scholarly journals What are Character Strengths Good for? A Diary Study on Character Strengths Enactment.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabian Gander ◽  
Lisa Wagner ◽  
Lukas Amann ◽  
Willibald Ruch

While character strengths are expected to contribute to the “good life,” they also may serve specific purposes (e.g., the strength of curiosity should support the acquisition and use of knowledge). This study explored the potential functions of character strengths from a within-person perspective. We used a literature review and qualitative and quantitative surveys to determine potential functions. This resulted in 17 distinguishable functions (e.g., “feeling free and independent”). We used a diary study that included N = 196 participants (84.4% women, mean age: 25.68 years) who reported their daily character strength enactments and their experiences of the functions for 14 consecutive days. Our results suggested that the enactment of character strengths was positively related to several functions. However, the character strengths also showed distinguishable patterns of relationships with the functions, which were largely in line with—but not limited to—the functions suggested in the VIA classification.

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. e0252134
Author(s):  
Priscilla Duboz ◽  
Enguerran Macia ◽  
Amadou H. Diallo ◽  
Emmanuel Cohen ◽  
Audrey Bergouignan ◽  
...  

Very few studies have analyzed the influence of the environment, rural or urban, on the notion of good life and subjective well-being in sub-Saharan Africa and none, to our knowledge, has combined qualitative and quantitative methodologies for this purpose. The objectives of this interdisciplinary study were: a) to understand the emic representations of the good life in rural and urban Senegal and; b) to compare the levels and determinants of satisfaction with life between these two populations. This study was carried out in Dakar and in a very isolated rural area in the North East of Senegal: the sylvo-pastoral zone of Ferlo. A total of six focus groups were conducted for the qualitative phase, while the quantitative phase was conducted on representative samples of the populations living in Dakar (N = 1000) and Téssékéré (N = 500). Our results indicate that, against all expectations, life satisfaction is better in the Senegalese Ferlo than in the capital, Dakar. This difference may be the joint result of less meaningful social comparisons and a relationship with nature as a source of stress restoration in rural areas. However, the lifeworld of the rural Fulani of the Ferlo is being undermined by global climatic disturbances, which imposes rapid adaptations of pastoralism; otherwise this activity, that is not only subsistence but also identity-based, may disappear.


1998 ◽  
Vol 43 (10) ◽  
pp. 667-668
Author(s):  
Isaac Prilleltensky
Keyword(s):  

1999 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christie K. Napa ◽  
Laura A. King
Keyword(s):  

1990 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-155
Author(s):  
Esmee Cromie Bellalta
Keyword(s):  

2020 ◽  
Vol 97 (2) ◽  
pp. 112-123
Author(s):  
John D. Fair

Uneasily situated between counterculture images projected by James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and the dawning of the “Age of Aquarius” a decade later, there emerged a motion picture interlude of innocence on the beaches of Southern California. It was fostered by Gidget (1959) and then thirty “surf and sex” movies that focused on young, attractive bodies and beach escapades rather than serious social causes.The films, argues Kirse May, “created an ideal teenage existence, marked by consumption, leisure, and little else.” Stephen Tropiano explains how their popularity helped shape “the archetypal image of the American teenager” and, reinforced by the surfin' sounds of Jan and Dean, the Beach Boys, and other recording groups, “turned America's attention to the Southern California coastline,” where “those who never set foot on its sandy shores were led to believe that life on the West Coast was a twenty-four-hour beach party.” This study examines a notable film of this genre to determine how musclemen were exploited to exhibit this playful spirit and how their negative reception reinforced an existing disregard toward physical culture. Muscle Beach Party illustrates how physical culture served other agendas, namely the need to address American fears of juvenile delinquency and to revive sagging box-office receipts within the guise of the “good life” of California.


2020 ◽  
Vol 74 (4) ◽  
pp. 493-513
Author(s):  
Holmer Steinfath

Time is a neglected subject in recent, especially analytically minded reflections on the good life. The article highlights the fundamental role of time and temporality for an adequate understanding of the good life. Time functions both as an external factor with which we have to reckon in our practical deliberations and as an internal structure of living our lives. It is argued that striving for a good life also means striving for being in harmony with the time of one's life. The exploration of this idea allows to link analytical with phenomenological approaches to time and good life.


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