Relationship between character strengths and personality traits

Abstract

The objective of this study was to determine which Character Strengths can be predicted by Personality traits using the instruments Forças de Caráter (Character Strengths Scale) and Bateria Fatorial de Personalidade (Factor Personality Questionnaire). A total of 217 university students, with an average age of 22 years participated in this study; 53% were female. The results indicated that the strengths Vitality, Gratitude, Persistence, Spirituality, Kindness, Humor, Social Intelligence, Citizenship, Fairness, and Creativity were best explained by the traits Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. Moreover, Extraversion and Agreeableness were the traits that were most often associated with the Character Strengths. The findings were discussed in the light of relevant literature, and further studies were recommended.Keywords: Evaluation; Personality; Positive psychology. Character Strengths are positive psychological traits reflected in thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Resumo O objetivo deste estudo foi investigar quais Forças de Caráter podem ser preditas pelos traços de Personalidade, utilizando-se os instrumentos Escala de Forças de Caráter e BateriaThey were classified by Peterson and Seligman (2004) to represent positive stable traits over time.

Character strengths in the Brazilian northeast region: Contributions of personality beyond age and sex

“…The extroversion trait entered as a predictor variable of most strengths. Corroborating with Noronha and Campos (2018), as well as Depaula et al (2016), in expressing that extroversion is one of the best predictors of character strengths. Its relation with character strengths therefore happens because extroverted individuals demonstrate more energy, enthusiasm and search for a harmonious social relation, demonstrating joy and happiness in their daily lives, use of character strengths to look for new things to learn, to deal with difficulties and experience the feeling of being an active person (Johnsen, 2014).…”

“…In research, these five personality factors are taken as explanatory variables of different psychological phenomena. It is worth noting the significant relationship between happiness (Goldsmith, 2017), selfesteem (Pilarska, 2018), resilience (Oshio, Taku, Hirano, & Saeed, 2018) and, as previously mentioned, with character strengths (Neto et al, 2014, Noronha & Campos, 2018. In this way, in order to achieve the proposed objectives, it is presented evidence of the relationship and the prediction of personality traits with the character strengths, controlling the effect of demographic variables (age and sex).…”

“…In addition, relationships with resilience (Haridas, Bhullar, & Dunstan, 2017), parental styles (Noronha & Batista, 2017), cultural intelligence (Depaula et al, 2016), life satisfaction (Noronha & Martins, 2016), subjective well-being (Oliveira, Nunes, Legal, & Noronha, 2016), among others. In this paper, we present the results of the present study (Neto et al, 2014;Noronha & Campos, 2018), which is also the focus of the present research.…”

“…Specifically in Brazil, Noronha and Campos (2018) demonstrate that personality traits contribute to the explanation of strengths, however, they assert that there is still no consensus about the relationship and suggest new studies, since they restricted the sample in two states of the Southeast region, and only used university students. From this and all the above, the following question has been asked: How do personality traits explain character strengths, controlling the effect of age and sex?…”

“…Among them, the studies that theoretically and empirically approach strengths as personality traits (Neto et al, 2014;Noronha & Campos, 2018) are highlighted, a construct that, being the focus of the present investigation, will be introduced next.…”