The structure of virtue: An empirical investigation.

Abstract

This project is guided by the need for a common model of virtuous personality that can integrate theory and research on positive personality traits across the fields of positive psychology, personality, moral development and character education. A particular concern is that character education programs lack an empirically-based structural model of virtue - which could be provided by mainstream psychological research - even while initiatives to strengthen character in America's schools have been popular and wellfunded in the past few decades. The current project was designed to do two things: 1) examine the structural validity of a rationally-derived model of virtue in two separate factor analytic studies, and 2) relate the resulting major virtue dimensions to dimensions of normal personality and to virtue-relevant criterion variables. Specifically, in Study 1, an exploratory scale factor analysis of a popular virtues assessment (the VIA-IS) was conducted to determine the fit of different models using multiple retention criteria. In Study 2, an exploratory item factor analysis was conducted using items from the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) to represent the VIA-IS item content domain and factors were related to measures of normal personality, altruism, academic experiences and relevant demographic variables. Evidence for a three- and five-factor structure was found, with certain factors (e.g. Temperance) replicating across Studies 1 and 2. In addition, virtues predicted variance in altruism scores over and above that provided by a measure of normal personality.