Presentation presented at the 2015 Ohio Undergraduate Psychology Research Conference at John Carrol University.

1. Angela Cobb
Dr. Acacia Parks
Hiram College
Depression, Life Satisfaction, and Well
Being: The Role of Character Strengths

2. • Values in Action Inventory (Seligman, Park, and Peterson, 2004)
• 24 character strengths found to be persistent across cultures and cohorts
• Each character strength belongs to one of six areas of virtue
• Wisdom, Courage, Humanity, Justice, Temperance, and Transcendence
• Areas of virtue are purely conceptual and are based on recent experiences
Introduction

3. • New virtue scale proposed; based
on general attitudes, preferences,
and tendencies
• Intellectual, Emotional,
Interpersonal, Restraint, and Future
Orientation
• Relationships between area of
virtue, depression, subjective
well-being, and life satisfaction in
individualistic cultures.
Introduction
Table 1
Virtue Scales Cronbach's Alpha
Interpersonal .77
Emotional .75
Intellectual .77
Restraint .80
Future Orientation .81

4. • Participants were recruited and participated using Amazon Turk
• Depression was assessed using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies
Depression scale (CESD) and the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9)
• Life satisfaction was assessed using the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS)
• Well-being was assessed using the Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS)
• 617 participants 44% male and 56% female, with ages ranging from 18 to 75
(M = 32.63, SD = 12.27) of various ethnicities, incomes, and educational
backgrounds.
Method

5. • All five categories were negatively correlated with the CESD scale and
positively correlated with the SHS scale and the SWLS scale
• Only the categories of Restraint and Future Orientation were significantly
correlated with the PHQ-9 scale; both were negative
Results
Table 2
Correlations between Strengths and
Scales
CESD PHQ-9 SWLS SHS
Intellectual -0.1* -0.02 0.28** 0.31**
Emotional -0.18** -0.04 0.34** 0.39**
Interpersonal -.09* -0.04 0.30** 0.39**
Restraint -0.22** -0.09* 0.34** 0.33**
Future Orientation -0.37** -0.21** 0.55** 0.59**
** denotes significance at the .01 level
* denotes significance at the .05 level

6. • Multiple regression
revealed that the virtue
of Future Orientation
was the only consistent
predictor for all scales
• Even when other virtues
were predictive, Future
Orientation was the
strongest predictor.
Results
Table 3
Virtues Predicting Scales
Interpersonal CESD, SHS
Emotional PHQ-9
Intellectual CESD
Restraint None
Future Orientation CESD, PHQ-9, SHS, SWLS

7. • Future Orientation was the only virtue to significantly predict all of the
scales and was always the strongest predictor for the scales.
• Limitations include being reserved to one type of culture and being
advertised and administered on Amazon Turk.
• Suggestions for future research include cross-cultural analysis and
examining the role of regulatory focus and grit.
Discussion

8. Seligman, M. P., Park, N., & Peterson, C. (2004). The Values In Action (VIA)
classification of character strengths. Ricerche Di Psicologia, 27(1), 63-78.
References