ABSTRACT
This study aims to analyze the children and pre-adolescents' knowledge regarding terms that designate character strengths and to understand how they perceive the expression of these traits in their and other people's behavior. Seventeen participants aged eight to thirteen were interviewed (M = 10.6; SD = 1.5). For each strength, seven questions were asked, which investigated the definition and examples of the strength expression. The interviews were recorded and transcribed for content analysis, generating categories for each strength. The strengths most easily described by the participants and their respective definitions were: creativity (ability to create things), curiosity and love for learning (searching for knowledge and new experiences), honesty (speaking the truth), love (acts involving affection), kindness (helping and caring for others), teamwork (collaborative works in games or school activities), forgiveness (eight categories regarding their definition, without highlighting any) and hope (longing for a future event). These findings may make developing and evaluating character strengths in this age group more accessible.
Keywords:
Character; positive psychology; qualitative research
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Note: Adapted from Peterson and Seligman (2004)
Note: n = number of statements with the category content