Character strengths: the 24 VIA strengths and how they are measured

What are character strengths?

Character strengths are positively valued ways of thinking, feeling and acting: curiosity, kindness, fairness, gratitude, perseverance and twenty more like them. The standard classification was published as a handbook by Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman, who set out to describe what is best in people with the same seriousness that the manuals of what goes wrong are described (Peterson & Seligman, 2004).

The classification was not assembled by factor analysis. The authors read across philosophical, religious and educational traditions, looking for qualities that recur almost everywhere, then filtered the candidates against a set of criteria: a strength should be fulfilling to the person, valued in its own right rather than only for what it earns, expressed without diminishing anyone else, and recognisable as praiseworthy across cultures. Twenty-four qualities survived, sorted under six broad virtues.

Two consequences follow from that method. The list is a considered taxonomy rather than a statistical structure, so the six virtues are organising headings rather than measured factors. And every strength on the list is desirable, which makes a strengths profile a ranking of what is most and least characteristic of you, not a scale from good to bad.

What are the 24 character strengths?

Some strengths carry more than one common name, which is why several appear here with two: judgment is also called open-mindedness, zest is also called vitality, and integrity is also called authenticity. The wording differs between publishers; the underlying quality does not.

What are signature strengths?

Signature strengths are the few at the top of your own ranking: the ones that feel like you rather than like effort, that you use readily and that you would miss if you had to work without them. Most treatments put the number at three to seven.

They are not evenly interesting. In studies relating the 24 strengths to life satisfaction, a small subset does most of the work: hope, zest, gratitude, love and curiosity are consistently the strengths most strongly associated with how satisfied people are with their lives, while the more intellectual strengths, such as love of learning and judgment, and the more restrained ones, such as modesty, are associated only weakly (Park et al., 2004).

That is a correlation in cross-sectional data, so it does not establish that becoming more grateful makes you more satisfied. It does tell you where to look first if satisfaction is what you care about.

Do the same strengths appear across countries?

Broadly, yes. An analysis of survey responses from 75 nations found that the relative ordering of the 24 strengths was remarkably similar from country to country: strengths such as kindness, fairness and honesty tended to be rated as most characteristic almost everywhere, while self-regulation, modesty and prudence tended to be rated as least characteristic almost everywhere (McGrath, 2015).

The sample was self-selected, drawn from people who chose to take a survey online, so it is better evidence about the shape of the profile than about national averages. The consistency of the ordering is still striking, and it supports one of the claims the classification was built on, that these qualities are recognised across cultures.

Does using your strengths in new ways change anything?

This is the most tested claim in the area. In a randomised, placebo-controlled online study of five brief exercises, one of which asked people to identify their signature strengths and use one in a new way every day for a week, three of the five produced higher happiness and less low mood than a control exercise, with lasting improvement (Seligman et al., 2005). Two of the five did not, so the specific instruction matters; the published summary does not single out which three succeeded.

A meta-analysis of signature strengths interventions pooled the studies that followed and found consistent benefits for well-being, with effect sizes in the small to moderate range (Schutte & Malouff, 2019). Small is the honest word. These are not transformations; they are reliable nudges, and they are cheap.

A useful way to read your own profile is therefore not as a ranking to admire but as a short list of levers. If perseverance is high and gratitude is middling, the interesting experiment is usually the one that puts perseverance to work on something you have been avoiding, rather than the one that tries to manufacture a strength you do not have.

How do character strengths differ from Big Five traits?

They are describing overlapping ground in different vocabularies. The Big Five is a descriptive structure that came out of decades of lexical research into which trait words travel together (Goldberg, 1993), and it is deliberately value-neutral: there is no good end of Extraversion. Character strengths are chosen for being valued, and every scale is worded so that more is better.

• They correlate, and in predictable directions. Curiosity, creativity and love of learning track Openness to Experience. Perseverance, prudence and self-regulation track Conscientiousness. Zest and social intelligence track Extraversion. Kindness and forgiveness track Agreeableness. Honesty and modesty track Honesty-Humility, the sixth dimension in the HEXACO model (Ashton & Lee, 2007).
• They are not independent of each other. The 24 scales are correlated, and analyses of them usually recover a much smaller number of broad groupings rather than 24 separate dimensions.
• They answer different questions. A trait score tells you where you sit relative to other people. A strengths ranking tells you which of your own qualities is most characteristic of you, which is a within-person comparison.

The practical upshot is that they are best read together. Traits tell you the shape of the terrain; strengths tell you which tools you reach for on it.

How does the VIA Survey work?

The best known character strengths test is the VIA Survey of Character Strengths, published by the non-profit that grew out of the original classification project. At the time of writing, the survey itself is free to take and produces a ranking of your 24 strengths from most to least characteristic, with more detailed reports available to buy. There are adult and youth versions, and the instrument is widely used in research, which is a large part of why cross-national comparisons like the 75-nation analysis were possible (McGrath, 2015).

Whatever instrument you use, the format is the same: you rate a set of statements about yourself, each strength is scored from several of them, and the output is an ordering. Ratings of your own virtues are the kind of self-report where people tend to present themselves well, so the ordering within your own profile is more informative than the absolute height of any score.

How does Wellington measure character strengths?

Wellington is a science-based personality assessment from Therabot Labs LLC. It measures personality as continuous traits, built on the Big Five and HEXACO models, and writes the results back as a personal report rather than a type.

The free Snapshot measures six broad dimensions in 60 questions and does not cover strengths. The Wellington Membership adds the Portrait: 336 questions in 4 chapters, the last of which is devoted to character. It scores all 24 strengths in the classification, grouped under their virtue, alongside a few closely related traits such as generosity, compassion, trustworthiness and civic responsibility. With the Big Five facets, that brings the membership to 90 traits in total.

• Wisdom and knowledge: Creativity, Curiosity, Judgment / Open-Mindedness, Love of Learning, Perspective.
• Courage: Bravery / Valor, Industry / Persistence, Integrity / Authenticity, Vitality / Zest.
• Humanity: Capacity for Love, Kindness, Social-Emotional Intelligence.
• Justice: Citizenship / Teamwork, Equity / Fairness, Leadership.
• Temperance: Forgiveness / Mercy, Modesty / Humility, Prudence, Self-Regulation.
• Transcendence: Appreciation of Beauty, Gratitude, Hope / Optimism, Humor / Playfulness, Spirituality / Religiousness.

Each strength is scored the same way as every other Wellington trait: the average of several statements on a five-point accuracy scale, placed against a reference sample as a percentile and reported in one of three bands, with a written page for the band you land in. Norms are provisional until the norming sample is complete. The bands and the Portrait names exist to make the result easier to talk about; the percentile is the measurement, and it is always shown alongside. The report then draws a strengths constellation from the pattern, showing which strengths cluster together for you and which sit at your growth edge. The Wellington Membership carries the same method on toward 255 traits. Wellington is a wellness tool for reflection, not a medical or psychological diagnosis, and it does not replace care from a qualified professional. It is not designed for hiring, and you can export or delete your data at any time.

Questions people ask

How many character strengths are there?

Twenty-four in the standard classification, grouped under six virtues: wisdom and knowledge, courage, humanity, justice, temperance and transcendence. The number is the result of an editorial process rather than a statistical one, so other schemes count differently, but 24 is the list almost every strengths test uses.

What is the difference between a strength and a talent?

A talent is an ability, something you are good at. A strength in this sense is a valued way of behaving, something you do because it matters to you. Someone can be talented at persuasion without fairness being one of their strengths, and kindness is a strength whether or not you are skilled at it.

Can character strengths change?

Rankings are fairly stable, because they reflect underlying traits that change slowly. What changes more readily is use. The most tested exercise asks you to apply a signature strength in a new way each day for a week; it was one of five brief exercises in a randomised, placebo-controlled study in which three of the five produced higher happiness and less low mood than a control exercise, with lasting improvement (Seligman et al., 2005). Pooled across later studies the gains are small but consistent (Schutte & Malouff, 2019).

Does Wellington measure the 24 strengths?

Yes, with the membership. All 24 are scored from the Portrait, each on a percentile with a written page for your band, and the report builds a strengths constellation from the pattern. The free Snapshot covers the six broad dimensions only; strengths arrive with the membership.