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Excerpted and reformatted from my Master’s Thesis in Psychology and Counseling;
An Exploration of Positive Psychology and the Application Its Main Tenets to Mental Health Counseling,
2004

Major strides in prevention of dysfunction have resulted from a perspective focused on systematically building competency, not on correcting weakness (Seligman & Peterson, 2003). Positive psychologists have discovered that human strengths act as buffers against mental illness (Keyes and Lopez, 2002).

The basic assumption that operates in regards to human strengths and the Positive Psychology Movement is that the possession and utilization of human strengths buffers against the development of mental illness and is the pathway towards mental health. Developing, nourishing, uncovering and cultivating human strengths is believed to lead to the resolution of mental disorder, protect against the occurrence of mental disorder, leverage the absence of mental disorder into mental health, and eventually lead to a life of "flourishing" (Keyes & Haidt, 2003a). The underlying principle of the Positive Psychology Movement that is related to increased mental health is that one should take one’s strengths as seriously as one does one’s weaknesses (Lopez, et al., 2003).

The Identification and Development of Human Strengths

Seligman believes that the notion of good character is a core assumption of Positive Psychology. He contends that the way to "the good life" is centered "around polishing and deploying your strengths, then using them to buffer against your weaknesses and the trials that weaknesses bring" (Seligman, 2002a, p.160).

With the birth of the social sciences, the focus of scientific inquiry shifted from "characterological explanations" for human actions to "positive environmentalism" (Seligman, 2002a, p.127). Human behavior shifted from being explained by good or bad character to being the result of "large and toxic environmental forces beyond the control of mere individuals" (Seligman, 2002a, p. 127). Character was expunged from the science of psychology because it was viewed as "value laden, blame-accruing, religiously inspired, class oppressing notion" (Seligman, 2002a, p.127). Character played no role in the psychology of behaviorism or in the nurturing environment camp. Gordon Allport, the father of modern personality theory, took the concepts of character and virtues into psychology under the more neutral, scientific sounding word - personality (Himmelfarb, 1996).

Seligman maintains that "character… does not come about solely from the environment, and perhaps hardly at all from the environment" (Seligman, 2002a, p.129). He also maintains that it is not psychology’s job to be prescriptive but rather to be descriptive. It is not psychology’s job to tell which virtues/strengths a person should have but rather to describe the key virtues/strengths and to describe the consequences of these virtues/ strengths.

Values in Action Project

It is generally agreed that before designing interventions that will improve character psychology must first know more about what it is the intervention is designed to improve. Thus, it must first design a classification scheme and a way of measuring character. This classification of virtues/ strengths – Positive Psychology Movement’s answer to the DSM - is the backbone of the Positive Psychology Movement.

The starting place for the Positive Psychology Movement is the creation of an authoritative classification or set of categories reflecting areas of human excellence. Positive clinical psychology can not make much progress as long as it uses the language of disease and deficiency. "The positive classification that is envisioned can be thought of as the un-DSM" (Seligman & Peterson, 2003).

The Positive Psychology Movement has set out to enumerate what characteristics of a person would lead to more positive functioning and experience in life. The Values In Action (VIA) Project (Peterson, 2003), under the direction of Christopher Peterson and George Vaillant, has begun its search for human characteristics that are accepted cross-culturally and are stable across situations and across time. The VIA project has seven criteria it uses to qualify a human characteristic as a strength. These criteria include:

• It has generality across situations and stability across time.
• It is celebrated when present and mourned when absent.
• Parents try to inculcate strengths within their children.
• Society provides institutions and associated rituals for cultivating these strengths.
• Culture provides role models and parables that illustrate a strength in compelling fashion.
• There exist prodigies with respect to a strength.
• It must be recognized and valued in almost every major subculture. (Seligman & Peterson, 2003)

After researching major readings in the various religious and cultural traditions "to our surprise, almost every single one of these traditions flung across three thousand years and the entire face of the earth endorsed six virtues" (Seligman, 2002a, p. 132)

A tentative enumeration of the virtues and strengths is contained in the Values in Action Project (Peterson, 2003). The six virtues include

1. Wisdom and Knowledge
2. Courage
3. Love and Humility
4. Justice
5. Temperance
6. Spirituality and Transcendence

These six virtues are "the core characteristics endorsed by almost all religious and philosophical traditions and taken together they capture the notion of good character" (Seligman, 2002a, p.132). The corresponding strengths for the six virtues-

1. Wisdom and Knowledge:

• curiosity
• interest
• love of learning
• judgment
• critical thinking
• open-mindedness
• perspective

2. Courage:

• valor
• industry
• perseverance
• integrity
• honesty
• authenticity
• zest
• enthusiasm

3. Love and Humility

• intimacy
• reciprocal attachment
• kindness
• generosity
• nurturance
• social intelligence
• personal intelligence
• emotional intelligence

4. Justice

• citizenship
• duty
• loyalty
• teamwork
• equity
• fairness
• leadership

5. Temperance

• forgiveness
• mercy
• modesty
• humility
• prudence
• caution
• self-control
• self-regulation

6. Spirituality and Transcendence

• awe
• wonder
• appreciation of beauty and excellence
• gratitude
• hope
• optimism
• future-mindedness
• playfulness
• humor
• spirituality
• sense of purpose
• faith
• religiousness

These are the means, routes, or pathways to achieve the realization of these virtues (Seligman & Peterson, 2003). Each of the strengths is measurable and acquirable.

Signature Strengths

The Values in Action Project distinguishes strengths

• that a person self-consciously owns,
• that are strengths of character,
• that a person is aware of and is happy to be able to do,
• that a person exercises and leverages in his everyday life, and
• that a person ultimately feels is an authentic expression of herself or himself

as signature strengths (Peterson, 2003). Signature strengths should be nourished, supported and used everyday in every aspect of a person’s life.

To qualify as signature strength, a strength must meet the following criteria:

• A sense of ownership and authenticity ("This is the real me")
• A feeling of excitement while displaying it, particularly at first
• A rapid learning curve as the strength is first practiced
• Continuous learning of new ways to enact the strength
• A sense of yearning to find new ways to use it
• A feeling of inevitability in using the strength ("Try and stop me")
• Invigoration rather than exhaustion while using the strengths
• The creation and pursuit of personal projects that revolve around it
• Joy, zest, enthusiasm, even ecstasy while using it (Seligman, 2002a, p.160)

Strengths, Talents, Abilities and Beyond

The research still has yet to distinguish between strengths, talents, abilities, and skills. There is still a very fuzzy and debatable distinction among those characteristics. At this point the major features separating them is:

…talents and abilities on the face of it seem more innate, more immutable, and less voluntary than strengths and virtues. There is a limit on how much of a talent you can acquire. Talents are viewed as relatively automatic in that you either have a talent or you don’t. Talents and abilities seem valued more for their tangible consequences (acclaim, wealth) than in their own right (Seligman & Peterson, 2003, p.309).

The Positive Psychology Movement clearly identifies strengths as moral traits. Talents are viewed as nonmoral and are generally not as buildable as strengths. Strengths "can be built on even frail foundations, and I believe that with enough practice, persistence, good teaching and dedication, they can take root and flourish" (Seligman, 2002a, p.135).

Strengths are "a psychological characteristic that can be seen across different situations and over time" (Seligman, 2002a, p.137). Strengths are valued in their own right. Strengths often produce good outcomes, but it is the strength itself that is valued and not just the outcome. Strengths are undertaken for their own sake and not just for the consequences that are produced by them.

Strengths are qualities and states that we desire for their own sake. Parents wish for their children to have the strengths. Strengths and virtues are enacted in win-win situations. They produce positive emotions in the doer and "elevate and inspire" (Seligman, 2002a, p.138) onlookers. The culture supports the acquisition and development of strengths by providing "institutions, rituals, role models, parables, maxims, and children’s stories" (Seligman, 2002a, p.138) that foster these strengths.

The Positive Psychology Movement contends that the VIA strengths compose basic human potential and human dispositions similar to the capacity for language development in humans. Which strength actually forms and takes hold in each individual will depend upon an array of circumstances present during the early years. The entire set of strengths will drift in the direction of each individual’s core set of directions depending on how they are shaped and perceived in the first years of life. One can choose not only to nurture and build his or her strengths but also to acquire them in the first place. The Positive Psychology Movement has the standpoint that any one can acquire the six virtues and their strengths and that each person will have a set of core strengths that can be leveraged and developed (Seligman, 2002a).

There is no evidence for this yet. It may be that each individual has an inherent predisposition for the display of certain strengths over others and regardless of the circumstances these strengths will form as the core set of strengths. Would our time be better spent in identifying and leveraging our key signature strengths and simply compensating for our weaknesses or lack of strength (Buckingham & Clifton, 2001)? Alternatively, would our time be better spent in fully developing ourselves to display more of the 24 VIA strengths? Both possibilities present interesting lines of future study and research. Until such time as the matter is more fully understood, one should proceed with interest, curiosity and exploration when deciding if it is a worthwhile and noble task or an expensive and frustrating task to educate oneself or another in the obtainment of a strength which one is lacking.

Will and personal responsibility play a paramount role in the exercise of the virtues and strengths. If the goal is to improve the lives of ordinary normal people then it is necessary to leverage the concepts of will and personal responsibility. "Building strengths and virtues and using them in daily life are very much a matter of making choices. Building strength and virtue is not about learning, training or conditioning, but about discovery, creation, and ownership" (Seligman, 2002a, p.136). The identification and exploration of one’s strengths and virtues becomes its own intervention. Will and personal responsibility to lead the best life will take over and lead into "discovery, creation, and ownership" (Seligman, 2002a, p.136).

The Positive Psychology Movement is rooted in a simple formula for experiencing success, mastery and happiness in life: "Use your signature strengths every day in the main realms of your life to bring abundant gratification and authentic happiness" (Seligman, 2002a, p.161). Use your signature strengths in the service of something larger than your personal life to experience the meaningful life.

© Copyright 1997 - 2008 by Mary Ann Copson and Evenstar. All rights reserved.

About the Author:
Mary Ann Copson is the founder of the Evenstar Mood & Energy Wellness Center for Women. With Master's Degrees in Human Development and Psychology and Counseling, Mary Ann is a Certified Licensed Nutritionist; Certified Holistic Health Practitioner; Brain Chemistry Profile Clinician; and a Health, Wellness and Lifestyle Coach. Reconnect to your physical, emotional, mental, psychological and spiritual natural rhythms at
http://evenstaronline.com

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