Character Strengths & Wellbeing: A Cross-Cultural study
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Character Strengths and Wellbeing: A cross-country study Indiana Baltodano
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What makes some people happier than others? Are there certain character strengths that enhance happiness and wellbeing? If so, will working on developing and using these positive strengths allow us be happier people? The present study starts to address these questions by considering a cross-country comparison of character strengths and well-being.
Transcript of Character Strengths & Wellbeing: A Cross-Cultural study
Character Strengths and
Wellbeing: A cross-country study
Indiana Baltodano
Driving Questions
Background
Love, hope, gratitude, curiosity, and zest have been found to be the strengths with the highest correlations to happiness and life satisfaction in the United States (Peterson et al, 2007)
Also associated with the three orientations to happiness: hedonism, eudaimonia, and engagement (Peterson et al., 2007)
Background
BUT, do these associations between these character strengths and wellbeing remains across populations?
“Life satisfaction in a given nation entails living in accordance with the strengths especially valued in that nation” (Peterson et al., 2007, p.154)
Background
Mexico & India: more collectivist cultures Latin America: strong family values +
community interconnectedness India: fulfilling responsibilities towards others
as the basis of morality (Seiter and Nelson, 2010)
US, UK, France: individualism, democracy Notion of equity – based on individual
contribution + merit; fairness (Walster, Walster & Bersheid, 1978)
Hypotheses
The strengths most strongly correlated with well being in India and Mexico will reflect their collectivist cultures.
The strengths most strongly correlated with well being in the United States, United Kingdom, and France will be strengths that reflect their individualistic societies.
Indian and Mexico will have more strengths predictive of well-being in common with each other than with the other three countries, whereas the US, the UK, and France will show more similarities in their correlates of well-being amongst each other than with either Mexico or India.
Participants
Sample: individuals that completed personal assessments on Authentic Happiness website in all five countries (www.authentichappiness.org)
Overall sample size: 734,721 Brief VIA: 259,630
GHQ: 64,062 SWL: 39,027
Full VIA: 475,091 GHQ: 54,911 SWL: 44,770
Breakdown by country and scale
France UK US India Mexico
Brief VIA 1,092 32,429222,73
6 2,432 941
GHQ 288 7369 55843 358 204
SWL 165 4423 34095 235 109
Full VIA 1,233 45,524423,80
2 3,101 1,431
GHQ 202 5766 48548 254 141
SWL 164 4372 39901 211 122
Total (Brief+ Full) 2,32577,953
646,538 5,533 2,372
Measures
Analytical Procedure
Results
Top 5 Strengths
US UK France India Mexico
1 Honesty Fairness Curiosity Fairness Curiosity
2 Kindness Open-mindedness
Love of Learning
Honesty Fairness
3 Fairness Kindness Open mindedness
Open Mindedness
Open-mindedness
4 Open-minded
Curiosity Fairness Kindness Honesty
5 Curiosity Honesty Kindness Leadership
Gratitude
Top 5 Strengths by country: Full VIA
Results
US UK France India Mexico
1 Zest Zest Zest Hope Hope
2 Hope Hope Hope Zest Zest
3 Gratitude Gratitude Curiosity Humor Gratitude
4 Love Curiosity Humor Gratitude Curiosity
5 Curiosity Humor Gratitude Curiosity Spirituality
Strengths with strongest correlations with general happiness by country: Full VIA
Results
US UK France India Mexico
1 Hope Zest Hope Zest Zest
2 Zest Hope Zest Gratitude Hope
3 Love Gratitude Love Hope Love
4 Gratitude Love Curiosity Social intelligence
Forgiveness
5 Curiosity Curiosity Social intelligence
Citizenship
Persistence
Strengths with strongest correlations with satisfaction with life by country: Full VIA
Discussion
More similarities in strengths with strongest/weakest correlations with happiness and satisfaction with life across countries than expected
Strongest correlations with happiness across ALL countries: zest, hope, curiosity, gratitude – amongst top 5 strongest correlations with happiness
Correlations with SWL across ALL countries – hope, zest All except India: Love US,UK, France: Curiosity
Similarities across countries
Similarities in strengths with weakest correlations to: Happiness:
ALL: humbleness, appreciation with beauty US, UK, France: Prudence, open-mindedness India, Mexico, US: love of learning
Satisfaction with life: ALL: Appreciation of beauty US, UK, France: humbleness, creativity India & Mexico: love of learning
US
France
India
Mexico
Strengths of the heart vs. strengths of the mind
Summary
