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This paper aims to examine how character strengths have an important dual role in mental health in both promoting well-being and mental wellness and also in reducing symptoms and suffering. While there are many studies that have touched upon variables that character strengths can enhance for mental well-being or reduce for suffering, the author actually knows very little about how character strengths might relate to or impact mental health.

A large-scale study of 12,050 individuals was conducted to explore the self-perceived character strengths that are most helpful for mental health, for handling physical adversity, for handling social adversity and for fostering psychological well-being.

Some character strengths showed a general effect – showing a strong perceived impact across multiple domains – such as love, perspective, kindness, hope, humor and curiosity. Other character strengths showed a specific effect in that there was a strong perceived impact in one domain, such as perseverance and self-regulation for physical health, spirituality and social intelligence for social health and creativity for mental health. A strength-based approach to understanding and managing emotions was substantially more preferred than cognitive or behavioral approaches. Other findings examined the character strengths most desired to be improved upon for mental health.

The research strategy was cross-sectional, thereby causality cannot be determined. Because of the large sample size, researchers are encouraged to consider examining the findings in intervention studies.

This study indicates that character strengths are highly relevant for mental health, all 24 character strengths are possible pathways to impact mental health (some more than others) and individuals can readily connect ways they can use their character strengths to positively improve their well-being and manage their suffering.

Character strengths and their substantial positive potential provide an avenue for public impact on a large scale.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first known study to directly examine multiple intersections among mental health and character strengths in a large sample.

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate how the values in action (VIA) character strengths model can be applied as a resource to support people in addiction recovery. The purpose of this is to appreciate the positive outcomes seen in other areas of research, applied to addiction recovery. To achieve this, a character strengths intervention has been designed and delivered as a case study. The objective of the intervention is to identify some of the strengths described by an individual in their account of recovery, ascertain their signature strengths through validated assessment and, based on the exploration of this information, support the individual in a reflective exercise to consider how their character strengths have positively affected their recovery to date and the effect this new knowledge could have on their ongoing recovery.

The VIA character strengths model has identified 24 positive qualities that are present in the human condition. In this case study, the VIA model is used to identify strengths from a first-hand account of the recovery process; the VIA character strengths survey is used to ascertain the signature strengths of the participant who is also the author of the account. Information from the strengths identification and VIA survey is explored, and a follow-up e-interview is conducted using questions designed to encourage the participant to reflect on the use of strengths in their present and ongoing recovery.

This case study shows that the VIA model of character strengths can be applied in addiction recovery to help people appreciate how they have used their character strengths in the recovery process, what their signature strengths are and how they can be used with good effect to improve their well-being and future recovery.

In this work, a new broad-spectrum approach using the VIA model of character strengths has been proposed to help people in addiction recovery use their own resources to improve their function, well-being and thus recovery.

The purpose of this study is to examine the Values in Action (VIA) character strengths profile of people in addiction recovery, to identify which strengths are meaningfully represented in this population. This was compared with the generalised profile of a normative population to identify the differentiating features. Reasons for the profile variance and the significance this has for addiction recovery have also been explored.

An independent group design was adopted using purposive sampling. This saw participants (n = 100) complete the VIA Inventory of Strengths-P assessment to establish a character strengths profile for people in addiction recovery. To identify the differences in this profile, a mean score and rank order comparison was conducted, using data taken from a normative population. Additional exploratory analysis was conducted to establish if there were any significant differences in the character strength profile of males and females.

In descending order, the top five ranked strengths were kindness, humour, honesty, fairness and teamwork. The lesser five strengths in the profile were spirituality, zest, perseverance, prudence and self-regulation. A distinguishing feature was the presence of humour as a top five strength for people in addiction recovery. The existence of teamwork also deviated from the generalised normative population. There were two strengths shown to have a meaningfully higher score for females, teamwork and love. This did not change the strengths present in the overall top five for males or females, however.

This study contributes useful knowledge to the understanding of character strengths in addiction recovery. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first time character strengths have been examined in a sample of people in addiction recovery.

This study aims to investigate character strengths, focussing on their development over time and application from a personal perspective.

The research was conducted using an autoethnographic, semi-structured interview approach with two participants: the authors themselves.

This study explored character strengths, their commonalities across generations and how personal experiences shape them. It also highlighted how to encourage others to recognise and use their strengths.

This study also enriches character strengths theory by addressing cultural and generational differences, aligning with positive psychology 3.0 (Lomas et al., 2020). This study also introduces a unique methodological approach to explore character strengths.

This study provides novel insights for personal growth, enhancing psychological evaluations and inter-generational discourse on knowledge transfer through the lens of character strengths. These can be used to develop interventions for a range of populations.

Through this personalised and culturally relevant approach, novel insights into the longitudinal effects of interactions between individual experiences and character strengths were gained. This study emphasised the dynamic nature of strengths and drew parallels to the tenets of Indian psychology, thereby underscoring the significance of strengths as a pivotal next step in the understanding of a person.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the influence of employees’ character strengths of wisdom on stress and creative work performance, assuming stress to be a potential mediator.

The study uses survey questionnaires to gather information. Using the random sampling technique, the data were collected from 753 respondents from 200 organizations of Pakistan. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze data in order to explore proposed relationships.

The findings of the study suggest a positive relationship between wisdom strengths and the creative work performance of employees. In addition, stress was found to be negatively associated with both wisdom strengths and creative work performance.

The study contributes to the existing literature of human resources and positive psychology as the results of the study provide support to develop a link in research between creativity and personality, in general, and character strengths, in particular.

The findings suggest that by incorporating character strengths, firms may develop and foster the means that can expand the bounded rationality of employees to help them promote their creative activity and identify new and better ways to accomplish a task, thus ensuring better performance and increasing the likelihood of human resources becoming a source of competitive advantage.

The study is unique in its scope and implications because it focuses on empirical investigation of the effect of character strengths on stress and creative work performance in the Asian context, particularly in Pakistan.

Nursing students encounter a combination of academic rigor, clinical demands and emotional hurdles. Juggling coursework, practical training and patient interaction can be stressful, and exposure to such situations may impact their psychological well-being. This study aims to highlight the top strengths among nursing students and identify the strengths associated with well-being.

Convenience sampling was used to select a sample of 150 nursing students studying in first, second and third year from colleges of Gujarat and Rajasthan. Students were administered the Values In Action character strengths inventory, the satisfaction with life scale and scale of positive and negative experience. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and correlation.

Results show that among nursing students, kindness emerged as the foremost strength with the highest mean, followed by honesty, creativity, spirituality and teamwork, and the strengths of curiosity, gratitude, perseverance, self-regulation, social intelligence, and zest were positively associated with life satisfaction and positive emotions and negatively related to negative emotions.

The small sample size was a limitation; however, this study has been conducted at different locations to improve generalizability.

This study has profound implications for nursing students, both in their personal development and their future roles as health-care professionals, as fostering these attributes can contribute to the students’ growth, well-being and effectiveness as compassionate and competent caregivers. Working on strengths is associated with well-being; therefore, using strengths identified by this study will have a beneficial effect on the students’ well-being.

Curiosity and social intelligence, for instance, can help nurses better understand patient needs and emotions, developing strengths like perseverance and self-regulation can equip nursing students with tools to cope effectively with the challenges inherent in health-care settings. Traits such as gratitude and social intelligence can enhance communication and empathy which are vital skills for establishing rapport with patients and their families. Emphasizing teamwork as a strength aligns with the collaborative nature of health care. By embodying values like kindness and spirituality, nursing students can create a more compassionate and meaningful experience for patients, as well as themselves.

The research paper identifies and emphasizes the five character strengths that are most commonly observed in a sample of Indian nursing students. In addition, this study delves deeper into these identified strengths to understand how they relate to the overall well-being of nursing students within this specific population. The existing literature has not explored it exhaustively.

The purpose of this study was to examine how well a strength-based program grounded in positive psychology principles can advance the practical critical thinking skills of those pursuing the teacher training course.

This study used a single-group pre-test post-test design with 35 teacher-trainees from the Bachelor of Education course. The two-and-a-half-week strength-based program used the values in action survey to identify strengths. Pre- and post-test scores, measured with the Cornell Critical Thinking Test – Level Z, underwent Statistical Package for Social Sciences analysis including paired samples t-test for subcomponent and overall composite analysis.

Analysis of the pre- and post-test scores demonstrated a statistical significance in the critical thinking scores obtained by the teacher-trainees. Post-test scores were consistently significant. Out of the elements of critical thinking, induction, meaning, observation and credibility were more prominent. Deduction and assumption identification were also having a significant effect.

Most critical thinking programs focus on evaluating specific teaching methods for improving critical thinking skills. In education, positive psychology studies often center on students’ well-being, attention spans and academic success, aligning with wellness programs. Despite the importance of strengths in positive psychology, there is a lack of research on using a strength-based approach to boost critical thinking skills. This study aims to enhance teacher-trainees’ critical thinking by leveraging their individual strengths, moving away from traditional instructional strategies.

The balance patch is an important but not well studied area to maintain game fairness and improve player entertainment. In this paper, we examine the effect of balance patch on player's character preference and further explore the moderating effect of psychological distance and character selection pattern.

In study 1, a web crawler was used to get server-side data of 40, 974 multi-player online battle arena (MOBA) players through official application programming interfaces (APIs). A paired-T test and a stepwise regression were performed to verify the hypothesis. In study 2, a 2-patch type (buff vs nerf) × 2 psychological distance (near vs distant) × 2 character selection pattern (stable vs variable) between-subjects design was adopted to confirm the empirical conclusions through questionnaire survey design and further explored the mediating effect of patch adjustment perception.

The analyzed results showed that the buff patch led to an increase in players' character preference, while the nerf patch led to a decrease in players' character preference. Moreover, the main effect was mediated by patch adjustment perception. Furthermore, psychological distance and character selection pattern both moderated the relationship between balance patch and character preference changes. The character preference of the near psychological distance increased more significantly elicited by buff patches and decreased more significantly in an adverse situation. Similarly, players with variable selection pattern of characters were more sensitive to the stimuli, and the character preference of the variable group changed more significantly than that of the stable group caused by balance patch release.

This paper studies the influence of a patch on the balance of character strength on player preference, which expands the research on game balance and fairness. The present results contribute to the theoretical research on consumer behavior of psychological distance and character selection pattern elicited by balance patches. Meanwhile, the results indicate that psychological distance theory can apply to the study of the relationship between players and virtual characters.

In this study, the authors consider the mediating role of psychological capital (i.e. PsyCap) in the relationship between integrity and academic performance. Specifically, the authors propose that integrity is a relatively stable and distal character strength that is likely to have a minimal direct effect on academic performance. Going further, the authors argue that integrity is more likely to have an indirect effect on academic performance via the psychological resources that encompass one's PsyCap.

Drawing from a sample of 179 undergraduate business students and student grade point average (GPA) data, the authors find support for the notion that PsyCap partially mediates the relationship between integrity and academic performance.

These findings reveal the key role that PsyCap plays in translating a student's integrity toward behaviors that lead to higher levels of academic performance.

Prior research suggests the direct relationship between integrity and academic performance has been mixed. In this study, the authors consider how mediation may help explain this relationship. The authors believe this to be among the first empirical studies to consider integrity, PsyCap and academic performance.