Self-Reported Character Strengths Over 21 Years

Since 2002, the VIA Institute on Character website has offered feedback for completing some version of the VIA Inventory of Strengths free of charge. Versions of the VIA Inventory have been completed 30 million times as of November 2023. The present study examined 12,619,709 first-time administrations to adults, with a focus on 5,717,619 administrations of the instrument’s most recent version. Goals of the study included evaluating the degree to which results across versions were consistent, whether there have been trends in the scores over time. Differences across versions were not trivial, but neither were they unusual compared to other instruments. There was little evidence of systematic changes in responding by year except as a result of revisions to the inventory. Statistics by demographic categories are also provided for the most recent version. This study was the first on character strengths with a sample sufficient to conduct preliminary analyses for unusual demographic categories such as individuals reporting non-traditional gender identities and residents of North Korea. Mean differences across 117 nations are provided as an update to previous studies, suggesting cross-cultural differences are small among those who choose to complete the instrument online. However, self-reported strengths tend to decrease with national income.