Character strengths of Iranian adolescents

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 1. Ph.D. of Psychology, Faculty of Education and Psychology, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran.

2 2. Professor, Faculty of Education and Psychology, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran.

3 Professor, Faculty of Education and Psychology, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran.

4 Associate Professor, Family Research Institute, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Aim: Character strengths are one of the important issues in positive youth development. The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate the special character strengths of Iranian adolescents. Method: The statistical population of the study consisted of child and adolescent’s specialists and adolescents of Tehran city who were entered this study non-randomly and voluntarily. The specialist group (including psychologists, counselors, and teachers) was ten people. Adolescents consisted of two groups of nine-grade students (seven girls, six boys, M age:14/5 years old). Data were analyzed using the content analysis method (concept-driven). Results: Specialists uttered positive traits such as “learning fast”, “loyalty”, and “keeping secrets” as Iranian adolescents’ specific character strengths. In the adolescents' group “purity”, “qeirat/gheirat”, and “chastity” were declared as special strengths of Iranian youths. Conclusion: Characteristics mentioned by specialists can’t be considered as character strengths because they don’t have the ten criteria of the character strength but characteristics mentioned by adolescents such as modesty/inhibition, zeal, and chastity have some of these criteria and the addition of these traits to the 24 character strengths could be offered. These findings were discussed in the context of Iranian culture.

Keywords

References

Atari, M. (2018). Culture of honor. In V. Zeigler-Hill, & T. K. Shackelford (Eds.). Encyclopedia of personality and individual differences (pp. 1–4). Cham: Springer International Publishing. [Link]
Atari, M., Barbaro, N., Sela, Y., Shackelford, T. K., & Chegeni, R. (2017). The big five personality dimensions and mate retention behaviors in Iran. Personality and Individual Differences, 104, 286-290. [Link]
Atari, M., Barbaro, N., Shackelford, T. K., & Chegeni, R. (2017). Psychometric evaluation and cultural correlates of the mate retention inventory–short form (MRI-SF) in Iran. Evolutionary Psychology, 15(1), 1-11. [Link]
Atari, M., Graham, J., & Dehghani, M. (2020). Foundations of morality in Iran. Evolution and Human Behavior, 41, 367-384. [Link]
Atari, M., & Jamali, R. (2016). Dimensions of women’s mate preferences: Validation of a mate preference scale in Iran. Evolutionary Psychology, 14, 1-10. [link]
Blanca, M. J., Ferragut, M., Ortiz-Tallo, M. & Bendayan, R. (2018).Life satisfaction and character strengths in Spanish early adolescents. Journal of Happiness Studies. 19(5), 1247-1260. [Link]
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006) Using thematic analysis in psychology, Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77-101. [Link]
Capielo, C., Mann, L., Nevels, B., & Delgado-Romero, E. (2014). Multicultural considerations in measurement and classification of positive psychology. In J. T. Pedrotti, & M. L. Edwards (Eds.), Perspectives on the intersection of multiculturalism and positive psychology (pp. 31-44). Dordrecht: Springer. [Link]
Freidlin, P., Littman-Ovadia, H., & Niemiec, R. M. (2017). Positive psychopathology: Social anxiety via character strengths underuse and overuse. Personality and Individual Differences, 108, 50-54. [Link]
Heintz, S., Kramm, C., & Ruch, W. (2019). A meta-analysis of gender differences in character strengths and age, nation, and measure as moderators. Journal of Positive Psychology, 14(1), I-I. [Link]
Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 33, 61-83, 111-135. [Link]
Hsieh, H.-F., & Shannon, S. E. (2005). Three approaches to qualitative content analysis. Qualitative Health Research, 15(9), 1277-1288. [Link]
Jabbari, M., Shahidi, S., Panaghi, L., Mazaheri, M. A., & Oberle, E. (2021). Examining the link between character strengths and positive and negative mental health indicators in Iranian adolescents. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment. [Link]
Kabakci, O. F. (2019). Prediction of risky behaviors in adolescents: Effect of character strengths and being virtuous. European Journal of Educational Research, 8(2), 501-513. [Link]
Lomas, T. (2016). Towards a positive cross-cultural lexicography: Enriching our emotional landscape through 216 ‘untranslatable’ words pertaining to well-being. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 11, 546-558. [Link]
Magyar-Moe, J. L. (2014). Infusing multiculturalism and positive psychology in psychotherapy. In J. T. Pedrotti, & M. L. Edwards (Eds.), Perspectives on the intersection of multiculturalism and positive psychology (pp. 235-249). Dordrecht: Springer. [Link]
Malin, H., Liauw, I., & Damon, W. (2017). Purpose and Character Development in Early Adolescence. Journal of youth and adolescence, 46(6), 1200-1215. [Link]
Martínez-Martí, M. L., & Ruch, W. (2017). Character strengths predict resilience over and above positive affect, self-efficacy, optimism, social support, self-esteem, and life satisfaction, The Journal of Positive Psychology, 12(2), 110-119. [Link]
McCammon, S. L. (2012). Systems of care as asset-building communities: Implementing strengths-based planning and positive youth development. American Journal of Community Psychology, 49(3-4), 556-565. [Link]
Niemiec, R. M. (2018). Character strengths interventions: A field guide for practitioners. Canada: Hogrefe Publishing. [Link]
Park, N. (2004). Character strengths and positive youth development. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 591, 40-54. [Link]
Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2004). Character strengths and virtues: A handbook and classification. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. [Link]
Plessis, G. A., & de Bruin, G. P. (2015). Using Rasch modelling to examine the international personality item pool (IPIP) values in action (VIA) measure of character strengths. Journal of Psychology in Africa, 25(6), 512-521. [Link]
Plessis, G. A., Saccaggi, C. F., & Bruin, G. P. (2015). Cross-cultural differences in the character strength of citizenship in South Africa. Psychology in Society, 48, 22-44. [Link]
Rashid, T. (2012, May). The role of positive psychology in maximizing human potential. Presentation at the Diversity Roundtable, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. [Link]
Razavi, P., Shaban-Azad, H., & Srivastava, S. (2020). Gheirat as a complex emotional reaction to relational boundary violations. [Link]
Salmela, M., & Uusiautti, S. (2015). A positive psychological viewpoint for success at school – 10 characteristic strengths of the Finnish high-achieving students. High Ability Studies, 26(1), 117-137. [Link]
Schulz, J., Bahrami-Rad, D., Beauchamp, J., & Henrich, J. (2018). The origins of WEIRD psychology. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3201031 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3201031 [Link]
Shek, D. T., Dou, D., Zhu, X., & Chai, W. (2019). Positive youth development: current perspectives. Adolescent health, medicine and therapeutics, 10, 131-141. [Link]
Srivastava, S. (2020). Personality structure: Who cares? European Journal of Personality. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/dvb4n Retrieved from. [Link]
Tang, X., Li, Y., Duan, W., Mu, W., & Cheng, X. (2019). Character strengths lead to satisfactory educational outcomes through strength use: A longitudinal analysis. Frontiers in psychology, 10, 1829. [Link]
Wagner, L., & Gander, F., Proyer, R., & Ruch, W. (2019). Character strengths and PERMA: Investigating the relationships of character strengths with a multidimensional framework of well-being. Applied Research in Quality of Life. [Link]
Wagner, L., Holenstein, M., Wepf, H., & Ruch, W. (2020). Character strengths are related to students’ achievement, flow experiences, and enjoyment in teacher-centered learning, individual, and group work beyond cognitive ability. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 1324. [Link]
Applied Psychology
Volume 15, Issue 3 - Serial Number 59
October 2021
Pages 380-355

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics