
The aim of this study was to explore the validity of the Values in Action Inventory of
Strengths (VIA-IS) in an African context. This 240-item self-report questionnaire that
measures 24 character strengths (Peterson & Seligrnan, 2004), was developed in a
western individualistic context, and it cannot be assumed to be valid in African
contexts without prior scientific evaluation. The current study, a first step in the
evaluation of its validity in an African context, focussed on psychometric properties
such as reliability, mean scores and variance, criterion-related validity, confirmatory
and exploratory factor analyses, as well as translatability.
In a cross-sectional survey design an availability sample of Afncan students
(N=256) completed the original English version of the VIA-IS and other criterionrelated
measures of psychological well-being and health, during facilitated group
sessions. The latter scales were the Affectometer 2 (Kammann & Flett, 1983), the
Fortitude Questionnaire (Pretorius, 1998), the Sense of Coherence Scale (Antonovsky,
1987), the Satisfaction with Life Scale (Diener, et al. 1985), and the General Health
Questionnaire (Goldberg & Hillier, 1979). Translation of the VIA-IS into Setswana
and back-translation were conducted and evaluated by a research evaluation
committee.
Results indicated that mean scores of the VIA-IS subscales are relatively aligned
with those in a western context. Twenty of the twenty-four VIA-subscales showed
satisfactory Cronbach alphas reliability indices above .70. The VIA-IS satisfies
criterion-related validity as indicated by positive correlation with life satisfaction,
positive affect, fortitude and sense of coherence, and negative correlation with
negative affect and symptoms of ill-health. The VIA-IS was found to be translatable
with preservation of original meaning, but in some instances technical terms had to be
borrowed. Second order confirmatory and exploratory principal component factor
analyses on the 24 strengths yielded three significant factors, and not six as
theoretically expected, in this African group. The three emic virtue clusters are 1)
Wisdom, knowledge and courage, 2) Horizontal and vertical relatedness and 3)
Integrity in a group context: temperance and justice. This clustering of virtues reflects
a socio-centric, collectivistic African cultural value system. It is concluded that the
VIA-IS may have merit in an African context, but is not completely valid in its
original form with its hypothesised six value clusters. With modifications and
adaptations a more valid version may be developed for an African context. Studies on
randomly selected, larger African samples are recommended.
The aim of this study was to do a first phase screening of psychometric properties of various scales measuring facets of psychological well-being so as to address further questions in the FORT 1 project (FORT 1 = Clarifying the nature of psychological strengths). All scales (except one) were developed in a Western context, and measure facets of cognitive, affective, conative, social, and spiritual psychological well-being. As it could not be assumed that scales are valid in South African contexts, a broad screening of their psychometric properties was necessary before specific questions could be adressed. A convenience sample (N=514) including white (n=384) and black (n=130) students and adults from the North West Province and Gauteng areas completed all questionnaires. Psychometric properties of scales varied from acceptable to unacceptable for use in a specific subgroup.
A primary goal of scale development is to create a valid measure of an underlying construct. We discuss theoretical principles, practical issues, and pragmatic decisions to help developers maximize the construct validity of scales and subscales. First, it is essential to begin with a clear conceptualization of the target construct. Moreover, the content of the initial item pool should be overinclusive and item wording needs careful attention. Next, the item pool should be tested, along with variables that assess closely related constructs, on a heterogeneous sample representing the entire range of the target population. Finally, in selecting scale items, the goal is unidimensionality rather than internal consistency; this means that virtually all interitem correlations should be moderate in magnitude. Factor analysis can play a crucial role in ensuring the unidimensionality and discriminant validity of scales. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This chapter describes our program of research aimed at understanding the developmental processes occurring within organized youth activities. What happens inside the activities that leads to positive change in young people? A guiding premise of our work is that youth programs are a context in which youth are active producers of their own development. We and others have found that when adolescents are signaled across the hours of the day, organized activities stand out as settings in which they report a psychological state of high motivation, attention, and challenge (Csikszentmihalyi, Rathunde, & Whalen, 1993; Larson, 2000; see also records
1993-98285-000 and
2000-13324-016). Youth experience themselves as deeply engaged and agentic in a way that rarely happens in other parts of their daily lives. These are psychological conditions under which they can be expected to be active learners: to be self-organizing. So organized youth activities appear to be a particularly fertile context for self-generated change. In our current research, we are developing grounded theory on how this change unfolds. What are the developmental processes that young people engage in within organized activities, and how do effective adult leaders of activities support these processes? In the first section of the chapter, we describe the longitudinal qualitative methods we are using to do this. In the middle section, we report the processes of change we have found in five domains of development. Last, we examine the role that adult leaders of youth programs (often called youth practitioners or youth workers) play in facilitating these developmental processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This article examines the adequacy of the “rules of thumb” conventional cutoff criteria and several new alternatives for various fit indexes used to evaluate model fit in practice. Using a 2‐index presentation strategy, which includes using the maximum likelihood (ML)‐based standardized root mean squared residual (SRMR) and supplementing it with either Tucker‐Lewis Index (TLI), Bollen's (1989) Fit Index (BL89), Relative Noncentrality Index (RNI), Comparative Fit Index (CFI), Gamma Hat, McDonald's Centrality Index (Mc), or root mean squared error of approximation (RMSEA), various combinations of cutoff values from selected ranges of cutoff criteria for the ML‐based SRMR and a given supplemental fit index were used to calculate rejection rates for various types of true‐population and misspecified models; that is, models with misspecified factor covariance(s) and models with misspecified factor loading(s). The results suggest that, for the ML method, a cutoff value close to .95 for TLI, BL89, CFI, RNI, and Gamma Hat; a cutoff value close to .90 for Mc; a cutoff value close to .08 for SRMR; and a cutoff value close to .06 for RMSEA are needed before we can conclude that there is a relatively good fit between the hypothesized model and the observed data. Furthermore, the 2‐index presentation strategy is required to reject reasonable proportions of various types of true‐population and misspecified models. Finally, using the proposed cutoff criteria, the ML‐based TLI, Mc, and RMSEA tend to overreject true‐population models at small sample size and thus are less preferable when sample size is small.
Affectometer 2 is a 5-minute inventory of general happiness or sense of well-being based on measuring the balance of positive and negative feelings in recent experience. Since this scale is directly derived from its parent scale, Affectometer 1, psychometric findings on the longer scale are reported along with initial data on Affectometer 2. These results indicate high reliability, high validity, and slight contamination by current mood and social desirability. Among the findings of special interest are: (a) the independence of positive and negative affect proposed by Bradburn is not confirmed; (b) well-being is highly and inversely related to neuroticism, anxiety, depression and somatic complaints; (c) the relationship of well-being to depression is curvilinear; (d) well-being scores are determined more by short-term states than long-term traits; (e) well-being can be characterized by 10 “qualities of happiness”.
A framework for hypothesis testing and power analysis in the assessment of fit of covariance structure models is presented. We emphasize the value of confidence intervals for fit indices, and we stress the relationship of confidence intervals to a framework for hypothesis testing. The approach allows for testing null hypotheses of not-good fit, reversing the role of the null hypothesis in conventional tests of model fit, so that a significant result provides strong support for good fit. The approach also allows for direct estimation of power, where effect size is defined in terms of a null and alternative value of the root-mean-square error of approximation fit index proposed by J. H. Steiger and J. M. Lind (1980). It is also feasible to determine minimum sample size required to achieve a given level of power for any test of fit in this framework. Computer programs and examples are provided for power analyses and calculation of minimum sample sizes., (C) 1996 by the American Psychological Association
SYNOPSIS
This study reports the factor structure of the symptoms comprising the General Health Questionnaire when it is completed in a primary care setting. A shorter, 28-item GHQ is proposed consisting of 4 subscales: somatic symptoms, anxiety and insomnia, social dysfunction and severe depression. Preliminary data concerning the validity of these scales are presented, and the performance of the whole 28-item questionnaire as a screening test is evaluated. The factor structure of the symptomatology is found to be very similar for 3 independent sets of data.
Different versions of the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ), including the GHQ-12 and GHQ-28 have been subjected to factor analysis in a variety of countries. The World Health Organization study of psychological disorders in general health care offered the opportunity to investigate the factor structure of both GHQ versions in 15 different centres.
The factor structures of the GHQ-12 and GHQ-28 extracted by principal component analysis were compared in participating centres. The GHQ-12 was completed by 26,120 patients and 5,273 patients completed the GHQ-28. The factor structure of the GHQ-28 found in Manchester in this study was compared with that found in the earlier study in 1979.
For the GHQ-12, substantial factor variation between centres was found. After rotation, two factors expressing depression and social dysfunction could be identified. For the GHQ-28, factor variance was less. In general, the original C (social dysfunction) and D (depression) scales of the GHQ-28 were more stable than the A (somatic symptoms) and B (anxiety) scales. Multiple cross-loadings occurred in both versions of the GHQ suggesting correlation of the extracted factors. In Manchester, the factor structure of the GHQ had changed since its development. Validity as a case detector was not affected by factor variance.
These findings confirm that despite factor variation for the GHQ-12, two domains, depression and social dysfunction, appear across the 15 centres. In the scaled GHQ-28, two of the scales were remarkably robust between the centres. The cross-correlation between the other two subscales, probably reflects the strength of the relationship between anxiety and somatic symptoms existing in different locations.
Moral competence among adolescents can be approached in terms of good character. Character is a multidimensional construct comprised of a family of positive traits manifest in an individual's thoughts, emotions and behaviours. The Values in Action Inventory for Youth (VIA-Youth) is a self-report questionnaire suitable for adolescents that measures 24 widely valued strength of character. Data from several samples bearing on the internal consistency, stability, and validity of the VIA-Youth are described, along with what is known about the prevalence and demographic correlates of the character strengths it measures. Exploratory factor analysis revealed an interpretable four-factor structure of the VIA-Youth subscales: temperance strengths (e.g., prudence, self-regulation), intellectual strengths (e.g., love of learning, curiosity), theological strengths (e.g., hope, religiousness, love), and other-directed (interpersonal) strengths (e.g., kindness, modesty). The uses of the VIA-Youth in research and practise are discussed along with directions for future research.
A User's Guide to the GHQ. Windsor: NFER-Nelson
- D P Goldberg
- P Williams
Goldberg, D.P. & Williams, P. (1988). A User's Guide to the
GHQ. Windsor: NFER-Nelson.
Putting positive psychology in a multicultural context
- S J Lopez
- E C Prosser
- L M Edwards
- J L Magyar-Moe
- J E Neeufeld
- H N Rasmussen
Lopez, S.J., Prosser, E.C., Edwards, L.M., Magyar-Moe, J.L.,
Neeufeld, J.E. & Rasmussen, H.N. (2002). Putting positive
psychology in a multicultural context. In C.R. Snyder & S.J.
Lopez (Eds.), Handbook of Positive Psychology. (pp.
700-714). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Grow up, kids, and lead us not into the wilderness
Sunday Times (2007, June 03). Grow up, kids, and lead us not
into the wilderness. Sunday Times Newspaper: Johnnic Media Investments Limited 1996-2007.
The stability of the General Health Questionnaire. Psychological Medicine
- U Werneke
- D P Goldberg
- I Yalcin
- B T Ustun
Werneke, U., Goldberg, D.P. Yalcin, I. & Ustun, B.T. (2000).
The stability of the General Health Questionnaire. Psychological Medicine, 30, 823-829.