Speaker 1: Welcome to the Psychology Podcast, where we give you insights
Speaker 1: into the mind, brained behavior and creativity. I'm doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, and in each episode I have a conversation
Speaker 1: with a guest who will stimulate your mind and give
Speaker 1: you a greater understanding of yourself, others, and the world
Speaker 1: to live in. Hopefully we'll also provide a glimpse into
Speaker 1: human possibility. Thanks for listening and enjoy the podcast today.
Speaker 1: It's an honor to have Ryan Niemick and Robert McGrath
Speaker 1: on the podcast. Ryan is an author or co author
Speaker 1: of nine books, an award winning psychologist, international keynoteter and
Speaker 1: education director of the VIA Institute and Character. Robert is
Speaker 1: Professor of psychology at Farley Dickinson University, Senior Scientist at
Speaker 1: the VIA Institute, and is published extensively in the topic
Speaker 1: of character and virtue. Together they are author of the
Speaker 1: new book The Power of Character Strengths, Appreciate and Ignite
Speaker 1: your positive personality. Thanks so much for chatting with me today.
Speaker 1: Thanks an honor to be here. Thanks gutt of a question,
Speaker 1: First of all, what is a positive personality? How do
Speaker 1: I know if I have a positive personality? Judged by who. Well,
Speaker 1: I guess I would say that the idea of a
Speaker 1: positive personality has to do with are you someone who
Speaker 1: has really committed yourself to trying to work as well
Speaker 1: as you can in the world with the people around you,
Speaker 1: developing yourself and even contributing to your community. Are those
Speaker 1: things that are really important to you? And if so,
Speaker 1: there are certain strengths that are really helpful in terms
Speaker 1: of making that happen. Yeah, And in this book we
Speaker 1: focus on to build off what Bob's saying, We build
Speaker 1: off these twenty four character strengths that have that studies
Speaker 1: show are in people across cultures, nations, religions, belief systems.
Speaker 1: And these twenty four or character strengths are they veer
Speaker 1: more toward the positive. We can where they're naturally more
Speaker 1: positive for us and they bring more positive outcomes for
Speaker 1: us or for other people, So they veer more toward
Speaker 1: the good. And you know, these are part of our personality.
Speaker 1: So you know, the positive personality is is that like
Speaker 1: synonymous in your view with character? Like do you use
Speaker 1: those two words synonymously? I think that's a fair thing
Speaker 1: to say. You know, so many times we are driven
Speaker 1: by the things that are going on around us that
Speaker 1: make us, you know, decide to do the things we do.
Speaker 1: And positive personality is more about the stable part of
Speaker 1: who you are, that is someone who contributes, someone who
Speaker 1: is admirable and working effectively for themselves and for others.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think that old word character really fits
Speaker 1: well with the modern idea of positive personality. You know,
Speaker 1: as psychologist, we like to talk about personality. The philosophers
Speaker 1: tend to talk about character, but I really think that
Speaker 1: we talk about positive personality and character, we're really talking
Speaker 1: about the same things. Okay, good, Thanks for that qualification.
Speaker 1: So you both have been studying scientifically a wide range
Speaker 1: of character strends. I was wondering if you could just
Speaker 1: one of you or both of you, but not at
Speaker 1: the same time. Please just talk about the development of
Speaker 1: the measurement the v instrument, Like what is the instrument
Speaker 1: like and how was it like developed? What are the
Speaker 1: origins of it? Well, why don't I take that one
Speaker 1: because I'm probably most focused on the development issues. Great,
Speaker 1: you know, so, as Ryan said, we have these twenty
Speaker 1: four character strengths and it was a very long process.
Speaker 1: And Ryan can talk a little bit more about the
Speaker 1: kind of conceptual work that went on behind choosing these
Speaker 1: twenty four but then it was really recognized that for
Speaker 1: us to really make this a useful concept, you have
Speaker 1: to have some way of measuring it. And so Chris
Speaker 1: Peterson and Marty Seligman, who were the people who originally
Speaker 1: identified the twenty four character strengths, immediately turned around and
Speaker 1: started developing a questionnaire. And that basically was a process
Speaker 1: of collecting items, you know, various items that reflect each
Speaker 1: of the twenty four character strengths like creativity, kindness, and
Speaker 1: giving it to large groups of people and seeing which
Speaker 1: items held together well, and then you know, on the
Speaker 1: basis of that, choosing items for the questionnaire. One of
Speaker 1: the issues that you saw with that was that they
Speaker 1: originally chose ten items for each of the twenty four strengths,
Speaker 1: which meant it was two hundred and forty items long,
Speaker 1: which is a little long for people. I mean, it
Speaker 1: can take forty minutes or longer to complete all two
Speaker 1: hundred and forty. So one of the first things we
Speaker 1: did was cut it to one hundred and twenty items,
Speaker 1: and that's the version that you'd see on the via
Speaker 1: webs all right right now. But the other thing was
Speaker 1: that the whole field of measurement has really advanced over
Speaker 1: the years, and there are all sorts of methods that
Speaker 1: you can use to improve the quality of questionnaires. And
Speaker 1: so we completed a a several year process of rethinking
Speaker 1: the whole questionnaire, rethinking the meanings of the strengths and
Speaker 1: how we wanted to represent each of them, and we've
Speaker 1: just finished up work on that and are in the
Speaker 1: middle of getting it translated into I believe we're up
Speaker 1: to fourteen languages where we're getting translations done, and once
Speaker 1: some of those major translations are done, we're going to
Speaker 1: be rolling out this new version on the website. And
Speaker 1: one of the things that's nice about is it's going
Speaker 1: to be an even shorter version. It's going to be
Speaker 1: ninety six items instead of one hundred and twenty. So
Speaker 1: we're trying to both maximize the quality of the questionnaire
Speaker 1: and also make it easier for people to finish it.
Speaker 1: Cool I mean, how many iterations different versions has the
Speaker 1: scale existed over the years, Like how different is it
Speaker 1: now from the very first version? Because I know there's
Speaker 1: been a lot of studies that have come out doing
Speaker 1: like very statistical analysis on the different factors, and you
Speaker 1: know how the things line up maybe differently from what
Speaker 1: was originally proposed. Like, you know, how different is the
Speaker 1: scale now? You know, the one that people are doing
Speaker 1: right now online is really just the same as the
Speaker 1: original two hundred forty item version. Every item comes from
Speaker 1: that original version, but it's just half as long the
Speaker 1: new version. We have a bunch of new items. We
Speaker 1: found some problems with some of the scales. So, for example,
Speaker 1: leadership is one of the twenty four character strengths. The
Speaker 1: items really didn't hold together that well, so we've revised
Speaker 1: a bunch of those items. Self regulation another one of
Speaker 1: the character strengths. We thought that there was too much
Speaker 1: of a focus on things like healthy habits and diet,
Speaker 1: and so we've really changed that scale a lot. So
Speaker 1: it's not a massive change, but there are new items
Speaker 1: that are going to be appearing in the next year
Speaker 1: or so, and like I said, more importantly, it's going
Speaker 1: to be a shorter, tighter scale than it was before.
Speaker 1: Cool Now, how many people have taken the test since
Speaker 1: the beginning, so we're at over seven million right now
Speaker 1: people And it's interesting if you get the average in
Speaker 1: terms of how many people might take it in a
Speaker 1: certain matter of seconds. We have somebody that takes the
Speaker 1: VIA survey every fifteen seconds of every minute of every day.
Speaker 1: So just since we've been talking here, there have probably
Speaker 1: been you know whatever that would mathematically be out to
Speaker 1: another fifty people that have taken it from you know,
Speaker 1: somewhere in the world. That is about the same number
Speaker 1: of people. How many in the world over seven million
Speaker 1: at this point. My gosh, it's about the same number
Speaker 1: of listeners of the Psychology Podcast. I wonder what the
Speaker 1: overlap is. We have a lot of a lott I
Speaker 1: tell you, yeah, we have a lot of listeners of
Speaker 1: the Psychology Podcast that are interested in positive psychology. Well yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, what's so exciting about this is that the
Speaker 1: numbers we find continued to incline. They continue to increase
Speaker 1: year by year, So we find about a twenty five
Speaker 1: percent increase every single year in the last five years.
Speaker 1: So it's not like, you know, positive psychology or the
Speaker 1: especially we're talking about. These character strengths are kind of
Speaker 1: a passing fad, and you know, all they're kind of
Speaker 1: useful and I remember way back then when it was interesting,
Speaker 1: but actually it's just gaining more and more traction in
Speaker 1: different fields, whether it's business or education, or coaching or
Speaker 1: counseling or health or whatever. So that's that's particularly exciting
Speaker 1: to me, is that that incline year by year very interesting.
Speaker 1: You know, the people are what is it They're hungry
Speaker 1: for self knowledge, for maybe framing themselves in a positive way.
Speaker 1: What do you think it is? It could be multiple factors. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean we could both take a crack at that one.
Speaker 1: I mean my view a lot of it is there
Speaker 1: is the self development piece and the self awareness piece.
Speaker 1: You know. Also, this is since it's a free test
Speaker 1: and it's a substantive free test, and people get these
Speaker 1: results about who they are, and there's often this aha moment.
Speaker 1: I think that really strikes people, you know, in the
Speaker 1: A that it's not a charge and then b it's
Speaker 1: not like it's just kind of a kind of some
Speaker 1: minimal information that's not very useful. But people get these
Speaker 1: substantive results of their rank order of these character strengths
Speaker 1: that are in all human beings and that have been
Speaker 1: valued by philosophers and theologians and educators and psychologists throughout
Speaker 1: the century. So it's a very interesting thing to kind
Speaker 1: of get feedback on and to learn about oneself, because
Speaker 1: often people have never thought about themselves through the lens
Speaker 1: of these character strengths. You know. Oftentimes, you know, people
Speaker 1: get feedback on what's wrong and what their struggles are
Speaker 1: and how they could do better at work and their problems,
Speaker 1: and that's the way that their mind often goes towards
Speaker 1: more of a negativity view of things. But to suddenly
Speaker 1: get feedback on these qualities that are best in them
Speaker 1: and that they can use those in so many different ways,
Speaker 1: that's a striking thing. So people could take the task
Speaker 1: and then they tell other people about it, and I
Speaker 1: think it just kind of, you know, kind of builds
Speaker 1: from there. You know. In fact, if people are listening
Speaker 1: right now and they haven't done it, and maybe they
Speaker 1: should take a little pause, go to via character dot
Speaker 1: org and take the test, and they may get more
Speaker 1: out of this than they would otherwise. But you know,
Speaker 1: I really would like to echo something Ryan has said.
Speaker 1: You know, so often we focus on what's wrong with me,
Speaker 1: and I think particularly the people who are coming to
Speaker 1: the VIA website their searchers about themselves. They're interested about
Speaker 1: who they are as a person, and so often that
Speaker 1: can be you know what am I doing wrong? How
Speaker 1: come it's not coming together for me? You know? Where
Speaker 1: are my problems? And this really says, but what are
Speaker 1: your strengths? Because those are the things that you're going
Speaker 1: to ultimately need to use to actually become a better person.
Speaker 1: So instead of focusing on those deficits, focus on what's
Speaker 1: strong in you and then build from there. And so
Speaker 1: I think people, sometimes people who have really been thinking
Speaker 1: of themselves in very negative ways take this and they
Speaker 1: see a different side of themselves as someone who does
Speaker 1: have parts of themselves that are really very valuable and
Speaker 1: that they can use in a way to help themselves
Speaker 1: and help the people around them. Wow. Well that's a
Speaker 1: very worthy go, isn't it. Have you found, like do
Speaker 1: you have like empirical evidence that that knowledge does help people?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Like other than like all
Speaker 1: the data we have on all the statistical analysis at
Speaker 1: the scale, like what stues exist from an applied perspective
Speaker 1: showing that this self knowledge does impact people positively in
Speaker 1: their lives? Is that a fair question? Sure? I was
Speaker 1: differring to Ryan because he actually did the book, So
Speaker 1: take it away from what do you mean he did
Speaker 1: the book? He wrote the book, the Character Strength Interventions Book.
Speaker 1: Oh god, yeah, okay, yeah, so that's kind of some
Speaker 1: people say that's like the bible of you know, positive
Speaker 1: psychology activities or positive psychology interventions. But yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: there's so many ways that this work is being applied
Speaker 1: in across context. I mean, you can go at it
Speaker 1: from the specific character strength and look at, you know,
Speaker 1: what activities have been shown to help people boost awareness
Speaker 1: and use of their gratitude or their teamwork, or their curiosity,
Speaker 1: their love, their fairness and so on, or that you
Speaker 1: can also go at it from a more of a general,
Speaker 1: wider scope perspective and look and see, well, let's turn
Speaker 1: to people's highest strengths, which are are called in the
Speaker 1: field signature strengths. And if people can become more aware
Speaker 1: of those and use those more, what benefits come. And
Speaker 1: so there have been a number of randomized trials that
Speaker 1: have looked at that as an intervention. This intervention around
Speaker 1: signature strength, it's usually called use your signature strengths in
Speaker 1: new ways each day. And so the way the intervention
Speaker 1: goes is people take the via survey, they look at
Speaker 1: their top results, they choose one of their highest strengths.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter what it is. It could be prudence,
Speaker 1: it could be creativity, it could be spirituality, it could
Speaker 1: be kindness, whatever it is, they choose one of their
Speaker 1: highest strengths and then they use it in a different
Speaker 1: way each day, you know, kind of consciously, mindfully each day.
Speaker 1: And what the studies are showing is that it can
Speaker 1: have long term benefits. By doing this activity per the
Speaker 1: instructions for one week, and by benefits, a recent meta
Speaker 1: analysis showed that this activity boosted happiness, it boosts life satisfaction,
Speaker 1: it lowers depression, it enhances flourishing, and it even enhances
Speaker 1: the use of your strengths. So all these kind of
Speaker 1: benefits are emerging in the science. So it's very very
Speaker 1: exciting and just just to make it even more practical
Speaker 1: for the listeners. So if my highest strength is curiosity,
Speaker 1: let's say that's my which is true for me, I
Speaker 1: might choose to use that in a different way each day,
Speaker 1: so it doesn't have to be anything dramatic. So with
Speaker 1: whatever strength the person chooses, So day one, I might
Speaker 1: use my curiosity in a new way by spending five
Speaker 1: minutes doing an Internet search, exploring different sites and then
Speaker 1: the next day, I might try one new food, and
Speaker 1: so I'm kind of exploring something. I'm pursuing novelties, pursuing
Speaker 1: something new and different. And then the next day I
Speaker 1: might ask one coworker one new question that I've never
Speaker 1: asked them before, so you know, using your curiosity to
Speaker 1: ask that question. So that's the kind of the spirit
Speaker 1: of this particular exercise. And you know, do you think
Speaker 1: you do it with any of these character strengths that
Speaker 1: are most core to who you are? So it's very
Speaker 1: promising and exciting sounds it should we go through some
Speaker 1: of the character strengths and people can take the test
Speaker 1: for free on the VNSDW website. What's the website address,
Speaker 1: www dot via character dot org. So via character dot
Speaker 1: org you may get another couple million going on to
Speaker 1: the website after this episode. Who knows, right, But you know,
Speaker 1: maybe like as a preview, like we should go through
Speaker 1: some of the virtues and it maybe we won't we'll
Speaker 1: talk about all twenty four character strengths, but maybe you
Speaker 1: could just briefly go through the virtues and by the way,
Speaker 1: also define what a virtue. The difference between a virtue
Speaker 1: and a character strength is what's the different in virtue
Speaker 1: and character? Sure? Yeah, So you know, the original book
Speaker 1: that introduced this was this whole model was actually called
Speaker 1: Character Strengths and Virtues, and the people who wrote that book,
Speaker 1: Chris Peterson Marty Seligman, talked about both the idea of
Speaker 1: character strengths and virtues, and they had the way that
Speaker 1: they talked about those was that character strengths are these
Speaker 1: twenty four dimensions that make up your positive personality, that
Speaker 1: define who you are as a positive person. But then,
Speaker 1: you know, they were interested in this ancient idea of virtues,
Speaker 1: and I think it's one of the cool things about
Speaker 1: the model is that it both is very modern and
Speaker 1: psychological in that we're using kind of modern psychological research
Speaker 1: methods to develop this stuff, but it also draws on
Speaker 1: this twenty five hundred year old literature on the nature
Speaker 1: of virtues. And when we're talking about virtues, we're really
Speaker 1: talking about kind of these broad elements of positivity at
Speaker 1: the social level, things that have been valued across cultures,
Speaker 1: across history, and these are kind of broader dimensions. So
Speaker 1: they talked about six virtues, and the way that they
Speaker 1: identified these six virtues was that they reviewed kind of
Speaker 1: basic moral texts from seven different traditions. So we're talking
Speaker 1: about the Judeo Christian tradition, Athenian, Greek Philosophy, Islam, Confucianism, Hinduism,
Speaker 1: seven traditions altogether, and looked at kind of the basic
Speaker 1: moral texts for those traditions, and what they found was
Speaker 1: that there were six themes that popped up over and
Speaker 1: over again, and they called those wisdom and knowledge, courage, humanity, justice, temperance,
Speaker 1: and transcendence. And they said, look, you can find kind
Speaker 1: of resonance of these ideas in every one of these
Speaker 1: moral traditions to a greater or lesser extent. And so
Speaker 1: they said, if these are things that all moral traditions
Speaker 1: have valued, then shouldn't the character strengths these twenty four
Speaker 1: dimensions kind of fit into these different virtues. And so
Speaker 1: they actually built a system where they said, for example,
Speaker 1: that bravery your ability to sent up yourself as an
Speaker 1: aspect of courage, gratitude, and appreciation of beauty, they're part
Speaker 1: of feeling transcendence, which is sort of this sense of
Speaker 1: connectedness to the world. So in that way, they develop
Speaker 1: kind of a two level mind bud of virtues being
Speaker 1: these kind of broad dimensions of are you someone who
Speaker 1: contributes culturally socially to other people around you, and then
Speaker 1: the more specific twenty four strengths underneath them. I should
Speaker 1: mention that actually research we've done more recently has reduced
Speaker 1: that from six to three, and the three that we've
Speaker 1: been focusing on lately are called caring, which is your
Speaker 1: connection to people in the world, inquisitiveness, which is your
Speaker 1: interest in what's happening in the world. And then self
Speaker 1: control your ability to function effectively and control your emotions.
Speaker 1: And we found that twenty four also fit pretty well
Speaker 1: under these three larger categories. And so with this new
Speaker 1: version of the VIA that we're talking about coming out
Speaker 1: in the next year or so, that you'll be able
Speaker 1: to get the scores both on the six original virtues
Speaker 1: but also on these three new virtues. Very cool. I
Speaker 1: guess it depends what level of specificity you're looking for,
Speaker 1: that's right. So, you know, this is an interesting question
Speaker 1: that you raise with those three because you are making
Speaker 1: the argument that those are the three main dimensions of
Speaker 1: the good person, right, right, So is it possible to
Speaker 1: have a perfect character like I've seen graphs like three
Speaker 1: dimensional like plots of all the character strengths. And you
Speaker 1: see there's like two dimensions, which where character strengths tend
Speaker 1: to in the general population cluster into opposing sides. So
Speaker 1: there's a self other dimension and then there's am I
Speaker 1: totally blanking on the other. Do you know what the
Speaker 1: other dimension is? There's self other and there's another one?
Speaker 1: Is it intellectual heart and heart in mind? Yes? Yes,
Speaker 1: I think that feels right. That's the circumplex model. That, yes,
Speaker 1: exactly the circumplex. You can plot it on circuplit. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm looking at the circumplextion I trade offs among character
Speaker 1: strengths Figure six point three. The farther part are two strengths,
Speaker 1: the less likely it is the same person habitually shows both.
Speaker 1: So focus on self or focus of others and heart
Speaker 1: and mind. So doesn't that suggest that in order to
Speaker 1: for an individual to have score extremely high in all
Speaker 1: three of those categories is kind of going against the
Speaker 1: natural trends in society. Like to be that kind of person,
Speaker 1: you also have to be the kind of person who
Speaker 1: can think dialectically, right, I'm not sure I understand the question. Sorry, sure,
Speaker 1: So I'm looking at this graph of the general population,
Speaker 1: and there are these very clear trade offs, so you
Speaker 1: can't like, in the general population, most people do not
Speaker 1: have all three. And if someone has scores high in bravery,
Speaker 1: they tend to actually score lower on teamwork for instance,
Speaker 1: or leader, you know, forgiveness, Like these things are on
Speaker 1: different spectrums. So to make the case that the good
Speaker 1: person is one who scores high on these three categories
Speaker 1: seems to suggest to me that that's going to be
Speaker 1: a very very statistical and probability, like that person is
Speaker 1: going to be very rare in the general populace. I
Speaker 1: don't think that necessarily is true. I think that, you know,
Speaker 1: in fact, if one of the things that's interesting about
Speaker 1: the three dimensions is that they're pretty unrelated to each other.
Speaker 1: So you have some people who are high in all three,
Speaker 1: some people who are high on one and low onto
Speaker 1: you know, gotten two. You know, you have all the
Speaker 1: different possible combinations. But I think, you know, let's move
Speaker 1: away from the statistics for a minute, because I kind
Speaker 1: of like your original question better, which is is there
Speaker 1: such a thing as a good person? And it actually is.
Speaker 1: What I think is really neat about that question is
Speaker 1: that we're looking at it as a research question, but
Speaker 1: it's a question that philosophers have been asking themselves about,
Speaker 1: and theologians have been asking themselves for thousands of years now.
Speaker 1: And I think the right answer is there are people
Speaker 1: who are better than others. But to the person who
Speaker 1: thinks they're a good that they are there is not
Speaker 1: being inquisitive enough. They're not using those more intellectual strengths
Speaker 1: enough that there are always ways that we can improve
Speaker 1: the reality is that the temptation to do things that
Speaker 1: are selfish or lazy or not really you know, assuming
Speaker 1: that we know it's right, rather than being questioning, those
Speaker 1: tendencies are always there for us. And so I don't
Speaker 1: think you ever become a really like virtuous person. I
Speaker 1: think you become someone who is constantly struggling to become
Speaker 1: a virtuous person. And then that's a lifelong journey, and
Speaker 1: I think it's a great one, and just to build
Speaker 1: off of that, you know, it's really up to each
Speaker 1: person to think about this and wonder, what is it
Speaker 1: best for me to strive for balance across the three virtues,
Speaker 1: across the six virtues, across those four quadrants of head heart.
Speaker 1: Intrapersonal is the idea to try to find a balance, like,
Speaker 1: I have some strengths that are more heart based that
Speaker 1: I'm strong in, some that I'm mind based in, some
Speaker 1: that are more intro some that are more inter personal,
Speaker 1: you know, or other people might say, no, I'm really
Speaker 1: happy that I'm pretty strong in the mind strengths, and
Speaker 1: I'm just going to continue to just be me and
Speaker 1: just be authentically me and bring that forth as strong
Speaker 1: as I can. I can do good for the world
Speaker 1: by just being very strong with my mind oriented strengths
Speaker 1: and not necessarily focus on the interpersonal of the others
Speaker 1: as much, although they'll probably come along for the ride
Speaker 1: if I'm really strong with my particular category, and then
Speaker 1: there might be another person that says, no, I'm going
Speaker 1: to try to strive to build up most of these strengths.
Speaker 1: They all kind of matter to me. You know. There
Speaker 1: has been some research that shows that higher total raw
Speaker 1: scores on the VIA survey, so kind of cutting across
Speaker 1: all the strengths is associated with greater well being. So
Speaker 1: there's maybe a little bit of an argument to, you know,
Speaker 1: to try to develop all of them, although you know,
Speaker 1: at the same time time, you know it's that can
Speaker 1: be intimidating to somebody that's just come upon these and
Speaker 1: suddenly we're saying, you know, you got to suddenly use
Speaker 1: twenty four strengths. So you start a little bit simpler,
Speaker 1: and you start with your highest strengths, and you start
Speaker 1: with a couple that you're curious about, and then you
Speaker 1: kind of go from there. And I also wondered, Bob,
Speaker 1: if you would share actually about that you've done one
Speaker 1: or two studies on exemplars and finding that there really
Speaker 1: isn't exemplars category of character in the world that we
Speaker 1: could you share a little bit about that. Are you
Speaker 1: talking about the Oh yes, I'm sorry, it took me
Speaker 1: a second. Yeah, you didn't too many studies. It's like,
Speaker 1: what are you talking about? I know even I know
Speaker 1: that study. I love that study. Yeah, yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: There's actually there's an old, old tradition. It actually starts
Speaker 1: with Aristotle of talking about the virtuous as you know,
Speaker 1: as if there's this group of people out there who
Speaker 1: are really, you know, like have become something different from
Speaker 1: everybody else in terms of how virtuous they are. And
Speaker 1: I really was interested in that idea because it is
Speaker 1: something that you see in a whole bunch of different cultures.
Speaker 1: This idea of the you know, to use the term
Speaker 1: from the Greeks, the virtuous person, and so we've actually
Speaker 1: one of the things that's neat is that because so
Speaker 1: many people have completed the questionnaire, we can do these
Speaker 1: studies with huge numbers of people, and we can really
Speaker 1: tease out things that are you know, are so small
Speaker 1: that usually they would be hard to find. And we've
Speaker 1: done a couple of studies now where we've actually used
Speaker 1: there are methods that can identify are there subgroups of
Speaker 1: people within a larger group, and so far we haven't
Speaker 1: found anything like that, and we've done two studies now,
Speaker 1: and it's a very hard area research to do. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to say that, you know, this is definitely
Speaker 1: the truth here, that you don't have such a thing
Speaker 1: as the virtuous person. But I think it makes more
Speaker 1: sense to to think in terms of more or less virtuous,
Speaker 1: that is, you know, more of a person who focuses
Speaker 1: on the good for themselves and others at the same
Speaker 1: time versus less so. And I think that idea bothers
Speaker 1: some people, you know, that they want role models, they
Speaker 1: want people who are exceptional, and I think that you know,
Speaker 1: even within that idea of there are people who are
Speaker 1: more or less there can be people who are role
Speaker 1: models in that. But the idea that there are people
Speaker 1: who reach a point where they're virtuous and they don't
Speaker 1: have to work anymore, I actually think that's a bad idea,
Speaker 1: you know, And I think it's something that we have
Speaker 1: fallen back on because it's something we wish is true.
Speaker 1: But I sort of like the idea that we're all
Speaker 1: struggling all the time to be as virtuous as we
Speaker 1: can be. And that links great with what we were
Speaker 1: saying earlier around if somebody thinks that they have reached
Speaker 1: this pinnacle of virtue or of goodness, then by definition
Speaker 1: they're not because they're then not bringing forth much humility,
Speaker 1: which is another one of the characters Stright. So it
Speaker 1: it's kind of an impossibility in that sense, you know.
Speaker 1: It's it's kind of like the idea if you you know,
Speaker 1: there's that that name of that book and popular phrase,
Speaker 1: if you if you meet the Buddha on the side
Speaker 1: of the road, kill him. So it's the kind of
Speaker 1: the same idea. If somebody is claiming that and that
Speaker 1: there there isn't that, uh, that that perfect model in
Speaker 1: that sense. So instead, I think to make this all practical,
Speaker 1: it all comes down to we can discover moments of virtue,
Speaker 1: We could discover moments of character strength, and we could
Speaker 1: create lots and lots of those moments. We could put
Speaker 1: the moments together and create a you know, a longer experience.
Speaker 1: But there's no def in my opinion, there's no perfect
Speaker 1: virtue virtuous person at work. There's no perfect virtuous person
Speaker 1: as a parent. You know, anybody that's a parent knows
Speaker 1: that's exactly true. There's no perfectly virtuous person as a teacher,
Speaker 1: or as a psychologist or whoever. But but all those
Speaker 1: people can, and even people that are veer more toward
Speaker 1: the negative and do a lot of bad things, all
Speaker 1: of those people can move toward finding more moments of virtue,
Speaker 1: more moments of character strength where they're trying to do
Speaker 1: more good for other people or for the world. So
Speaker 1: that feels to me like a reachable piece that we
Speaker 1: can all move toward. So thank you for saying that.
Speaker 1: I've just thought, how I want to write an article
Speaker 1: now for my column at Science American with the title
Speaker 1: there are no perfectly virtuous people. That's a really cool.
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about this for a while because I've
Speaker 1: really been conducting some of my own research on the
Speaker 1: light verse dark triad of personality, and we have a
Speaker 1: paper coming out on that soon. But you know, just
Speaker 1: thinking about personality traits in particular, we're not as these fixed,
Speaker 1: you know, completely stable traits, but I really like thinking
Speaker 1: of it, like well William Fleeson and his colleagues. I've
Speaker 1: been thinking about personality as there's a lot of converging
Speaker 1: evidence now, including like William Fleeson's research suggesting that we
Speaker 1: should just think of personality as density distributions throughout the
Speaker 1: course of our day or throughout like the virtuous personality
Speaker 1: isn't always virtually you know, they show all levels from
Speaker 1: one to five throughout the course of the day. Their
Speaker 1: frequency distribution is much much more fives and fours than
Speaker 1: ones and twos, whereas the person who's low. So we
Speaker 1: should think about this as more continuous density distributions between individuals,
Speaker 1: not as discrete categories. Yes, and you could apply that
Speaker 1: thinking to Gandhi or to Mother Teresa. I mean Mother
Speaker 1: Teresa's recent writings. Most people would see Mother Teresa's this
Speaker 1: great virtuous person in which she is a role model
Speaker 1: for many virtues, a role model for kindness, and a
Speaker 1: role model for humility, and a role model for leadership,
Speaker 1: and we can learn a lot by seeing her as
Speaker 1: a role model. But to see her as the perfect
Speaker 1: virtuous person would be a mistake, and she would actually,
Speaker 1: if she was alive, would say that's a mistake and
Speaker 1: would agree more with what you're saying. What Lisa talks
Speaker 1: about with density distributions around these traits where she has
Speaker 1: many different moments of kindness and virtue and compassion and
Speaker 1: so on, but has her own struggles which she documents
Speaker 1: in her journals and so on. So you could apply
Speaker 1: that same thinking to Gandhi or a world leader that
Speaker 1: we really admire, that kind of thing, you know, To
Speaker 1: piggyback on something Brian was saying, he mentioned that old
Speaker 1: book about you know, if you see the Buddha by
Speaker 1: the side of the road, kill him. And maybe we're
Speaker 1: getting to the point where the real title should be
Speaker 1: there is no Buddha. Now that's a very interesting idea.
Speaker 1: What would you mean by that because there was a Buddha, well,
Speaker 1: there was a guy who actually we don't even know
Speaker 1: if it's true to be honest. But there was a
Speaker 1: guy that we think existed who got called the Buddha.
Speaker 1: But in terms of did he actually achieve buddhahood? You know,
Speaker 1: I think that there's a way in which believing that
Speaker 1: it is possible to achieve that level is not necessarily
Speaker 1: what we want to do, that maybe we want to
Speaker 1: think about it is a constant struggle for buddhahood, that
Speaker 1: it's a constant movement towards being good person. Because the
Speaker 1: day that you become kind of complacent that you're there,
Speaker 1: is that that you lose it. That's very interesting. Like
Speaker 1: it's never like a state that you permanently achieve. That's right.
Speaker 1: It is always a movement towards something that you will
Speaker 1: never achieve. I like that. I like that a lot.
Speaker 1: And I mean that's what the point of growth is growth.
Speaker 1: You know, if it's not you stop growing psychologically, you
Speaker 1: mean it made physically. I think that's all. It's all right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's all rightly aligned with what I think we're all saying.
Speaker 1: And you know, another sort of a corollary to all
Speaker 1: of that is is a kind of another adage in
Speaker 1: the Buddhist literature, where after the enlightenment, you do the
Speaker 1: dishes or you do the laundry. So after you have
Speaker 1: this great virtuous experience, you know, you did a great
Speaker 1: wonderful acts of kindness for somebody that was really suffering,
Speaker 1: or you did some great volunteer work, or you're you know,
Speaker 1: whatever character strength you were expressing very strongly, you know,
Speaker 1: or maybe you had a wonderful spiritual experience. We are
Speaker 1: offer a profound meaning, sense of meaning with the universe,
Speaker 1: sense of one or something. But then still you have
Speaker 1: to go back and do the dishes. You have to
Speaker 1: go back and do the laundry, You have to go
Speaker 1: back and do the hum drama of daily life. It's
Speaker 1: not like you've you've reached this enlightenment and that that
Speaker 1: just carries through the rest of life. It's still we
Speaker 1: get back to our routines and then maybe we'll get
Speaker 1: back to that moment of that oneness or that compassion
Speaker 1: seven days from now or twenty days from now. So
Speaker 1: there is that kind of vacillation that happens good. So
Speaker 1: I like that you made that point. Another aspect that
Speaker 1: I teach my students is how some strengths may develop
Speaker 1: over time or others may weaken if you look at
Speaker 1: development trajectories of older adults and youth, there seem to
Speaker 1: be some character strengths that younger populations tend to show
Speaker 1: more of than adults. And I'm looking at a graph
Speaker 1: of that right now. I guess what does it. Youth
Speaker 1: show more curiosity, creativity, love, humor, gratitude, kindness, fairness. Where's
Speaker 1: older individuals tend to show more forgiveness, religiousness, prudence, self regulation.
Speaker 1: I guess they're more boring now joking. Yeah, Basically, as
Speaker 1: an older adult, ie to accept that. So I thought
Speaker 1: that it was an interest in there intend to be
Speaker 1: some developmental trends. So I'm just really thinking about just
Speaker 1: whether what I think about this notion of is there
Speaker 1: of us as scientists saying that a certain combination of
Speaker 1: strengths is a good person. And I'd like to push
Speaker 1: back on that because I'm just not one hundred percent
Speaker 1: convinced yet about that, and I think it it feels
Speaker 1: like it's at odds with the spirit of the whole
Speaker 1: Via Institute, which is like find out which is authent
Speaker 1: More about authenticity, It's like find out what your top
Speaker 1: three are and how can you harness those in the
Speaker 1: best ways without putting any pressure that like your top
Speaker 1: three like deviates from what the profile of the best
Speaker 1: or goodness is. So, you know, in the spirit of
Speaker 1: friendship scholarly debate, I just want to put forward that
Speaker 1: I'm just not I don't know if I'm one hundredent
Speaker 1: comfortable with this notion of We're going to take a
Speaker 1: certain combination of these strengths and refer to that, you know,
Speaker 1: because that seems more subjective than the objective science. What
Speaker 1: do you make of that? Just to understand the question,
Speaker 1: are you saying that when you say combination of characters thinks?
Speaker 1: Are you referring to the twenty four as a combination
Speaker 1: as a unit, or are you saying subsets within there?
Speaker 1: So the three factors that emerge, Like, I just keep
Speaker 1: thinking about it, and I've talked to Robert about this before.
Speaker 1: He you know, he thinks that the caring part might
Speaker 1: be the most fundamental one when it comes to goodness,
Speaker 1: like I tend to think of, you know, self actualization.
Speaker 1: People self actualize in their own ways. Like it seems
Speaker 1: to me like the spirit of the whole v Institute
Speaker 1: was not saying that there is if you are to
Speaker 1: be an a toward a good person, you need to
Speaker 1: be higher in these three categories. I mean, what if
Speaker 1: you're just a very like you're a physicist, like, and
Speaker 1: you care and love deeply the work you do the science.
Speaker 1: You're not an uncaring person, but you just not terribly
Speaker 1: interested in social justice issues. It's just not something you're
Speaker 1: interested in, like you're really in you know, like the science,
Speaker 1: or do you like inquiry, you know, exploration, Like you're
Speaker 1: deviating from being a good person. And I just I'm
Speaker 1: just wondering about this. Yeah, so my Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: think we're saying that at all in my opinion. So
Speaker 1: the way I would frame it is that we say
Speaker 1: this phrase a lot, that all twenty four of the
Speaker 1: character strengths matter, and it might just be that our
Speaker 1: own unique signature strengths, whether those are the carrying dimension
Speaker 1: or humanity dimension or whatever dimension they're in, that those
Speaker 1: unique highest signature strengths might matter the most. So whenever
Speaker 1: I'm working with somebody or teaching this, I always have
Speaker 1: both those principles simultaneously operating in my mind, that all
Speaker 1: twenty four strengths matter because we all have all of them,
Speaker 1: they all we have developed them to some degree. We
Speaker 1: have potential or capacity to develop them more. But then
Speaker 1: that there's this the parts that may are most uniquely
Speaker 1: you again, whether they're carrying based or self regulation based
Speaker 1: or whatever, that might be what's most important for you
Speaker 1: in order to forge better relationships, or to achieve more
Speaker 1: in life, or to be more engaged. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of a matter of having both of those together in
Speaker 1: that sense. Let me respond to that as well, because
Speaker 1: you know, I think you're, in part, you're reacting to
Speaker 1: some things that I have done in kind of casual
Speaker 1: presentation situations, which is to refer to the good person,
Speaker 1: and you know, and I get pushback on it, which
Speaker 1: is fine that you know, kind of the opposite of
Speaker 1: good is bad. And so maybe a better way to
Speaker 1: say it is that for a person to really be
Speaker 1: maximally virtuous to and you know, there we're talking about
Speaker 1: not necessarily the perfect person, but someone who really is
Speaker 1: contributing in remarkable ways that it does have to have
Speaker 1: elements of all three. That being said, there's if you
Speaker 1: go through life not hurting people and really focus on
Speaker 1: those strengths that are important to you, you're going to
Speaker 1: be a good person, you know, and you're going to
Speaker 1: be someone who contributes and someone who really is valuable
Speaker 1: to those around them. So the message here it depends
Speaker 1: what you're going for. You know, if I think it's
Speaker 1: really valuable to as part of who you are as
Speaker 1: a person, to be striving all the time to be
Speaker 1: better than who you are, I mean, that's just valuable
Speaker 1: to me. And so I like to push myself in
Speaker 1: ways that I haven't considered before. But there are different
Speaker 1: ways of being someone who really is important to other people,
Speaker 1: who works well, who you know does well in those
Speaker 1: two areas of love and work that are kind of
Speaker 1: the essence of what makes us someone of value. And
Speaker 1: you can achieve that through any combination of the strengths
Speaker 1: that you see as important to you. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that's well said. And let me just kind of throw
Speaker 1: another twist on it. If I can ask you, Scott,
Speaker 1: a very very quick question in name one like positive
Speaker 1: outcome that you really care about, like you know, something
Speaker 1: like you know, better health, achievement, engagement, just something really quick. Authenticity, integrity, authenticity,
Speaker 1: and incurry. So, so, if so there's kind of two pathways,
Speaker 1: then if so somebody is saying, hey, two general pathways,
Speaker 1: in my mind, is someone saying, I want this outcome
Speaker 1: of greater authenticity in my life, or I'm wanting to build,
Speaker 1: you know, whatever it is, build more achievement in my life, health,
Speaker 1: and so on. So one pathway might be to look,
Speaker 1: what does the science say in terms of which character
Speaker 1: strengths are most connected with authenticity or that cause authenticity
Speaker 1: and so on. And my guess I don't know of
Speaker 1: really studies that have looked at that, but my guess
Speaker 1: is there would be you know, a handful of strengths
Speaker 1: that would really show up strong. So, you know, using
Speaker 1: your honesty strength a little bit more, maybe using your
Speaker 1: bravery strength a little bit more, maybe your perseverance strength
Speaker 1: a little bit more. Let's let's just say it's those three.
Speaker 1: So then one pathway to build more authenticity could be
Speaker 1: to look at those three or those three causative elements
Speaker 1: for boosting those three up to build greater authenticity. So
Speaker 1: that would be one pathway. And then another pathway would
Speaker 1: be to say, okay, well, Scott, let's look to your
Speaker 1: highest strengths already, those strengths that are most uniquely you,
Speaker 1: whatever those top five or six or seven are, and
Speaker 1: let's work on just expanding those making sure that you're
Speaker 1: really bringing those forth in all the different areas of
Speaker 1: your life in a good way, a strong way, a
Speaker 1: balanced way, you know, and that's the signature strength approachin
Speaker 1: So both of those pathways I think are equally valid
Speaker 1: and could help you for that ultimate goal of building
Speaker 1: greater authenticity. But yet it's involving very different, likely very
Speaker 1: different combinations of strengths, and it would be then unique
Speaker 1: to each person. So because each person's signature strength combination
Speaker 1: is going to be different or if that makes sense, Oh,
Speaker 1: you've given me so much food for thought. I just
Speaker 1: I love when my brain lights up like it is
Speaker 1: right now. So okay, carrying inquisitiveness and self control. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I hear, I do hear, but both your and
Speaker 1: it just it makes me think that what I'm reacting
Speaker 1: to is this maybe more of the methodology, Like you know,
Speaker 1: we look at these things as correlations, like the higher
Speaker 1: you are on these three categories, the more likely you are.
Speaker 1: But maybe it's just I feel like it's just more
Speaker 1: nuanced in that, like maybe there it's better to think
Speaker 1: in terms of thresholds than linear effects. Like let's say
Speaker 1: you're a physicist and you. I guess I don't want
Speaker 1: to stereotype physicists. I know a lot of physicists who
Speaker 1: are very caring people. And but I'm just saying, like
Speaker 1: your inquisitiveness is like two standard aviations above the mean.
Speaker 1: Let's say you're caring, is you know, like about average?
Speaker 1: You know your self control is about average. I feel
Speaker 1: like with these thresholds, like you can still be a
Speaker 1: very very good person. Like I guess I'm reacting to
Speaker 1: this like linear effect idea. Sure, And like I said,
Speaker 1: you know, when I've used the term good, which but
Speaker 1: which I actually don't use in any of my writings.
Speaker 1: I just use that kind of casually. I don't want
Speaker 1: to certainly mean that if you're not like an exceptional person,
Speaker 1: then you're a bad person. Just that I think the
Speaker 1: to achieve kind of accept Let's say maybe that that
Speaker 1: would be what we might refer to as the person
Speaker 1: who's exceptional, who does all of those things really well
Speaker 1: and considers them all the time in all areas of
Speaker 1: their lives. It's an interesting conceptualization of exceptional. Like other
Speaker 1: researchers in the high performance field think of exceptional. So
Speaker 1: you mean exceptional character? Yes, so yeah, gotcha. It's it's cool.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to like sort all this stuff out on
Speaker 1: the spot. We're kind of working our way through this
Speaker 1: as we too, So yeah, I know, it's fun. It's
Speaker 1: really fun to think this through because you know, like
Speaker 1: some people may think of exceptionality as like high performance
Speaker 1: or like those who are dominating the competition or producing
Speaker 1: like brilliant exceptional artists. A musician who's selling the metric
Speaker 1: there is albums sold. It's not like how much does
Speaker 1: that person care about others, although you know, nowadays in
Speaker 1: the stage of calling out lots of abuses, do you
Speaker 1: see what I'm saying? Yeah, you know, if you look back,
Speaker 1: originally the Greek word for virtue, because virtue is actually
Speaker 1: a Latin word, and the Greek word arrata was really
Speaker 1: about being exceptional and it was not about being just
Speaker 1: a typical person. It was about really striving for something exceptional.
Speaker 1: But as it became part of philosophy, it kind of shifted. Like,
Speaker 1: you know, there were people who had arrata as you know,
Speaker 1: fighters or you know, as soldiers, as you know, you know,
Speaker 1: people with a bow and arrow had arrata, But as
Speaker 1: it became part of philosophy, it became about being exceptional
Speaker 1: in character, being broad and so you know, maybe that's
Speaker 1: a good way to think about this kind of this
Speaker 1: kind of tension that we're talking about here, is that
Speaker 1: in terms of the twenty four character strengths, what's really
Speaker 1: important is developing you as a person, you know, because
Speaker 1: character is about you as a person, and so you know,
Speaker 1: it's really about looking at what your particular strengths are,
Speaker 1: identifying them, using them more effectively, thinking of how you
Speaker 1: can use your strengths in ways that are helpful to
Speaker 1: you and to those around you. But then when you
Speaker 1: get into the area of virtue, it's really about an
Speaker 1: issue of how do you become a better person, a
Speaker 1: more exceptional person. So there's I think there's sort of
Speaker 1: a tension between the two different levels that I find
Speaker 1: kind of interesting. I find it totally fascinating as well.
Speaker 1: Let's end this program by just briefly talking about the
Speaker 1: strength spilled or program you both developed, and not spill
Speaker 1: all the beans that we just want to wet the
Speaker 1: appetites that people will buy the book, right, I know
Speaker 1: you won't disagree with that spirit. So you have four
Speaker 1: different aspects of this program, a four step program, could
Speaker 1: you just go through the four steps and yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: just give an example for one of the steps how
Speaker 1: people can have more of that in their life their
Speaker 1: daily life. Sure if I could start that when just
Speaker 1: to set it up, just you know, prior to the
Speaker 1: Strength Builder Program, the book The Power of Character Strengths
Speaker 1: goes through each of the twenty four character strengths that
Speaker 1: Bob and I and Scott are all talking about here
Speaker 1: and really is trying to lay out the what, the why,
Speaker 1: and the how of each of these character strengths. And
Speaker 1: in the how is where we spend the most attention,
Speaker 1: So where we look at the overuse and under use
Speaker 1: of the strength, the optimal use of the strength, what
Speaker 1: case example for each strength? You know, questions that you
Speaker 1: would ask to build that strength, How you can take
Speaker 1: action at work, in your community and your relationships and
Speaker 1: so on. So that that's kind of the centerpiece of
Speaker 1: the book. And then that all culminates to what you're
Speaker 1: asking about, Scott. The Strength Builder program, This four step program,
Speaker 1: which in a nutshell, the four steps are Step one
Speaker 1: is around building up our initial skill with this common
Speaker 1: language of strengths, So by doing strength spotting. So we
Speaker 1: practice spotting strengths in ourselves and in others. Step two
Speaker 1: gets into the individual noticing and naming and exploring their
Speaker 1: highest strengths, so their signature strengths, which we talked about here.
Speaker 1: The next step involves bringing our strengths to a problem,
Speaker 1: to a stressor to a difficulty, to a life challenge,
Speaker 1: and kind of exploring how we can use our strengths
Speaker 1: to really see the problem in a different way and
Speaker 1: to really use the strengths in ways that we maybe
Speaker 1: never have thought of to be able to overcome that problem.
Speaker 1: And then the last step, you know, it's last step
Speaker 1: or week four if people are doing like one step
Speaker 1: a week. The last step is around making strengths a habit,
Speaker 1: which is where we center this work around goal setting
Speaker 1: and taking action for ourselves that really is going to
Speaker 1: be meaningful for us. Anything you'd add there, Bob, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, Ryan, I think that's a really great outline
Speaker 1: of the Strengths Builder, And what I think is really
Speaker 1: important about it to add to that is that can
Speaker 1: sound kind of global and you know, abstract, and we
Speaker 1: want this to be a practical tool people can use
Speaker 1: once they've completed the VIA questionnaire that they can go
Speaker 1: through these steps and actually build their strengths and build
Speaker 1: how they And when I say build your strengths, I
Speaker 1: mean actually think about and develop new ways of using
Speaker 1: your strengths or using them more effectively. And so as
Speaker 1: we go through Strengths Builder, in the book, we offer
Speaker 1: a lot of practical examples and kind of concrete thoughts
Speaker 1: about how you can go through each of these steps.
Speaker 1: So we really want this to be something that people
Speaker 1: feel like they can actually do this for themselves and
Speaker 1: make something personal out of each of these four steps.
Speaker 1: I love that. Do you know what my favorite one is?
Speaker 1: What my favorite step is? What's that I'm going to
Speaker 1: be personal here? Second, I love spotting strengths and others
Speaker 1: like to me, I think I get more enjoyment out
Speaker 1: of that than this obsessive like self knowledge all the time.
Speaker 1: I find it exhausting sometimes to be so introspective. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it's nice to get outside of myself and try to
Speaker 1: see the best in others. Do you resonate with that
Speaker 1: at all? Some character education programs that are done in
Speaker 1: schools that are almost nothing but strength spotting, like just
Speaker 1: you know what is this other? You know? What are
Speaker 1: the strengths of the other people in the class. And
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes I've worked a little bit with schools
Speaker 1: around this, and I mean sometimes like you'll see these
Speaker 1: kids who are just like, really everybody thinks of me
Speaker 1: that way, that's so amazing. I've really And what's nice
Speaker 1: is that none of these are deficit issues, So you're
Speaker 1: always saying something that is about that person as a
Speaker 1: positive and to have other people in a class say,
Speaker 1: you know, I think you're a really humble person, or
Speaker 1: I think you're amazing at using humor in situations that
Speaker 1: are where everybody's really having a tough time, or that
Speaker 1: you have incredible leadership ability, like people get a new
Speaker 1: sense of who they are. That I think is can
Speaker 1: be really exciting. Yeah, and you're not alone, Scott. When
Speaker 1: we ask people do they find it easier to spot
Speaker 1: strengths in themselves or spot strengths and others, I would
Speaker 1: say between ninety and ninety five percent of people will
Speaker 1: will say it's easier to spot strengths and other people.
Speaker 1: And so that's actually why one of the reasons why
Speaker 1: it's the first step, because it's a step that people
Speaker 1: naturally gravitate to. They enjoy it, they feel like they're
Speaker 1: making a positive impact on other people. And it's just
Speaker 1: it's kind of fun to be able to do, to
Speaker 1: be able to look at the world through that lens
Speaker 1: and if I can spot strengths and you, Scott, so
Speaker 1: during this interview here what I certainly we could go
Speaker 1: through probably over twenty or so, but you know, I
Speaker 1: certainly see hearing you know, a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: the obvious here with an interview of curiosity but also
Speaker 1: a lot of love of learning. We are really wanting
Speaker 1: to delve deep into the knowledge and explore this work
Speaker 1: more closely. So those are two that really really stood
Speaker 1: out to me most here. Well, and let me piggyback
Speaker 1: on that. I really enjoyed the that you gave us
Speaker 1: pushback on some of our ideas. That was that was excellent.
Speaker 1: What what would that character strength be? I think that's
Speaker 1: level of learning and a little bit of bravery or honesty,
Speaker 1: honest judgment, critical thinking, to be able to kind of
Speaker 1: look at things from differ different details. I love it.
Speaker 1: I love it. Well, you know, I can tell you
Speaker 1: my top three character strengths were creativity, curiosity, and humor.
Speaker 1: So I think creativity was number one, Curiosity it was
Speaker 1: number two. So yeah, curiosity, love learning. I think they're similar. Hey,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. I do want to ask kind
Speaker 1: of this final question because I want to make sure
Speaker 1: for our listeners this idea of character strengths and warning
Speaker 1: your characters is it for everyone? Sometimes your Christians of posychology,
Speaker 1: that it really is, you know, kind of the upper classes,
Speaker 1: Like there's kind of like have the opportunities. It's a
Speaker 1: luxury to even look at your character strengths. Can you
Speaker 1: address that at all? Like? Is this for everyone? This program?
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, I mean, I think we both probably
Speaker 1: want to respond to this one if I start bo know, well,
Speaker 1: first let me let me just address the kind of
Speaker 1: the class you know, the class kind of statement you
Speaker 1: know around I mean, we've done a lot of work
Speaker 1: with people maybe of lower social economic status, been more
Speaker 1: disadvantaged status, is at risk youth gone into like boys
Speaker 1: and girls clubs, like in this in the region where
Speaker 1: I'm in here in Cincinnati, and in its schools that
Speaker 1: don't have as much money, public schools and so on,
Speaker 1: And this work is an absolute home run in these
Speaker 1: situations because, if anything, it's needed almost more in these
Speaker 1: situations because in a lot of those those situations. People
Speaker 1: are just not giving that kind of feedback about, you know,
Speaker 1: in terms of strength spotting or helping an individual, a
Speaker 1: young child or even an adult to uncover their best
Speaker 1: qualities and to bring them forward in life. But clearly
Speaker 1: they have been. Clearly they've been living a life and
Speaker 1: overcoming lots of adversity and using their character strengths. It's
Speaker 1: just that nobody has pointed it out to them to
Speaker 1: where they can then more mindfully bring them forth more
Speaker 1: in their life. So absolutely this is for So my
Speaker 1: answer is yes, it's for everybody in that sense, and
Speaker 1: partly because you know who doesn't have these character strengths.
Speaker 1: I mean, these character strengths are part of all of
Speaker 1: us and we can bring them forward to improve our
Speaker 1: life in so many different ways. So yeah, I would
Speaker 1: say yes to that. Yeah, And if I can piggyback
Speaker 1: on what Ryan is saying, I think when I've read
Speaker 1: those criticisms, it's along the lines of, you know, well,
Speaker 1: the reason that you're not succeeding in life is because
Speaker 1: you don't have enough self regulation, and that's the opposite
Speaker 1: of what we're looking at. I mean this the whole
Speaker 1: point is to not be focusing on people's deficits, but
Speaker 1: to focus on their strengths. Programs based on the twenty
Speaker 1: four character strengths. They're being used in Africa. I'm involved
Speaker 1: with a program in Zambia where they're using this in
Speaker 1: over fifty middle schools in the US that are almost
Speaker 1: exclusively in low socioeconomic status areas with a lot of
Speaker 1: kids from disadvantaged populations. What is really neat about it
Speaker 1: is that many times this is the first time if
Speaker 1: there's been a real formal effort to focus on kids'
Speaker 1: strengths rather than their deficits. So I know of guidance
Speaker 1: counselors who have said this has changed the way I
Speaker 1: deal with kids because now when a kid, for example,
Speaker 1: is having problems, instead of it being you've got to
Speaker 1: do better, or you know, what's your problem here, it's
Speaker 1: you know, maybe you need to balance this strength with
Speaker 1: this other strength, or how can you use your strength
Speaker 1: here to help you with this problem? And it really
Speaker 1: is so much more looking at people as positive beings
Speaker 1: than people who are messed up, you know, or have
Speaker 1: failed in some way. And I've seen kids just come
Speaker 1: to light thinking about their strengths for the first time ever.
Speaker 1: These are kids who are coming from backgrounds where there
Speaker 1: has been an awful lot of focus on you can
Speaker 1: be a strong person, and so I think that's a
Speaker 1: complete error if this is done the right way. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for dressing that and for all the
Speaker 1: really important work you're doing to help people spot the
Speaker 1: best in themselves and others. I really enjoyed the chat today.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much. Yeah, this was great. Thanks so much, Scott.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Psychology Podcast. I hope you
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