1. Overview
2. The VIA and Positive Psychology
3. Character Strengths and Virtues
4. VIA Results and Signature Strengths
5. Caveats and Interpretations
6. Taking the VIA
7. Making Use of Your VIA Results
1. Overview
I'm generally skeptical of personality tests, and I employ them sparingly in my work as a coach and teacher. My skepticism springs not only from concerns about scientific validity and reliability, but also from seeing the results of these instruments used in counter-productive ways.
Even instruments whose validity is questionable (such as the MBTI) can play a useful role when we view their results with critical distance and feel free to challenge their conclusions. But all too often such results are instead viewed as gospel truth, and they're used to label people and sort them into boxes rather than to promote self-reflection and a richer understanding of ourselves.
The first step in using these instruments responsibly is recognizing that their results are merely abstract representations, not a perfect view into our souls--in other words, the map is not the territory. As I say to clients and students, we should be open to what the data suggests, especially if we find it troubling in some way or if it challenges beliefs we hold about ourselves--and at the same time we shouldn't allow an instrument to tell us who we are.
2. The VIA and Positive Psychology
One of the few instruments I use in my coaching practice and in The Art of Self-Coaching at Stanford is the VIA Survey of Character Strengths. This instrument, commonly called the VIA, was developed in the early 2000s under the leadership of the University of Pennsylvania's Martin Seligman, the founder of positive psychology, and the late Christopher Peterson, an influential psychologist who taught for 26 years at the University of Michigan, along with the support of the Mayerson Foundation.
For a thorough discussion of the VIA and its history, see Chapters 1-3 of Character Strengths and Virtues, the 2004 publication that emerged from Seligman and Peterson's work; the excerpts below provide context on its roots in positive psychology research:
In recent years, strides have been made in understanding, treating and preventing psychological disorders. Reflecting this progress and critically helping to bring it about are widely accepted classification manuals--the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) sponsored by the American Psychiatric Association and the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) sponsored by the World Health Organization--which have generated a family of reliable assessment strategies and led to effective treatments... [p 3]
We can now measure much of what is wrong with people, but what about what about those things that are right? Nothing comparable to the DSM or ICD exists for the good life...
This handbook focuses on what is right about people and specifically about the strengths of character that make the good life possible. We follow the the example of the DSM and ICD and their collateral creations by proposing a classification scheme and by devising assessment strategies for each of its entries. The critical difference is that the domain of concern for us is not psychological illness but psychological health. In short, our goal is a "manual of the sanities." [A phrase coined by Gregg Easterbrook in a 2001 article on positive psychology.] [p 4]
3. Character Strengths and Virtues
Seligman and Peterson assembled an expert team of psychologists and educators under the umbrella of the VIA Institute to establish a classification scheme by conducting an extensive survey of the world's cultural, philosophical and religious traditions. The VIA's classification scheme begins with virtues, the most abstract level, and progresses next to character strengths, which are the 24 items identified in the instrument's results.
We hope to do for the domain of moral excellence (character strengths and virtues) what the DSM does...for disorders...Thus, our classification is based on an overall structure of moral values suggested by our historical and cross-cultural reviews. It includes a manageable number of character strengths (24) and is open to the possibility of consolidating those that prove empirically indistinguishable, as well as adding new strengths that are distinct. It approaches character strengths as individual differences--as continua and not categories... [p 8]
Virtues are the core characteristics valued by moral philosophers and religious thinkers: wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence. These six broad categories of virtue emerge consistently from historical surveys...We argue that these are universal, perhaps grounded in biology through an evolutionary process that selected for these aspects of excellence as a means of solving the important tasks necessary for survival of the species...
Character strengths are the psychological ingredients--processes or mechanisms--that define the virtues. Said another way, they are distinguishable routes to displaying one or another of the virtues...Again, we regard these strengths as ubiquitously recognized and valued, although a given individual will rarely, if ever, display all of them...Our classification includes 24 strengths, positive traits like bravery, kindness, and hope. At this juncture, we intend these strengths as neither exclusive nor exhaustive... [p 13]
4. VIA Results and Signature Strengths
Seligman and Peterson go on to discuss the criteria employed to determine the 24 character strengths in their classification scheme, and in the process offer a perspective on what an individual's VIA results represent:
Criterion 1: A strength contributes to various fulfillments that constitute the good life, for oneself and for others...It seems that fulfillment must reflect effort, the willful choice and pursuit over time of morally praiseworthy activities. This is why we chose our language carefully to say that character strengths "contribute" to fulfillments rather than "cause" them in the automatic way that Jรคgermeister causes intoxication. There are no shortcuts to fulfillment...
What then is this contributory relationship of character strengths to fulfillments? Our thinking here has been [guided] by the Aristotelian notion of eudaimonia, which holds that well-being is not consequence of virtuous action but rather an inherent aspect of such action...
At present, we have little data on this point, but we believe that given people possess signature strengths akin to what Allport (1961) identified decades ago as personal traits. These are strengths of character that a person owns, celebrates, and frequently exercises. In interviews with adults, we find that everyone can identify a handful of strengths as very much their own, typically between three and seven (just as Allport proposed). Here are the possible criteria for a signature strength:
- a sense of ownership and authenticity ("this is the real me") vis-a-vis the strength
- a feeling of excitement while displaying it, particularly at first
- a rapid learning curve as themes are attached to the strength and practiced
- continuous learning of new ways to enact the strength
- a feeling of inevitability in using the strength, as if one cannot be stopped or persuaded from its display
- the discovery of the strength as owned in an epiphany
- invigoration rather than exhaustion when using the strength
- the creation and pursuit of fundamental projects that revolve around the strength
- intrinsic motivation to use the strength
Our hypothesis is that the exercise of signature strengths is fulfilling, and these criteria convey the motivational and emotional features of fulfillment with terms like excitement, yearning, inevitability, discovery, and invigoration. [pp 17-18]
5. Caveats and Interpretations
Seligman and Peterson offer a cautionary note regarding the importance of environmental factors in shaping our VIA results and the likelihood that results are subject to change should our environment change:
The stance we take toward character is in the spirit of personality psychology, and specifically that of trait theory, but not the caricature of trait theory held up as a straw man and then criticized by social learning theorists in the 1970s. We instead rely on the new psychology of traits that recognizes individual differences that are stable and general but also shaped by the individual's setting and thus capable of change...Some settings and situations lend themselves to the development and/or display of strengths, whereas other settings and situations preclude them. Settings cannot be allowed to recede into the distant background when we talk about strengths. [pp 10-11]
Finally, it's important to recognize that the VIA results do not reflect our talent (i.e. an innate ability) or skill (i.e. an ability we develop) with regard to the 24 character strengths represented in the instrument's classification scheme. Rather, the results signify a sense of ownership, celebration and frequency of use. Seligman and Peterson conclude:
We have devoted considerable thought to the distinction between strengths and virtues on the one hand versus talents and abilities on the other. Talents and abilities on the face of it seem more innate, more immutable, and less voluntary than strengths and virtues...
A morally praiseworthy action is chosen in a way that a merely skilled action is not. All people can aspire to have strong character in a way that they cannot aspire to be good-looking or physically resilient. [pp 19-20]
6. Taking the VIA
I ask my students in The Art of Self-Coaching at Stanford to take the VIA through the auspices of the VIA Institute:
- Go to the VIA Institute.
- You will be required to create an account by providing your name, email address, gender and the month and year of your birth. Select VIA Survey (Adult). To opt out of receiving the VIA newsletter, deselect the first check box, but leave the second box checked to confirm the terms and conditions.
- The VIA Institute's version consists of 120 questions using a 5-point scale. To the greatest extent possible, answer quickly with your gut response; the more you try to reason your way to the "right" answer, the less useful your results will be.
- At the conclusion of the instrument, you will be required to complete a very brief demographic survey.
- Your results will be displayed, and you will be emailed a link to a page where your results will be archived.
- You can save a PDF of your results by clicking on Download Free Character Strengths Profile.
- The VIA Institute also offers paid reports that provide additional information. If you are a Stanford student it is NOT necessary to purchase a paid report for my class; the free results will be sufficient for our needs.
It is also possible to take the VIA through the auspices of Martin Seligman's Authentic Happiness site, developed by the University of Pennsylvania's Positive Psychology Center:
- Go to the Authentic Happiness site.
- You will be required to create an account by providing a username, email address, first name, month and year of your birth, gender, education level, occupation and zip code. To opt out of receiving email from the Positive Psychology Center, deselect the check box.
- Under Questionnaires, select the VIA Survey of Character Strengths.
- The Authentic Happiness version consists of 240 questions using a 5-point scale. To the greatest extent possible, answer quickly with your gut response; the more you try to reason your way to the "right" answer, the less useful your results will be.
- Your results will be displayed and archived.
7. Making Use of Your VIA Results
First, consider your results in light of the criteria that define a signature strength. Which of the items listed at or near the top of your results might qualify as a signature strength for you? Which ones evoke...
- a sense of ownership and authenticity?
- a feeling of excitement?
- a rapid learning curve?
- continuous learning of new ways to enact it?
- a feeling of inevitability in using it?
- the discovery of the strength as owned in an epiphany?
- invigoration rather than exhaustion?
- the creation and pursuit of projects that revolve around it?
- intrinsic motivation to use it?
Your VIA results should inform but not dictate your signature strengths; it is ultimately up to you to make this subjective determination.
Next, consider your signature strengths in the context of your daily experience. In Authentic Happiness (2002) Seligman writes,
Herein is my formulation of the good life: Using your signature strengths every day in the main realms of your life to bring abundant gratification and authentic happiness. [p 161]
To what extent does this describe your own life? How are you using your signature strengths? In what ways are you currently living "the good life"? Alternatively, what opportunities do you see to employ your signature strengths more fully or more consistently? What changes might be helpful or even necessary in order to live "the good life"?
Finally, be aware that a common response to the VIA is a sense of concern regarding the bottom of the list. Because the items in the VIA are manifestations of universally accepted virtues, you may want to "score highly" on all 24, or you may feel troubled by the "low scores" you received on one or more items that are of particular importance to you.
Again, note that the VIA does not assess your aptitude, proficiency or potential with regard to any of these items, but rather your current sense of ownership, celebration and frequency of use, all of which are subject to change. That said, any gaps between the low-ranking items in your VIA results and your desired or expected results may indicate that those items are less important to your fulfillment than they once were or than you believe them to be.
