Abstract

NEVES COUTO, Ricardo; NUNES DA FONSECA, Patrícia; NASCIMENTO DA SILVA, Paulo Gregório  and  CAVALCANTE BEZERRA DE MEDEIROS, Paloma. Strengths of character: evidence from a scale and prevalence in the Brazilian Northeast. Cienc. Psicol. [online]. 2021, vol.15, n.1, e2357.  Epub June 01, 2021. ISSN 1688-4221.  https://doi.org/10.22235/cp.v15i1.2357.

This study assesses the prevalence of character strengths among Northeastern Brazilians to, more specifically, gather new psychometric evidence by applying the Character Strengths Scale (CSS) to a sample of 383 people (M age = 27.81; SD = 10.83), mostly single (73.1%) women (65.4%) from Paraíba, Brazil (24.3%), who completed the CSS and answered demographic questions. Exploratory factor analysis indicated the unidimensionality of the scale, with the 24 strengths of character loading on the factor with an eigenvalue of 9.69, explaining 43% of the variance, and with factor loadings ranging from 0.41 (forgiveness) to 0.72 (zest). Cronbach’s alpha (0.94) and McDonald’s omega (0.95) indicated satisfactory scale reliability. Furthermore, descriptive statistics were calculated to identify the most prevalent strengths in the Brazilian Northeast, namely, gratitude, kindness, curiosity, fairness, love of learning and hope, in decreasing order. Evidence is presented for the use of the CSS as well as the influence of culture and region on the prevalence of character strengths.

Keywords : character strengths; virtues; psychological tests; positive psychology; social psychology.

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