Abstract

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.

Keywords

ZestPsychologyGratitudeCuriosityCharacter (mathematics)Life satisfactionSocial psychologyBeautyAction (physics)CreativityAesthetics

Affiliated Institutions

Related Publications

Publication Info

Year
2004
Type
article
Volume
23
Issue
5
Pages
603-619
Citations
1673
Access
Closed

External Links

Download PDF (Free) View on DOI.org Semantic Scholar

Social Impact

Altmetric
PlumX Metrics

Social media, news, blog, policy document mentions

Citation Metrics

1673
OpenAlex
140
Influential
1085
CrossRef

Cite This

Nansook Park, Christopher Peterson, Martin E. P. Seligman (2004). Strengths of Character and Well-Being. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology , 23 (5) , 603-619. https://doi.org/10.1521/jscp.23.5.603.50748

Identifiers

DOI
10.1521/jscp.23.5.603.50748

Data Quality

Data completeness: 77%