Character



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DCComics.com: Welcome to the Official Site for DC. DC is home to the 'World's Greatest Super Heroes,” including SUPERMAN, BATMAN, WONDER WOMAN, GREEN LANTERN, THE FLASH, AQUAMAN and more. Champions of Character connects with the community at NAIA National Championships, annually impacting more than 30,000 individuals through outreach activities to local schools and youth sports programs. Changing the Culture of Sport Champions of Character provides training for student-athletes and professional development for coaches and staff. Intro videos for all the main homestarrunner.com characters. Character Playbook teaches students, teachers, and districts real world skills about healthy relationships, conflict resolution and managing emotions. Schools that teach character education report higher academic performance, improved attendance, reduced violence, fewer disciplinary issues, reduction in substance abuse, and less vandalism. Another word for characters. Find more ways to say characters, along with related words, antonyms and example phrases at Thesaurus.com, the world's most trusted free thesaurus.

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Join the over 13 million people who have taken the only free, scientific survey on character strengths.

Get to Know Your Strengths

The VIA Survey of Character Strengths is a free self-assessment that takes less than 15 minutes and provides a wealth of information to help you understand your best qualities. VIA Reports provide personalized, in-depth analysis of your free results, including actionable tips to apply your strengths to find greater well-being.

Why Do Character Strengths Matter?

Character strengths are the positive parts of your personality that make you feel authentic and engaged. You possess all 24 character strengths in different degrees, giving you a unique character strengths profile. Research shows that understanding and applying your strengths can help:

  • Boost Confidence
  • Increase Happiness
  • Strengthen Relationships
  • Manage Problems
  • Reduce Stress
  • Accomplish Goals
  • Build Meaning and Purpose
  • Improve Work Performance

Discover your greatest qualities and begin using your strengths to build your best life.

Help Others Build Their Strengths

The free VIA Survey is the premier tool in the field of positive psychology that assesses an individual's character strengths. When you know the strengths of your clients, students or employees, you can guide them more effectively and authentically. Create a VIA Pro account to use the VIA Survey and in-depth reports to bring out the best in others.

Explore and Apply Your Strengths

The perfect complement to the free VIA Survey results, VIA Reports provide insights, practices and resources that map out how to achieve a more optimal, engaged, and positively fulfilled life. Purchase for yourself or use with your clients and employees.

Explore Reports

Whether you are a strengths novice or a seasoned practitioner, VIA Courses provide strategies and solutions to reach your maximum potential. You'll be equipped with the skills you need to begin your own journey, and to guide others on their path to empowerment.

Explore Courses

Learn how character strengths impact all areas of your life. Access inspirational stories, strengths-based videos, applicable tips and activities in the Topics sections.

CharacterExplore Topics

Discover your strengths in 10 minutes
Take the free personality survey

Intentions and actions that benefit both the individual and others

How do you define character?

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We define character as everything we do to help other people as well as ourselves.

As an organizing principle, we separate character strengths into three dimensions. Strengths of heart, such as gratitude, enable harmonious relationships with other people. Strengths of will, such as grit and self-control, enable achievement. Strengths of mind, such as curiosity, enable independent thinking.

Character Lab also recognizes and supports a diversity of frameworks including SEL, whole child, and 21st-century skills.

Character Count

Strengths of heart

  • Interpersonal
  • Help us relate to other people in positive ways
  • Examples: gratitude, kindness

Strengths of mind

  • Intellectual
  • Help us wonder, reason, and create
  • Examples: curiosity, creativity

Strengths of will

  • Intrapersonal
  • Help us achieve our goals
  • Examples: grit, self-control

Why character?

Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education.”

Overwhelming scientific evidence now shows that character strengths like self-control, curiosity, and gratitude are critically important to social and emotional well-being, physical health, and achievement. Although character strengths are malleable, surprisingly little is known about how to cultivate them intentionally.

How can we cultivate character?

At Character Lab, we believe that helping children develop character is an age-old challenge that will yield to a new solution: world-class scientists creating actionable resources for educators, parents, coaches, counselors, and anyone else interested in helping kids thrive. For more, read our Playbooks and Tips of the Week.

Download our Character Strength Posters

Character Strength Posters

Character Reference Letter

Printable 11×17 posters for your classroom or office

Research articles about character

A tripartite taxonomy of character: Evidence for intrapersonal, interpersonal, and intellectual competencies in children
Contemporary Educational Psychology, 48, 16–27.
Park, D., Tsukayama, E., Goodwin, G. P., Patrick, S., & Duckworth, A. L. (2017).

Character Name Generator

Integrating psychological and cultural perspectives on virtue: The hierarchical structure of character strengths
The Journal of Positive Psychology, 10(5), 407–424. McGrath, R. E. (2015).

Character Map

The myth of achievement tests: The GED and the role of character in American life Heckman, J., Humphries, J. E., & Kautz, T. (Eds.). (2013). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.