Introduction
At the turn of the twenty-first century, a new branch of psychology emerged, which was named positive psychology. This new field of psychology aims at studying people’s happiness and the ways of achieving it (Parks & Titova, 2016). Positive psychology focuses on people’s positive experiences, character strengths, and positive institutions, such as workplaces and families (Harzer, 2016). These constituents, as well as their interrelation, influence individuals’ well-being (Harzer, 2016). One way of increasing one’s happiness is to recognize and utilize one’s character strengths (Parks & Titova, 2016). This paper aims at identifying the key character strengths and their influence on people’s well-being. The knowledge of personal qualities that contribute to one’s feeling of happiness helps one to develop those traits and enhance one’s life satisfaction.
Character Strengths
One of the key concepts used in positive psychology is character strengths. They are positive personal qualities that are stable but liable to changes through training (Gander, Hofmann, Proyer, & Ruch, 2019). Researchers distinguish 24 character strengths that are considered valuable in many cultures and contribute to greater life satisfaction (Freidlin, Littman-Ovadia, & Niemiec, 2017). Some of them are curiosity, bravery, honesty, forgiveness, self-regulation, gratitude, and spirituality (Wagner, Gander, Proyer, & Ruch, 2019). A person demonstrates these character strengths through feelings, thoughts, and behaviors (Harzer, 2016). For example, if a student is listening to the lecturer, he may be interested in the subject, thus showing curiosity through feeling. If he thinks about asking the lecturer for more details on the topic, he demonstrates this strength through thought. When he approaches the teacher after the class to ask for more information, his curiosity manifests through behavior.
Character strengths are basic qualities that contribute to the development of more complex behaviors. They provide the basis for talents, interests, skills, values, and resources (Niemiec, 2017). For example, to develop a talent, which is something that a person is inherently good at, one should exercise self-regulation, perseverance, and zest (Niemiec, 2017). While talents and skills may worsen, resources, such as friends or family, maybe lost over time, character strengths always remain in a person’s nature (Niemiec, 2017). For this reason, it would be beneficial for anyone to invest time and effort in developing positive personality traits.
There are several subgroups of character strengths, depending on the degree to which they are present within a person. Signature strengths are qualities that are the most characteristic of an individual and are used the most naturally and frequently (Niemiec, 2017). Happiness strengths are associated with life satisfaction and include love, zest, gratitude, hope, and curiosity (Niemiec, 2017). Middle strengths are supplemental to signature strengths, while lower strengths are traits that are underdeveloped and, therefore, used rarely (Niemiec, 2017). Finally, there are lost strengths that disappeared from one’s personality due to some external influences, such as an authority figure or cultural restrictions (Niemiec, 2017). This subdivision implies that, initially, a person possesses all positive traits, but over time, some of them become dominant while other ones remain underdeveloped or dormant.
Definition of Well-Being
Generally, character strengths improve well-being, but scholars have different opinions as to what is considered well-being. There are two points of view on this concept: hedonic and eudaimonic (Harzer, 2016). Hedonists believe that well-being is determined by “pleasures and happiness” (Harzer, 2016, p. 310). In psychology, it is usually called subjective well-being, meaning “frequent positive affect, infrequent negative affect, and high life satisfaction” (Harzer, 2016, p. 310). The eudaimonic point of view is different since it suggests that personal growth and the fulfillment of one’s potential is the key to life satisfaction; psychologists call this perspective psychological well-being (Harzer, 2016). These two viewpoints focus on different things when defining factors contributing to one’s happiness.
However, the most comprehensive explanation of well-being was proposed by Seligman. He argued that this concept comprised both hedonic and eudaimonic elements (Wagner et al., 2019). According to Seligman, well-being consists of positive emotions, positive relationships, engagement, accomplishment, and meaning (as cited in Wagner et al., 2019). Engagement means being completely focused on a task; meaning is leading a purposeful life; accomplishment means having goals and ambitions (Wagner et al., 2019). If a person pursues each of these components, he or she will experience overall well-being.
Relationship Between Character Strengths and Well-Being
Numerous studies show that character strengths contribute to both subjective and psychological well-being. Some of them have a greater influence on life satisfaction, for example, love, gratitude, curiosity, hope, and zest (Harzer, 2016). Other character strengths, such as modesty, creativity, appreciation, and love of learning, have less impact, but none of them has a negative effect on people’s happiness (Harzer, 2016). The most important traits for subjective and psychological well-being are zest, hope, and curiosity (Harzer, 2016). Zest means feeling full of energy; hope is believing that something good will happen in the future; curiosity implies expressing interest and looking for new experiences (Harzer, 2016). Thus, it makes sense to cultivate at least these three qualities in order to achieve greater well-being.
There is also an association between underuse and overuse of particular character strengths as compared to their optimal use. The study by Freidlin et al. (2017) showed that when positive traits were utilized moderately, they contributed to individuals’ well-being. However, excessive or insufficient use of character strengths was likely to lead to mental health impairments, such as depression or social anxiety disorder (Freidlin et al., 2017). At the same time, underuse of character strengths had a greater probability of negative outcomes than the overuse of them (Freidlin et al., 2017). For example, people who underused self-regulation, zest, and humor, and overused humility were more likely to experience social anxiety (Freidlin et al., 2017). These findings imply that individuals should make efforts to recognize their character strengths and the extent to which they are developed. Further improvement of underdeveloped positive traits may enhance people’s well-being.
Positive Psychological Interventions
Research into the relationship between character strengths and well-being is important not only because it helps to understand how personality traits influence the experience of happiness. Another reason for its importance is that it provides individuals with ideas of how their well-being can be improved. Recent studies show that personality is not something unchangeable, so personal qualities may be intentionally developed or eroded (Niemiec, 2017). Based on this knowledge, researchers have begun to create techniques designed to help people increase their happiness, and these methods are referred to as positive psychological interventions (PPIs) (Parks & Titova, 2016). The purpose of PPIs is to help people cope with their negative emotions and enhance their positive feelings for a long time (Parks & Titova, 2016). The interventions involve different activities that are intended to improve particular character strengths. For example, to improve well-being through the development of gratitude, people could be asked to keep a log with reflections about their feeling grateful for something (Parks & Titova, 2016). PPIs can be self-administered, which makes them a convenient tool for people who aim at improving their well-being through self-development.
Practical Application in Personal Life
Now that I have identified the purpose of positive psychology and the role of personal qualities in enhancing well-being, I can determine how these concepts relate to my life. First of all, research into positive psychology has helped me to understand what makes people feel happy. Not material things or money but positive emotions, the experience of flow states, close relationships, a sense of purpose, and ambitions contribute to one’s life satisfaction (Wagner et al., 2019). It means that in order to improve my well-being, I need to increase the amount of these positive things in my life.
Furthermore, this research has helped me to understand the significance of personality traits for one’s feeling of happiness. Given this knowledge, I can take action to identify my signature strengths, as well as qualities that I need to develop to enhance my well-being. To perform this, I can take a test based on the Values-in-Action (VIA) classification of strengths, which is commonly used for assessing personality traits (Wagner et al., 2019). As soon as I know what qualities are my signature strengths and what my lower strengths are, I will be able to search for self-administered PPIs that may help me to improve my underdeveloped strengths and make my life more meaningful.
Conclusion
To sum up, the aim of positive psychology is to help people enhance their happiness by increasing the number of positive experiences. One of its key topics is character strengths, that is, 24 positive personality traits that contribute to an individual’s well-being. Since personal qualities are liable to changes, people can enhance their life satisfaction by cultivating their underdeveloped character strengths. Research into the relationship between personality traits and well-being has helped me to understand how I can become happier and more satisfied with life. I can also share this knowledge with others, thus contributing to the overall public well-being.
References
Freidlin, P., Littman-Ovadia, H., & Niemiec, R. M. (2017). Positive psychopathology: Social anxiety via character strengths underuse and overuse. Personality and Individual Differences, 108, 50-54.
Gander, F., Hofmann, J., Proyer, R. T., & Ruch, W. (2019). Character strengths – stability, change, and relationships with well-being changes. Applied Research in Quality of Life. Web.
Harzer, C. (2016). The eudaimonic of human strengths: The relations between character strengths and well-being. In J. Vittersø (Ed.), International handbooks of quality-of-life (pp. 307-322). Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
Niemiec, R. M. (2017). Character strengths interventions: A field guide for practitioners. Göttingen, Germany: Hogrefe Publishing.
Parks, A. C., & Titova, L. (2016). Positive psychological interventions. In A. M. Wood & J. Johnson (Eds.), The Wiley handbook of positive clinical psychology (pp. 305-320). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Wagner, L., Gander, F., Proyer, R. T., & Ruch, W. (2019). Character strengths and PERMA: Investigating the relationships of character strengths with a multidimensional framework of well-being. Applied Research in Quality of Life. Web.