Stuart Carter, CEO at 3 Trees shares his insight into positive psychology and the valuable character strengths of our social care workers
In my studies of positive psychology, I have become especially interested in character strengths. I believe that the global Covid pandemic has amplified three forgotten character strengths not typically considered when describing social care. According to the VIA institute, your character strengths are qualities that come naturally to you. They are positive traits – capacities for thinking, feeling, and behaving in ways that benefit oneself and others. They are essential, the psychological ingredients for displaying virtues of human goodness.
In the early 2000s, the VIA Institute, funded by the Mayerson Foundation, supported some extensive and pivotal work on the nature of the positive character. A 3-year, 55-scientist study led by Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman – known as the father of positive psychology – studied the likes of world religion, philosophy and psychology to extract the most agreed-upon virtues from all their findings. Studies included Taoism, Buddhism, Judeo-Christianity, Plato, Aristotle, Lao-Tzu and Confucius. They also have more recent investigations into such people as Benjamin Franklin and William Bennet. Also, many psychologists like Maslow, Erikson, Gardner and the list goes on.
Their studies created six core virtues and 24-character strengths that they collectively call the common language or classification. They have collected knowledge over the past 2500 years to establish what character strengths have produced the best in human beings. I don’t know about you, but I think this is fascinating!
Character Strengths in Social Care Workers
One of the common questions we receive during interviews is, “what are the key attributes of a social care worker?”
Common answers include kindness, compassion, caring, teamwork, good communication and fairness. Of course, these are the answers you would expect from an individual applying for a caring role. Some of them (like kindness and justice) are included within the character strengths classifications.
These character strengths are associated with being more interpersonal, meaning in the company of others, and stem from the heart (feelings, emotions, intuition and so on..)
But lately, and especially throughout the Covid pandemic, I have seen other character strengths brought to the surface of the social care industry. I wanted to point out 3 in particular. And they are:
Bravery
We’re talking about not shrinking from threat, challenge, difficulty or pain, speaking up for what is right, and acting on conviction even if unpopular. We’re talking about facing fears and confronting adversity.
Perseverance
We’re talking about persisting in the course of action despite the many obstacles. We’re talking about people who keep trucking when the going gets tough.
Prudence
We’re talking about being intelligently cautious, not taking any undue risk and being careful about our choices.
Interestingly, these three character strengths are associated more with being intrapersonal (i.e. being alone) and stem from using logic, analysis and reasoning. They are also strengths that align with the virtues of courage and justice.
We use our 24 character strengths in various situations and have seen many other strengths, such as leadership, teamwork and creativity. But these are just three that have stood out to us.
Thank You for Your Strength, Care Community
Now they say that an actual test of character is a person’s reaction when their character is being tested. So I want to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to all the Social Workers out there who have shown bravery, for their perseverance (continuing to work in such a challenging industry despite the government’s lack of recognition or reform) and for your prudence (for making the many sacrificial choices both personally and professionally that you’ve needed to, to maintain a safe and harmonious working environment.
If you want to know more about character strengths, please head to the VIA institutes website, where you can take a free test to identify your unique character strengths. You can also check our Ryan Niemic’s work; he is essentially a tenth black belt at all character strengths!
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