PARK ET AL.CHARACTER STRENGTHS AND WELL–BEING STRENGTHS OF CHARACTER AND WELL–BEING

We investigated the relationship between various character strengths and life satis-faction among 5,299 adults from three Internet samples using the Values in Action Inventory of Strengths. Consistently and robustly associated with life satisfaction were hope, zest, gratitude, love, and curiosity. Only weakly associated with life satisfaction, in contrast, were modesty and the intellectual strengths of apprecia-tion of beauty, creativity, judgment, and love of learning. In general, the relation-ship between character strengths and life satisfaction was monotonic, indicating that excess on any one character strength does not diminish life satisfaction. Positive psychology is an umbrella term for theories and research about what makes life most worth living (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). Strengths of character and positive experiences such as a satisfied life are among the central concerns of positive psychology (McCullough & Snyder, 2000; Seligman, 2002). Character strengths can be defined as positive traits reflected in thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. They exist in degrees and can be measured as individual differences. We speculate that these are grounded in biology through an evolutionary process that selected for these predispositions toward moral excellence as means o