Mental health and character strengths: the dual role of boosting well-being and reducing suffering

Purpose This paper aims to examine how character strengths have an important dual role in mental health in both promoting well-being and mental wellness and also in reducing symptoms and suffering. While there are many studies that have touched upon variables that character strengths can enhance for mental well-being or reduce for suffering, the author actually knows very little about how character strengths might relate to or impact mental health. Design/methodology/approach A large-scale study of 12,050 individuals was conducted to explore the self-perceived character strengths that are most helpful for mental health, for handling physical adversity, for handling social adversity and for fostering psychological well-being. Findings Some character strengths showed a general effect – showing a strong perceived impact across multiple domains – such as love, perspective, kindness, hope, humor and curiosity. Other character strengths showed a specific effect in that there was a strong perceived impact in one domain, such as perseverance and self-regulation for physical health, spirituality and social intelligence for social health and creativity for mental health. A strength-based approach to understanding and managing emotions was substantially more preferred than cognitive or behavioral approaches. Other findings examined the character strengths most desired to be improved upon for mental health. Research limitations/implications The research strategy was cross-sectional, thereby causality cannot be determined. Because of the large sample size, researchers are encouraged to consider examining the findings in intervention studies. Practical implications This study indicates that character strengths are highly relevant for mental health, all 24 character strengths are possible pathways to impact mental health (some more than others) and individuals can readily connect ways they can use their character strengths to positively improve their well-being and manage their suffering. Social implications Character strengths and their substantial positive potential provide an avenue for public impact on a large scale. Originality/value To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first known study to directly examine multiple intersections among mental health and character strengths in a large sample.