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Virtues in action – the new look of character traits
Author(s) -
Bleidorn Wiebke,
Denissen Jaap J. A.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
british journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.536
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8295
pISSN - 0007-1269
DOI - 10.1111/bjop.12117
Subject(s) - virtue , psychology , trait , character traits , social psychology , character (mathematics) , context (archaeology) , everyday life , experience sampling method , personality , big five personality traits , consistency (knowledge bases) , action (physics) , meaning (existential) , developmental psychology , epistemology , paleontology , philosophy , physics , geometry , mathematics , quantum mechanics , computer science , psychotherapist , biology , programming language
The present study aimed to take fresh look at the nature and psychological meaning of consistency in character traits and virtuous behaviour as manifested in everyday life. To this end, a 10‐day experience‐sampling study was conducted. Using smartphone technology, a sample of 83 working mothers and fathers provided a total of 4,342 momentary behavioural reports while being in the role of the parent versus being in the job role. Consistent with recent research on personality traits, the findings of the present study showed that people express a wide range of virtue states in their everyday lives. Within‐person changes in virtue states were not random but were contingent on people's current role context and also meaningfully related to their momentary affective experiences. At the same time, people's average level of virtue states, their degree of variation in virtue states, and their signature ways of reacting to role contexts turned out to be stable, trait‐like individual difference characteristics. Discussion focuses on the implications for the conception of character traits in scientific psychology and beyond.