Estimated reading time: 10–12 minutes

What You Will Learn

• What character strengths are and how they differ from talents, skills, and personality traits.

• How the VIA Classification was developed and what its 24 strengths represent.

• Why the six VIA virtues are useful conceptually but are not a perfectly confirmed universal structure.

• What signature strengths are and why they are not always identical to your top five survey scores.

• What current intervention research shows about character strengths and well-being.

• How to use strengths without ignoring weaknesses, context, or structural problems.

What Are Character Strengths?

Character strengths are positive capacities expressed in how people think, feel, and act, including curiosity, fairness, perseverance, and kindness. They concern how we approach situations and other people, rather than only what we can perform well. Someone may be technically accomplished while still needing honesty or teamwork in using that expertise. This distinction explains what strengths add to knowledge and skill: qualities that help shape choices about behavior.

This distinction helps explain why character strengths attracted so much interest. Psychology has long studied symptoms, deficits, intelligence, temperament, and personality. Peterson and Seligman wanted a systematic language for positive qualities of character as well. Their 2004 classification proposed 24 character strengths organized under six broad virtues: wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence. The framework gave researchers and practitioners a common vocabulary for qualities that had previously been discussed across philosophy, religion, education, leadership, and moral psychology.

Character strengths matter because they add another question to personal growth. Alongside “What is wrong?” or “What skill is missing?”, we can ask “What qualities are already available, and how might they be used wisely?” That does not make problems disappear. It broadens the picture of how people function.

The VIA Classification: Useful Framework, Not Final Map of Human Virtue

The 24 VIA strengths include creativity, curiosity, judgment, love of learning, perspective, bravery, perseverance, honesty, zest, love, kindness, social intelligence, teamwork, fairness, leadership, forgiveness, humility, prudence, self-regulation, appreciation of beauty and excellence, gratitude, hope, humor, and spirituality. Peterson and Seligman grouped them under six virtues after reviewing philosophical and religious traditions. Their aim was to identify recurring ideas about good character across cultures and history.

Cross-national research provides meaningful support for broad similarities. A large study involving more than one million respondents from 75 nations found substantial similarity in how people endorsed many strengths, with honesty, fairness, kindness, judgment, and curiosity among the most highly endorsed. Yet participants voluntarily completed online strengths assessments, so the sample cannot be treated as perfectly representative of every culture. Cultural research also shows that societies differ in how particular virtues are valued and expressed.

The six-virtue structure itself deserves similar caution. Factor-analytic studies have often found fewer broad dimensions rather than reproducing the original six exactly, and later work has proposed alternative structures such as caring, inquisitiveness, and self-control. This does not make the VIA framework unhelpful. It means the classification is best treated as a meaningful model for organizing character rather than a final scientific discovery of the universal architecture of virtue.

Character Strengths Are Not the Same as Talents, Skills, or Personality

Talents describe capacities that may support performance, such as musical aptitude. Skills are competencies developed through learning and practice, such as public speaking or coding. Broad personality traits describe relatively stable tendencies, such as extraversion or conscientiousness. Character strengths overlap with personality, but they add a moral and evaluative dimension by describing qualities people and communities tend to regard as desirable ways of thinking, feeling, and acting.

Research shows substantial overlap between VIA strengths and established personality frameworks, including the Five Factor and HEXACO models, although the systems are not fully redundant. The practical value of character strengths lies partly in their language. It is often easier to ask “What would fairness look like in this decision?” than to translate a broad personality score into behavior.

This is also why strengths should not become identity boxes. You possess a repertoire, not one fixed type. A highly curious person may need prudence in one situation and bravery in another. Someone known for kindness may need honesty when kindness has become avoidance of a necessary conversation. Character is expressed through combinations, context, and judgment.

What Signature Strengths Really Mean

Signature strengths are among the most popular ideas in strengths-based practice. They refer to strengths that feel especially central to identity, natural to express, and personally meaningful. Practitioners have often treated the top five scores on the VIA Survey as a convenient proxy, but VIA now explicitly notes that this is a convention rather than a definitive rule. Some people identify fewer than five signature strengths, while others identify more.

The VIA Institute has developed a separate Signature Strengths Survey because rank order alone cannot fully answer the question. A strength can score highly because a current role demands it, because a person values it, or because it genuinely feels essential to who they are. Reflection therefore matters. Which strengths feel characteristic across different parts of your life? Which ones do other people repeatedly notice? Which strengths do you miss when circumstances prevent you from using them? Which qualities feel natural and meaningful rather than simply useful?

A strengths assessment should generate inquiry rather than authority. A profile can offer helpful language, but it should not tell you who you are more decisively than your own behavior, values, relationships, and experience.

Do Character Strengths Actually Improve Well-Being?

The relationship between character strengths and well-being is promising, but it needs careful interpretation. Correlational studies consistently find associations between many strengths and outcomes such as life satisfaction, meaning, engagement, and positive affect. Hope, zest, gratitude, curiosity, and love often show strong relationships with well-being. Yet correlation does not tell us that having more of a strength directly causes flourishing. People who are doing well may also find it easier to express certain strengths.

A 2025 review brought together 162 randomized trials of varied activities associated with strengths and virtues. It found uneven support across strengths, with important gaps in the evidence. These were not all standardized programs using the VIA Survey. The findings therefore cannot validate every exercise carrying a strengths label; interpretation should follow the activity tested and the outcome measured.

Some practices can be useful, but effects differ across people, activities, and settings. Improved well-being also does not by itself establish a change in the targeted strength. Specify what you want to observe, such as a more helpful behavior, progress toward a goal, or a change in experience. Then review what happens, leaving room for limited benefits and adjustment.

Strengths and PERMA: Related, Not Identical

Character strengths are often linked with Seligman’s PERMA model: Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment. The connection is useful because strengths can support activities within each domain. Gratitude may contribute to positive emotion, curiosity to engagement, kindness to relationships, perspective to meaning, and perseverance to accomplishment. But strengths are not the machinery that automatically produces PERMA.

The same strength can contribute to several domains, and different people may reach the same domain through different strengths. PERMA describes areas of well-being, while character strengths describe qualities that may help people engage with those areas. Keeping the distinction clear prevents positive psychology from becoming a rigid checklist.

Use Strengths Wisely Rather Than Simply Using Them More

One of the most useful developments in applied strengths work is the recognition that more is not always better. Kindness can drift into chronic self-sacrifice. Perseverance may become stubbornness when evidence suggests a strategy should change. Honesty can become unnecessarily harsh when social intelligence is ignored. Prudence can protect against reckless decisions while becoming paralyzing if uncertainty must be eliminated before action.

Research on overuse and underuse remains less mature than research on strengths themselves, so it is best treated as a practical framework rather than a settled law. Still, it captures something important: character depends on fit. A more useful question than “What is my strongest quality?” is “Which strength, in what amount, would serve this situation well?”

Lesser strengths matter too. A person high in creativity may benefit from developing self-regulation. Someone naturally forgiving may need bravery to confront repeated harm. A leader who relies on decisiveness may need humility when the group possesses information they do not. Strengths development is about expanding options, not becoming more extreme versions of ourselves.

How to Begin Using Character Strengths

A simple starting point is to take a validated strengths assessment, review the full profile, and test the results against lived experience. Choose one or two strengths that feel important rather than trying to work with all 24. Recall specific moments when the strength helped you handle a challenge well, then connect it to something that matters now. If curiosity is important, enter a difficult meeting with genuine questions rather than only preparing your argument. If gratitude matters, express appreciation for a specific contribution that usually goes unnoticed. If perspective is relevant, examine the same problem from more than one viewpoint before deciding.

Using a strength in a new way can be a useful experiment. Kindness might appear through mentoring a colleague, while creativity might help simplify a daily routine. Novelty provides an opportunity to explore alternatives; it has not been established here as the sole cause of any benefit. Afterwards, ask whether the behavior fitted the situation and what you would repeat or change.

Strengths spotting can also improve how we notice other people. Instead of vague praise, connect the strength with a behavior: “I noticed how fair you were when everyone had competing interests,” or “You stayed with that problem without becoming rigid, which took perseverance and judgment.” Specific observation makes strengths visible rather than turning them into flattering labels.

Why Character Strengths Matter, Without Making Them Everything

Character strengths matter because they provide a practical language for qualities that influence how people meet challenges, make decisions, relate to others, and pursue what they value. They can broaden self-understanding beyond deficits, help people recognize resources they overlook, and create concrete options for action. Contemporary intervention research also shows that some strengths can be cultivated and that doing so can contribute modestly to well-being.

But strengths should never become a complete explanation for success or distress. Mental health conditions require appropriate assessment and care. Skills still need to be learned. Weaknesses sometimes need direct attention. Financial pressure, discrimination, unhealthy relationships, poor leadership, and other structural conditions cannot be solved by asking people to use more hope or perseverance. A strengths approach becomes most credible when it complements rather than replaces the rest of psychology and real-world problem solving.

They are not magical inner resources waiting to unlock an ideal life. They are ordinary human qualities that become more useful when recognized accurately, matched to real circumstances, and practiced with judgment.

A Repertoire Beyond a Survey Ranking

Character strengths provide a language for noticing capacities and connecting them with specific situations. Start with an example from your life and choose one action worth trying. Do not let a survey ranking prevent you from using a less prominent strength when it is needed. The practical value lies in expanding your options and choosing more accurately what helps you and others.

References

• Cebolla, A., Fernández-Castilla, B., Lecuona, O., et al. (2026). Efficacy of cultivating human strengths and virtues on well-being: A one-stage meta-analytic structural equation modeling approach. Clinical Psychology Review, 124, 102692.
• Cebolla, A., Navarro-Siurana, J., Galante, J., et al. (2025). A synthesis of randomized controlled trials on psychological interventions fostering strengths and virtues: Evidence from 21 systematic reviews. Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being, 17(4), e70069.
• McGrath, R. E. (2015). Character strengths in 75 nations: An update. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 10(1), 41–52.
• McGrath, R. E. (2015). Integrating psychological and cultural perspectives on virtue: The hierarchical structure of character strengths. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 10(5), 407–424.
• McGrath, R. E. (2017). Technical Report: The VIA Assessment Suite for Adults: Development and Evaluation. VIA Institute on Character.
• McGrath, R. E., Hall-Simmonds, A., & Goldberg, L. R. (2020). Are measures of character and personality distinct? Evidence from observed-score and true-score analyses. Assessment, 27(1), 117–135.
• Niemiec, R. M. (2018). Character Strengths Interventions: A Field Guide for Practitioners. Hogrefe.
• Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2004). Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification. Oxford University Press.
• Seligman, M. E. P., Steen, T. A., Park, N., & Peterson, C. (2005). Positive psychology progress: Empirical validation of interventions. American Psychologist, 60(5), 410–421.