Staying Strong and Positive for Ourselves and Our Children Character Strengths and Well‐Being Host: Tamar Blanchard, M.A. Ph.D. Candidate Co‐host: Katthe Wolf Ways to Engage AGREEMENTS • Speak From Your Own Experience (Use I statements) • Golden Rule: Treat other people the way you want to be treated • Full Presence: Please no multi-tasking CHARACTER Presentation by Tamar STRENGTHS AND Blanchard, M.A. WELL-BEING Ph.D. Candidate ◦ 1) What are character strengths? ◦ 2) Research on relationship between character strengths and well-being ◦ 3) How can we practically apply our Outline knowledge of character strengths to promote well-being and/or flourishing in our lives? ◦ 4) Conclusions What are character strengths? ◦ Positive and socially desired attributes or dispositions that vary across people (Peterson & Seligman, 2004). ◦ Components of personality that are universally valued for their contributions to the larger social good (McGrath, Hall-Simmonds, & Goldberg, in press). ◦ Like other personality traits, strengths exist by degree, in that people demonstrate different levels of each strength and express them more or less in different contexts (Niemiec, 2013). ◦ Unlike personality traits, character strengths are defined by their distinct relationship to morality and what is right and wrong (Fleeson, Furr, Jayawickreme, Meindl, & Helzer, 2014). VIA Character Strengths ◦ 24 character strengths ◦ Generalizable across cultures and age groups (McGrath, 2016; McGrath & Walker, 2016) ◦ Cluster into 6 virtues Transcendence Humanity Wisdom Temperance Courage Justice Which Character Strengths Relate to Happiness? ◦ Character strengths associated with life satisfaction: Hope, zest, love and gratitude (e.g., Buschor, Proyer, & Ruch, 2013; Peterson, Ruch, Beerman, Park, & Seligman, 2007), as well as many other strengths (Martinez-Marti & Ruch, 2014)! ◦ Predict response to therapy: Hope, appreciation of beauty, spirituality, zest, humor, gratitude, and forgiveness all predicted a decrease in depression symptoms among depressed participants who attended cognitive behavioral therapy (Huta & Hawley, 2010) Character strengths Interventions ◦ Gratitude interventions: decrease depressive symptoms and increase happiness (Mongrain & Anselmo-Matthews, 2012; Seligman, Steen, Park, & Peterson, 2005) ◦ Interventions that targeted other strengths, such as humor, kindness, hope, and love, boosted happiness and decreased symptoms of depression (Proyer, Wellenzohn, Gander, & Ruch, 2015) ◦ You can increase happiness using your strengths! Positive Emotions Engagement Flourishing Relationships = PERMA Meaning Accomplishment We feel pleasant emotions in relation to many activities. One way we can feel Positive these is to reflect on something good that happened during our day and share it emotions with others. (Lambert and colleagues, 2011) Exercise: Share something good that happened to you today. Name the character strengths that you used that contributed to the good experience and feelings. Three Good Things REFLECT: Think back on today and reflect on the good things that occurred RECORD: Write down 3 things that went well and why they went well REVIEW: Look for the strengths that you/others used https://www.viacharacter.org/pdf/threegoodthings3.pdf Using your strengths at work is related to much higher Engagement levels of flourishing! (Hone et al., 2015; Langer, 2006; Proyer et al., 2013). Exercise: Engage in a household chore or a task at work by thinking of 3 novel things about the activity while you do it. Use your senses and your mindful awareness to experience the task in this new way. Couples who appreciate Relationships each other’s character strengths have more happiness in the relationship (Kashdan et al., 2017). Exercise: Name one example of how your partner or someone you love has used each of their top 3 strengths in an admirable way. Share this with them and explain why this is important to you. Using your strengths at work is also related to experiencing Meaning more meaning at work, and seeing your work as a “calling” (Harzer & Ruch, 2016) Exercise: Align one of your signature strengths with your top 3 work tasks (e.g., running a meeting, filing papers, emailing a customer). Achievement Having clear goals helps us accomplish more and plan out how to best reach our goals. Best goals are specific and realistic. Hope is a big part of having and reaching for goals (Cheavens et al., 2006) Exercise: Set a goal of something you would like to accomplish. Build hope by thinking of at least 3 ways you can achieve your goal and at least 3 positive thoughts you can use to motivate yourself to stay focused on it. Noticing and fostering strengths in children ◦ Look over the strengths and see which ones your children use most ◦ VIA-Youth ◦ Review 3 good things with children at the end of the day during bedtime or over dinner ◦ Point out to your children when you see them use the strengths (ex: I see how much you value your relationships with your friends. I admire how much effort you put into keeping in touch with them) ◦ Set goals with your kids (a family goal or personal goal for the child) and work towards the goal while you shelter in place Conclusions ◦ Knowing our character strengths and using them can help us achieve greater satisfaction and flourishing ◦ Try some of these strategies daily! ◦ We all have different strengths! Think about and share the strengths that you appreciate in others. Think about how your and your family’s strengths complement each other! ◦ Check out your character strengths at viacharacter.org References 1. Buschor, C., Proyer, R. T., & Ruch, W. (2013). Self- and peer-rated character strengths: How do they relate to satisfaction with life and orientations to happiness? Journal of Positive Psychology, 8, 116-127. 2. Cheavens, J. S., Feldman, D. B., Gum, A., Michael, S. T., & Snyder, C. R. (2006). Hope therapy in a community sample: A pilot investigation. Social Indicators Research, 77(1), 61–78. 3. Fleeson, W., Furr, R. M., Jayawickreme, E., Meindl, P., & Helzer, E. G. (2014). Character: the prospects for a personality-based perspective on morality. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 8, 178- 191. 4. Harzer, C., & Ruch, W. (2016). Your strengths are calling: Preliminary results of a web-based strengths intervention to increase calling. Journal of Happiness Studies, 17(6), 2237–2256. 5. Hone, L. C., Jarden, A., Duncan, S., & Schofield, G. M. (2015). Flourishing in New Zealand workers: Associations with lifestyle behaviors, physical health, psychosocial, and work-related indicators. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 57(9), 973–983. 6. Huta, V., & Hawley, L. (2010). Psychological strengths and cognitive vulnerabilities: Are they two ends of the same continuum or do they have independent relationships with well- being and ill-being? Journal of Happiness Studies, 11, 71–93. 7. Kashdan, T. B., Blalock, D. V., Young, K. C., Machell, K. A., Monfort, S. S., McKnight, P. E., & Ferssizidis, P. (2017). Personality strengths in romantic relationships: Measuring perceptions of benefits and costs and their impact on personal and relational well-being. Psychological Assessment. Advance online publication. 8. Lambert, N. M., Gwinn, A. M., Fincham, F. D., & Stillman, T. F. (2011). Feeling tired? How sharing positive experiences can boost vitality. International Journal of Wellbeing, 1(3), 307-314. 9. Langer, E. (2006). 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