Character Strengths: The 24 Strengths, Your Signature Strengths and What the Research Shows
Curiosity, kindness, bravery, humor and 20 more. What the 24 character strengths are, which ones are linked to happiness, and how using your top strengths can make a difference. Take the free character strengths test.
The short answer: Character strengths are positive traits such as curiosity, kindness, bravery, honesty and humor. Psychologists Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman described 24 of them, grouped under six virtues found across cultures and traditions. Everyone has all 24 to some degree, but a handful usually stand out: your signature strengths. Research links some strengths, especially hope, zest, gratitude, love and curiosity, to greater life satisfaction, and suggests that using your top strengths in new ways can make you happier.
You can find your signature strengths with our free character strengths test. It takes about twelve minutes.
Key findings
- There are 24 character strengths under six virtues: wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance and transcendence.
- Across more than a million people in 75 countries, the most common top strengths were honesty, fairness, kindness, judgment and curiosity.
- The least common were self-regulation, modesty, prudence and spirituality, and this pattern was remarkably similar from country to country.
- Hope, zest, gratitude, love and curiosity are the strengths most strongly linked to life satisfaction.
- In a randomized study, using your signature strengths in a new way every day for a week increased happiness and reduced depressive symptoms for months.
- Strengths tend to increase slightly with age, especially curiosity, love of learning, fairness, forgiveness and self-regulation.
- Character strengths overlap with the Big Five, but describe more specific, value-laden qualities.
What are character strengths?
In the early 2000s, Peterson and Seligman set out to create a counterpart to the psychiatric manuals that classify mental disorders: a classification of what is right with people. They reviewed philosophy, religion and psychology across cultures and history, and identified six broad virtues that appear almost everywhere. Under each virtue they placed the character strengths through which the virtue is expressed.
| Virtue | Character strengths |
|---|---|
| Wisdom | Creativity, curiosity, judgment, love of learning, perspective |
| Courage | Bravery, perseverance, honesty, zest |
| Humanity | Love, kindness, social intelligence |
| Justice | Teamwork, fairness, leadership |
| Temperance | Forgiveness, humility, prudence, self-regulation |
| Transcendence | Appreciation of beauty, gratitude, hope, humor, spirituality |
The idea is not that some people have strengths and others do not. Everyone has all 24, in different proportions. The question is which ones come most naturally to you.
Signature strengths
Your signature strengths are the few strengths that stand out most in you. Peterson and Seligman described them as strengths that feel authentic ("this is the real me"), that you enjoy using, and that energise rather than drain you.
A character strengths test ranks your strengths against each other, not against other people. Your top strength is the one that stands out most in you, even if someone else scores higher on it in absolute terms.
Which strengths are most common?
Park, Peterson and Seligman analysed the responses of more than 117,000 adults from 54 countries. In the United States, the most commonly endorsed strengths were kindness, fairness, honesty, gratitude and judgment, while prudence, modesty and self-regulation were among the least endorsed. The profile was strikingly similar in the other countries.
McGrath later repeated the analysis with more than one million people from 75 countries. The most endorsed strengths were honesty, fairness, kindness, judgment and curiosity; the least endorsed were self-regulation, modesty, prudence and spirituality. Although online samples are not representative of whole populations, the similarity across very different cultures suggests something shared about how people see good character.
In a study of more than 17,000 people in the United Kingdom, Linley and colleagues found that women generally scored somewhat higher than men, but four of the top five strengths were the same for both sexes: open-mindedness (judgment), fairness, curiosity and love of learning. Most strengths showed a small increase with age, especially curiosity, love of learning, fairness, forgiveness and self-regulation.
Which strengths are linked to happiness?
Park, Peterson and Seligman studied more than 5,000 adults and found that five strengths were consistently and strongly linked to life satisfaction: hope, zest, gratitude, love and curiosity. The more intellectual strengths, such as appreciation of beauty, creativity, judgment and love of learning, were only weakly linked, as was modesty.
The relationship was also monotonic: having more of a strength did not reduce life satisfaction, so there was no point at which, for example, too much gratitude became a problem.
These are correlations, so they do not prove that the strengths cause happiness. That question needs experiments.
Can using your strengths make you happier?
Seligman, Steen, Park and Peterson tested this in a randomized, placebo-controlled study online. Participants were assigned to one of five happiness exercises or a control exercise. One exercise was to take a strengths test and then use one of your signature strengths in a new and different way every day for a week. Together with two other exercises, it led to lasting increases in happiness and decreases in depressive symptoms.
Proyer, Ruch and Buschor followed this up with a group program for 178 adults in Switzerland. Participants who trained curiosity, gratitude, hope, humor and zest, the strengths most strongly linked to life satisfaction, became more satisfied with life than a wait-list control group. Self-regulation played a special role in who benefited.
Strengths and the Big Five
Character strengths and the Big Five personality traits are related, but not the same. Najderska and Cieciuch studied more than 900 people in Poland using the long IPIP-VIA questionnaire and found that the 24 strengths grouped into four broad factors resembling four of the Big Five traits: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion and agreeableness. Neuroticism had no clear counterpart.
In practice, the two describe personality at different levels. The Big Five describe broad tendencies in how you think, feel and act. Character strengths describe more specific qualities that are valued morally and socially, such as honesty, gratitude or forgiveness. Together they give a richer picture than either alone.
How to use your strengths
- Use a top strength in a new way. Pick one signature strength and find a new way to use it every day for a week. Curious? Try a new route, a new dish or a new topic. Kind? Do something unexpected for someone.
- Bring them into everyday tasks. Look for small ways to use your top strengths in work and free time you already have, rather than waiting for the perfect job or hobby.
- Do not ignore the happiness strengths. Even if hope, zest, gratitude, love and curiosity are not among your top strengths, practising them, for example by writing down things you are grateful for, may still raise well-being.
- Lower strengths are not weaknesses. A strength near the bottom of your list is simply less central to you. You can still use it when you need to.
Find your signature strengths
The free character strengths test has 96 short statements and measures all 24 strengths. It is based on the IPIP-VIA-R, a public-domain questionnaire developed by Bluemke, Partsch, Saucier and Lechner to measure the strengths reliably across countries. You get your five signature strengths with ideas for how to use them, and all 24 strengths grouped under the six virtues.
Then take the Big Five personality test to see how your strengths fit with your broader personality.
Sources
- Bluemke, M., Partsch, M. V., Saucier, G., & Lechner, C. M. (2021). Human character in the IPIP: Towards shorter, more content-valid, and cross-culturally comparable IPIP-VIA character strength scales. PsyArXiv. doi:10.31234/osf.io/k79qf
- Linley, P. A., Maltby, J., Wood, A. M., Joseph, S., Harrington, S., Peterson, C., Park, N., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2007). Character strengths in the United Kingdom: The VIA Inventory of Strengths. Personality and Individual Differences, 43(2), 341–351. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2006.12.004
- McGrath, R. E. (2015). Character strengths in 75 nations: An update. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 10(1), 41–52. doi:10.1080/17439760.2014.888580
- Najderska, M., & Cieciuch, J. (2018). The structure of character strengths: Variable- and person-centered approaches. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 153. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00153
- Park, N., Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2004). Strengths of character and well-being. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 23(5), 603–619. doi:10.1521/jscp.23.5.603.50748
- Park, N., Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2006). Character strengths in fifty-four nations and the fifty US states. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 1(3), 118–129. doi:10.1080/17439760600619567
- Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2004). Character strengths and virtues: A handbook and classification. Oxford University Press.
- Proyer, R. T., Ruch, W., & Buschor, C. (2013). Testing strengths-based interventions: A preliminary study on the effectiveness of a program targeting curiosity, gratitude, hope, humor, and zest for enhancing life satisfaction. Journal of Happiness Studies, 14(1), 275–292. doi:10.1007/s10902-012-9331-9
- 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. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.60.5.410
